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> What if the actual conclusion is that it just doesn't matter. You're probably right with respect to growth. Other commenters are going to glibly point out t

> What if the actual conclusion is that it just doesn't matter. You're probably right with respect to growth. Other commenters are going to glibly point out that you need taxes to pay for basic research or whatever. Yeah, I think they miss the point too. If the country wanted to, it could not raise a single tax dollar and 10x its research spending. A country isn't a household, its balance sheet can have debt permanently, etc. etc. No, I think taxes matter for justice and equality. And the whole reason cost effectiveness entered our debate is that rich people, like you're correctly pointing out, have opinions, and tax policy is a consequence of that. But if overall rich people are aligned against higher taxes, which is the case in history most of the time, they're effectively aligned against equality and justice. And save me the downvotes if you don't understand how property taxes, for example, that differ between neighborhoods, can be about justice as much as they are about funding school districts. Or that the healthcare mandate was absolutely about justice, and that calling it a tax was a workaround precisely for the reasons I described: that we've become obsessed with positivist or legalistic (instead of normative) dialogue, so it was the only way to get ACA passed. I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't.

the_af 8y ago
> A country isn't a household, its balance sheet can have debt permanently, etc. etc. > I think taxes matter for justice and equality Thank you for saying this. I wish the president of my country (which is not the US!) understood this. And that running a country is also not like running a business.
jedmeyers 8y ago
> I think taxes matter for justice and equality. There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources. > I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. And I love it because it brings out holier-than-thou virtue signalers, who think that they know better than everyone how to spend other people's resources, while denigrating their contributions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Caring about what's good for the country" is not nearly enough to be able to bring positive change even to a subset of people in the country. But it does bring some virtual internet points, I concede that.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources. There's nothing just about people believing they "earned" those resources by their hard work alone, and not understanding that there were huge infrastructure costs that enabled them not just to do the work and earn money, but even to stay alive -- and that they have to pay to sustain it. From the roads their cars (and they suppliers and customers cars) drive on, to the airports, to the government funded internet (from the research of ARPANET, to CERN (www), to the trillions spent subsidizing telcos), to the primary schools and high schools they went to, to the fire department that helps them to avoid burning when their houses catch fire, from the FDA and relevant law enforcement that helps them avoid dying from the first crook wanting to sell crap as food or medicine, to the contract laws and their enforcement that help them stay in business, to the criminal laws and their enforcement that protect them from being at the mercy of anyone who'd fancy killing them, from the military that prevents them from being the subjects or prisoners or sex slaves of some foreign power that wanted to expand, and on and on... It would only be _just_ their "earned resources" if they made them in the jungle, hunting or growing their food alone.
  - jedmeyers 8y ago
    You are really fast in switching the discussion from “taxes should be used to as a wealth redistribution scheme” to “hey it’s kind of like paying for the resources you might have used”. I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them. And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them Which half exactly? >And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”. Well, I'm one of the proponents of “justice and equity”, and this is what I'm advocating (among other things). If you make more money, you also take more advantage of these infrastructures (someone who makes $10/hour flipping burgers doesn't depend on those infrastructure as much as someone making millions running a company whose operations crucially depend upon all those things being present).
calecon344 8y ago
Raising tax rates has nothing to do with making the rich pay their fair share. The countries with the highest tax rates have the least progressive tax systems even in terms of income rate bands. Trying to tax the rich doesn't work because it is either a) unworkable or b) dramatically harms investment. Scandinavian countries both have high income tax rates in general and large (regressive I might add) taxation on goods and services precisely because the rich are not actually paying for government expenditures. Countries with higher taxes have made a different tradeoff about the cost of taxation( borne mostly by the middle class) compared to the benefits of large fiscal outlays by the government. >> I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. Maybe instead of arguing about tax policy using canards you could come up with a coherent argument based on actual policy outcomes?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
nostrademons 8y ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but I want to point out a charitable interpretation of the opposing viewpoint, which is that tax redistribution protects people from the consequences of their own decisions and incentivizes bad behavior. Under this viewpoint, parents who manage to afford to live in a wealthy neighborhood and send their kids to good schools have sacrificed a lot - in continued education, in long work hours, and in taking careers that are in-demand rather than ones that might be prestigious or enjoyable - for that privilege. It's unjust to take their sacrifice away from them and give it to folks who dropped out of college and spent their 20s playing video games, just because the latter group is now reaping the consequences of their decisions. Moreover, it means that now there is no reason to study & work hard and go into professions that people will pay a lot for, because your money is just going to go to people who don't. Whether you hold this viewpoint or your "taxes = justice" viewpoint hinges a lot on the factual question of whether you believe that one's station in life is primarily due to outside factors or whether it's due to your own actions. I suspect you'd find very strong correlations between the former worldview & Democratic political preferences and the latter with Republican political preferences, though obviously it won't be 100%. Personally I think it's a little of both, so I tend to identify as a moderate. But I'll point out that this worldview, on a societal level, is itself self-fulfilling: if most of the society believes it, they create a redistributive welfare state, which means that your success is dependent upon outside factors, which then justifies the original belief in the first place. While if most of the society disbelieves it, they create a cutthroat individualist economy, which highly incentivizes individuals to make decisions that will put them on top, which means your success is dependent upon your own actions, which then justifies the original belief in the first place. To muddy the waters further, when a society with a cutthroat individualist economy encounters a redistributive welfare state, the former has a tendency to conquer the latter. After all, it's their own damn fault that they've coddled their weak and have no strong leaders that can lead the fight. So the latter type of society tends to fall into irrelevance or disappear even if the majority of people involved would actually prefer it.
- dahdum 8y ago
  That last part is a good summary of companies going at it. The incumbent with crushing pension liability, bureaucracy, or rent seeking getting wiped out by a cutthroat competitor.
winstonewert 8y ago
> A country isn't a household, its balance sheet can have debt permanently, etc. etc. Is that really different than a household? The problem with a debt isn't that you have to pay it off. Actually, your creditors were prefer that you didn't and instead pay them interest until the day you die after which they'll collect the debt from your estate. The problem with debt is that you have to pay interest all of the time. Countries with debt are necessarily purchasing less goods and services for their citizens then if they didn't have to spend some portion of their income paying the interest. So, the fundamental reason why it's better (all else being equal) to avoid being in debt is the same in either case. Its not about the future day when you'll have to pay the debt, it is interest you are paying now.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  The difference is that a country isn't a person with its own wants that it's presumably satisfying with its purchase. When a country pays interest, it is effectively transferring money from its taxpayers to its bondholders. Very often, the bondholders are other parts of the government (28% of US government debt), private citizens (32%), or the Federal Reserve (11.2%). If the U.S. government has less money with which to purchase goods and services, it just means the private sector has more money with which to purchase goods and services, which in many cases is what you want. There was some concern about China being a large holder of U.S. treasuries a decade or so ago, but that concern has abated as China has unpegged their currency and unwound some of their treasury holdings, and because the debt is denominated in U.S. dollars and so the U.S. government could always inflate it away to nothing if China tried anything funky. The "bad consequences" of the U.S. <=> China current-account deficit have largely already come home to roost - that's what's fueling the rise in real estate prices bought by Chinese investors which is making homes unaffordable for Americans in west coast states. The household analogy would be an adult child who pays rent to live in their parents' basement, which the parent may either spend on the child or plans to return to them via inheritance when the parent dies. Sure, you're spending money, and sure, it means that you have less money for spending on other things. However, it just means that other people closely associated with you spend that money instead, and if they don't, it comes back to you anyway.
isoskeles 8y ago
> But if overall rich people are aligned against higher taxes, which is the case in history most of the time, they're effectively aligned against equality and justice. > I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. What's the point of discussing this with you? Here, I'll try: But if overall poor people are aligned for higher taxes, which is the case in history most of the time, they're effectively aligned against doing work and freedom.
dang 8y ago
Would you please not use HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for. Discussions like this are predictable, therefore off topic here. And get more tedious and nasty as they go along. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

