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Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we

Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people. If this seems radical, notice that this is already part of the American social contract. We already tax people to provide services and invest in long term projects. All this does is change the rates and the allocation direction.

nonbel 8y ago
>"Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people." Ok, well here is a department of the government I am familiar with admitting they waste $25-30 billion every year (imo that is an underestimate, but they definitely waste over 50% of their funding on worthless stuff): https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2016/07_01_2016/story3.htm https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2016/07_01_2016/story3... So why not reallocate that to whatever this climate project is? And I'm sure there is similar massive waste in other departments too. If 87.5% is representative that is $3.5 trillion per year to be used. I mean no one actually wants to waste ~$30 billion a year on worthless medical research, right?
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. The problem with saying "Half of this research is worthless" is that it's impossible to know which of the research will be worthless before you do the research. As long as the research that was useful produced enough value to justify the system (which, in the case of the NIH I'd venture it does), it's worth doing overall. This reminds me of the Wanamaker quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half”.
  - nonbel 8y ago
    >"The problem with saying "Half of this research is worthless" is that it's impossible to know which of the research will be worthless before you do the research." Once you know the common problems, it is actually quite easy to spot design flaws or a history of hiding unwanted results. When you know what to look for you can filter out crappy research in a few seconds. It could probably be automated to a large extent. For example, a common thing in biomed is to have a "headline claim" that x protein/drug/etc influences y behavior/health outcome/etc. But then there is never a scatterplot of x vs y. Another is lack of "blinding" (hiding the experimental conditions from the researcher/subjects). There are more, but you get the picture. The presence of these baffling practices quickly demonstrates they don't know what they are doing, and the research should not be funded.
geezerjay 8y ago
> Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people. That simplistic logic fails to account for the fact that pursuing income is an incentive to allocate resources to productive investments that are self-sufficient and pay off tons of taxes directly and indirextly, such as by paying salaries and generating demand. Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms", not only are you eliminating incentives for productive investments as they effectively cease to be productive due to state intervention and actually create incentives to move production and industrial capabilities out of the country. In short, you're advocating that the goose that lays golden eggs should be slautered to get to someone else's eggs.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms" You mean, like a heirarchy of preferential tax rates for different income sources where capital income is favored over general income which in turn is favored over labor income?
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax. It's one thing to grant a small share of your income to the state in order to keep social institutions running, but it's an entirely different thing if the state robs you off the majority of your total income for no reason at all. In a free and democratic society, a citizen has the right to the fruit of his labour, not just to a small fraction of what he worked for.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      You seem to be responding to something other than the post yours is attached to, but: > Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax. A 70% top marginal rate isn't taxing (much less “robbing”) 70% of your income, unless your income is literally infinite. Also, the top marginal rate was at or above 70% for every year from 1936 through 1980, yet for some reason those 44 years aren't usually considered a “profoundly totalitarian” period in US history.

nonbel 8y ago

>"Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people." Ok, well here is a department of the government I am familiar with admitting they waste $25-30 billion every year (imo that is an underestimate, but they definitely waste over 50% of their funding on worthless stuff): https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2016/07_01_2016/story3.htm https://nihrecord.nih.gov/newsletters/2016/07_01_2016/story3... So why not reallocate that to whatever this climate project is? And I'm sure there is similar massive waste in other departments too. If 87.5% is representative that is $3.5 trillion per year to be used. I mean no one actually wants to waste ~$30 billion a year on worthless medical research, right?

InitialLastName 8y ago
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. The problem with saying "Half of this research is worthless" is that it's impossible to know which of the research will be worthless before you do the research. As long as the research that was useful produced enough value to justify the system (which, in the case of the NIH I'd venture it does), it's worth doing overall. This reminds me of the Wanamaker quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half”.
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"The problem with saying "Half of this research is worthless" is that it's impossible to know which of the research will be worthless before you do the research." Once you know the common problems, it is actually quite easy to spot design flaws or a history of hiding unwanted results. When you know what to look for you can filter out crappy research in a few seconds. It could probably be automated to a large extent. For example, a common thing in biomed is to have a "headline claim" that x protein/drug/etc influences y behavior/health outcome/etc. But then there is never a scatterplot of x vs y. Another is lack of "blinding" (hiding the experimental conditions from the researcher/subjects). There are more, but you get the picture. The presence of these baffling practices quickly demonstrates they don't know what they are doing, and the research should not be funded.

geezerjay 8y ago

> Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people. That simplistic logic fails to account for the fact that pursuing income is an incentive to allocate resources to productive investments that are self-sufficient and pay off tons of taxes directly and indirextly, such as by paying salaries and generating demand. Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms", not only are you eliminating incentives for productive investments as they effectively cease to be productive due to state intervention and actually create incentives to move production and industrial capabilities out of the country. In short, you're advocating that the goose that lays golden eggs should be slautered to get to someone else's eggs.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms" You mean, like a heirarchy of preferential tax rates for different income sources where capital income is favored over general income which in turn is favored over labor income?
- geezerjay 8y ago
  Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax. It's one thing to grant a small share of your income to the state in order to keep social institutions running, but it's an entirely different thing if the state robs you off the majority of your total income for no reason at all. In a free and democratic society, a citizen has the right to the fruit of his labour, not just to a small fraction of what he worked for.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    You seem to be responding to something other than the post yours is attached to, but: > Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax. A 70% top marginal rate isn't taxing (much less “robbing”) 70% of your income, unless your income is literally infinite. Also, the top marginal rate was at or above 70% for every year from 1936 through 1980, yet for some reason those 44 years aren't usually considered a “profoundly totalitarian” period in US history.