8 ms·

Open Question: Why don't taxes actually go down over time? Who is capturing the value generated by productivity gains that might make things cheaper to run?

• benmccann 6y ago
  The services provided by the government have not been stable over time and have dramatically increased
• conanbatt 6y ago
  This is a pet-peeve of mine. There's a part of taxes that has to grow with the economy size because the service is provided by people and they need to be compensated at market rate. Say the army, education, etc. But of course there is a bunch of things the government does that should be getting cheaper, like administration of services, etc. Its the problem with income-taxes, naturally government increases expenditures without need for legislation. It's a bad rule. This is why I think government should be financed by flat-expenditures: sum of costs / people and send a bill. This framing would make government very sensitive to increase of expenditures.