the_af 8y ago

> A country isn't a household, its balance sheet can have debt permanently, etc. etc. > I think taxes matter for justice and equality Thank you for saying this. I wish the president of my country (which is not the US!) understood this. And that running a country is also not like running a business.

jedmeyers 8y ago

> I think taxes matter for justice and equality. There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources. > I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. And I love it because it brings out holier-than-thou virtue signalers, who think that they know better than everyone how to spend other people's resources, while denigrating their contributions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Caring about what's good for the country" is not nearly enough to be able to bring positive change even to a subset of people in the country. But it does bring some virtual internet points, I concede that.

coldtea 8y ago
>There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources. There's nothing just about people believing they "earned" those resources by their hard work alone, and not understanding that there were huge infrastructure costs that enabled them not just to do the work and earn money, but even to stay alive -- and that they have to pay to sustain it. From the roads their cars (and they suppliers and customers cars) drive on, to the airports, to the government funded internet (from the research of ARPANET, to CERN (www), to the trillions spent subsidizing telcos), to the primary schools and high schools they went to, to the fire department that helps them to avoid burning when their houses catch fire, from the FDA and relevant law enforcement that helps them avoid dying from the first crook wanting to sell crap as food or medicine, to the contract laws and their enforcement that help them stay in business, to the criminal laws and their enforcement that protect them from being at the mercy of anyone who'd fancy killing them, from the military that prevents them from being the subjects or prisoners or sex slaves of some foreign power that wanted to expand, and on and on... It would only be _just_ their "earned resources" if they made them in the jungle, hunting or growing their food alone.
- jedmeyers 8y ago
  You are really fast in switching the discussion from “taxes should be used to as a wealth redistribution scheme” to “hey it’s kind of like paying for the resources you might have used”. I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them. And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them Which half exactly? >And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”. Well, I'm one of the proponents of “justice and equity”, and this is what I'm advocating (among other things). If you make more money, you also take more advantage of these infrastructures (someone who makes $10/hour flipping burgers doesn't depend on those infrastructure as much as someone making millions running a company whose operations crucially depend upon all those things being present).

