4 ms·

>I'm surprised to hear this sentiment, but honestly I think there's a huge amount that the government does that is invisible to most citizens. It's invisible b

by zionic 5y ago

>I'm surprised to hear this sentiment, but honestly I think there's a huge amount that the government does that is invisible to most citizens. It's invisible because it provides no true value to them. Right now you and I are paying for some NSA hacker to compromise American telecom networks, 13 carrier battle groups to put around the ocean doing nothing, literal armies of people in a hundred plus bases on literally every continent that provide NEGATIVE value to your average person on the street, and so much more. Your car has broken down and you can't afford to fix it, while the government has taken ten grand from you in the last 12 months that could have purchased you a new car. But it's ok, some overpaid bureaucrats are making real progress in abstract geopolitical interests in a country you can't even find on a map! It's a simple example, but people really underestimate how much more they'd have in their pocket if the government wasn't siphoning off cash at every step on the economic cycle. Look at the number of people struggling, and imagine how much we could relieve that by simply stealing less from them.

mrguyorama 5y ago
If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year.
- zionic 5y ago
  >If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year. This is an extreme lower bound looking only at FICA. In reality you have: -FICA -State income tax -Local taxes for your city -Social security and medicare tax -Sales tax at point of purchase -Property taxes (directly if you own a home, indirectly + margin if you rent) -Gas tax -Vehicle registration fees/taxes when purchasing -The payroll taxes your employer pays for paying you, directly suppressing your income/earning potential. -A whole host of taxes on any capital gains, inheritance, gifts, your phone bill, the list goes on and on. When you _only_ look at your tax burden in terms of what gets deducted from your check you get a highly misleading figure. This doesn't even factor in what happens when the gov inflates the currency and "taxes" your cash holdings.
  - medvezhenok 5y ago
    America used to have lower taxes across the board for all of these things - look at the 1920s-1950s. You know what else was true in those times? Absolute rates of poverty way higher than today, death rates higher, life expectancy significantly lower, no environmental regulation (smoking everywhere, pollution etc), workplace accidents, no interstate highways, higher crime levels, the list goes on and on. Is there some percentage of tax money that is misappropriated/misused? Sure; but I think the percentage is [relatively] small - 10-20% at most. Disintermediating the health care system with a public option could lead to the biggest savings in the system overall. The military budget stuff is somewhat disingenuous because it was necessary for the U.S. to maintain a capable military first because of the Soviet threat and later to back the USD as the global reserve currency and secure foreign oil - unless we could get the domestic shale up and running (USD as the reserve currency improves the purchasing power of every American and allows us to live "beyond our means" on an international level - while on the downside making our exports uncompetitive). But nevertheless, if our military went away, Americans would have to take a haircut to their standard of living. So it's not as simple as you make it sound.
jhedwards 5y ago
You missed the point of my comment. It's invisible because it _prevents_ bad things from happening, and it results in a boring world. Just one example: I have only had food poisoning maybe one or two times in my time living in the US. Food safety and restaurant safety is invisible. Or how about fishery management? Have you thought recently about how fisheries in the PNW are _not_ depleted and why that is? Of course you haven't. No one would notice those fisheries unless they disappeared, and they won't because the government is protecting them. Your examples show that there is money being used in malicious ways, which I don't disagree with, but it doesn't mean that there aren't a huge amount of positive things happening. There are so many of these it's impossible for a single individual to know all of them.
- zionic 5y ago
  I believe the core problem with your position is you're not acknowledging the orders of magnitude in cost between protecting a fishery or enforcing food safety standards vs say... $10 Trillion to blow up and rebuild Iraq. You've articulated a few highly non-controversial programs which is fine, but to then project that unto the government as a whole when programs like that are the exception not the norm is unfair. "Unimaginable theft and loss of life carried out by our government and laundered by "reputable" sources like NYTimes? But what about some fisheries man?! We can't scale back the government!" It just comes off as inauthentic.

by zionic 5y ago

mrguyorama 5y ago

If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year.

zionic 5y ago
>If the US government is taking $10k in taxes from you, you're making over $80k a year. This is an extreme lower bound looking only at FICA. In reality you have: -FICA -State income tax -Local taxes for your city -Social security and medicare tax -Sales tax at point of purchase -Property taxes (directly if you own a home, indirectly + margin if you rent) -Gas tax -Vehicle registration fees/taxes when purchasing -The payroll taxes your employer pays for paying you, directly suppressing your income/earning potential. -A whole host of taxes on any capital gains, inheritance, gifts, your phone bill, the list goes on and on. When you _only_ look at your tax burden in terms of what gets deducted from your check you get a highly misleading figure. This doesn't even factor in what happens when the gov inflates the currency and "taxes" your cash holdings.
- medvezhenok 5y ago
  America used to have lower taxes across the board for all of these things - look at the 1920s-1950s. You know what else was true in those times? Absolute rates of poverty way higher than today, death rates higher, life expectancy significantly lower, no environmental regulation (smoking everywhere, pollution etc), workplace accidents, no interstate highways, higher crime levels, the list goes on and on. Is there some percentage of tax money that is misappropriated/misused? Sure; but I think the percentage is [relatively] small - 10-20% at most. Disintermediating the health care system with a public option could lead to the biggest savings in the system overall. The military budget stuff is somewhat disingenuous because it was necessary for the U.S. to maintain a capable military first because of the Soviet threat and later to back the USD as the global reserve currency and secure foreign oil - unless we could get the domestic shale up and running (USD as the reserve currency improves the purchasing power of every American and allows us to live "beyond our means" on an international level - while on the downside making our exports uncompetitive). But nevertheless, if our military went away, Americans would have to take a haircut to their standard of living. So it's not as simple as you make it sound.

jhedwards 5y ago

You missed the point of my comment. It's invisible because it _prevents_ bad things from happening, and it results in a boring world. Just one example: I have only had food poisoning maybe one or two times in my time living in the US. Food safety and restaurant safety is invisible. Or how about fishery management? Have you thought recently about how fisheries in the PNW are _not_ depleted and why that is? Of course you haven't. No one would notice those fisheries unless they disappeared, and they won't because the government is protecting them. Your examples show that there is money being used in malicious ways, which I don't disagree with, but it doesn't mean that there aren't a huge amount of positive things happening. There are so many of these it's impossible for a single individual to know all of them.

zionic 5y ago
I believe the core problem with your position is you're not acknowledging the orders of magnitude in cost between protecting a fishery or enforcing food safety standards vs say... $10 Trillion to blow up and rebuild Iraq. You've articulated a few highly non-controversial programs which is fine, but to then project that unto the government as a whole when programs like that are the exception not the norm is unfair. "Unimaginable theft and loss of life carried out by our government and laundered by "reputable" sources like NYTimes? But what about some fisheries man?! We can't scale back the government!" It just comes off as inauthentic.