calecon344 8y ago

Raising tax rates has nothing to do with making the rich pay their fair share. The countries with the highest tax rates have the least progressive tax systems even in terms of income rate bands. Trying to tax the rich doesn't work because it is either a) unworkable or b) dramatically harms investment. Scandinavian countries both have high income tax rates in general and large (regressive I might add) taxation on goods and services precisely because the rich are not actually paying for government expenditures. Countries with higher taxes have made a different tradeoff about the cost of taxation( borne mostly by the middle class) compared to the benefits of large fiscal outlays by the government. >> I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. Maybe instead of arguing about tax policy using canards you could come up with a coherent argument based on actual policy outcomes?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

nostrademons 8y ago

I don't necessarily disagree, but I want to point out a charitable interpretation of the opposing viewpoint, which is that tax redistribution protects people from the consequences of their own decisions and incentivizes bad behavior. Under this viewpoint, parents who manage to afford to live in a wealthy neighborhood and send their kids to good schools have sacrificed a lot - in continued education, in long work hours, and in taking careers that are in-demand rather than ones that might be prestigious or enjoyable - for that privilege. It's unjust to take their sacrifice away from them and give it to folks who dropped out of college and spent their 20s playing video games, just because the latter group is now reaping the consequences of their decisions. Moreover, it means that now there is no reason to study & work hard and go into professions that people will pay a lot for, because your money is just going to go to people who don't. Whether you hold this viewpoint or your "taxes = justice" viewpoint hinges a lot on the factual question of whether you believe that one's station in life is primarily due to outside factors or whether it's due to your own actions. I suspect you'd find very strong correlations between the former worldview & Democratic political preferences and the latter with Republican political preferences, though obviously it won't be 100%. Personally I think it's a little of both, so I tend to identify as a moderate. But I'll point out that this worldview, on a societal level, is itself self-fulfilling: if most of the society believes it, they create a redistributive welfare state, which means that your success is dependent upon outside factors, which then justifies the original belief in the first place. While if most of the society disbelieves it, they create a cutthroat individualist economy, which highly incentivizes individuals to make decisions that will put them on top, which means your success is dependent upon your own actions, which then justifies the original belief in the first place. To muddy the waters further, when a society with a cutthroat individualist economy encounters a redistributive welfare state, the former has a tendency to conquer the latter. After all, it's their own damn fault that they've coddled their weak and have no strong leaders that can lead the fight. So the latter type of society tends to fall into irrelevance or disappear even if the majority of people involved would actually prefer it.

dahdum 8y ago
That last part is a good summary of companies going at it. The incumbent with crushing pension liability, bureaucracy, or rent seeking getting wiped out by a cutthroat competitor.

winstonewert 8y ago

> A country isn't a household, its balance sheet can have debt permanently, etc. etc. Is that really different than a household? The problem with a debt isn't that you have to pay it off. Actually, your creditors were prefer that you didn't and instead pay them interest until the day you die after which they'll collect the debt from your estate. The problem with debt is that you have to pay interest all of the time. Countries with debt are necessarily purchasing less goods and services for their citizens then if they didn't have to spend some portion of their income paying the interest. So, the fundamental reason why it's better (all else being equal) to avoid being in debt is the same in either case. Its not about the future day when you'll have to pay the debt, it is interest you are paying now.

nostrademons 8y ago
The difference is that a country isn't a person with its own wants that it's presumably satisfying with its purchase. When a country pays interest, it is effectively transferring money from its taxpayers to its bondholders. Very often, the bondholders are other parts of the government (28% of US government debt), private citizens (32%), or the Federal Reserve (11.2%). If the U.S. government has less money with which to purchase goods and services, it just means the private sector has more money with which to purchase goods and services, which in many cases is what you want. There was some concern about China being a large holder of U.S. treasuries a decade or so ago, but that concern has abated as China has unpegged their currency and unwound some of their treasury holdings, and because the debt is denominated in U.S. dollars and so the U.S. government could always inflate it away to nothing if China tried anything funky. The "bad consequences" of the U.S. <=> China current-account deficit have largely already come home to roost - that's what's fueling the rise in real estate prices bought by Chinese investors which is making homes unaffordable for Americans in west coast states. The household analogy would be an adult child who pays rent to live in their parents' basement, which the parent may either spend on the child or plans to return to them via inheritance when the parent dies. Sure, you're spending money, and sure, it means that you have less money for spending on other things. However, it just means that other people closely associated with you spend that money instead, and if they don't, it comes back to you anyway.

isoskeles 8y ago

> But if overall rich people are aligned against higher taxes, which is the case in history most of the time, they're effectively aligned against equality and justice. > I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't. What's the point of discussing this with you? Here, I'll try: But if overall poor people are aligned for higher taxes, which is the case in history most of the time, they're effectively aligned against doing work and freedom.

dang 8y ago

Would you please not use HN for ideological battle? It's not what this site is for. Discussions like this are predictable, therefore off topic here. And get more tedious and nasty as they go along. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html