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Here's a short list of things tax money funds: Roads Schools Healthcare (in civilized countries) Making sure companies selling medicine aren't killing people

Here's a short list of things tax money funds: Roads Schools Healthcare (in civilized countries) Making sure companies selling medicine aren't killing people Making sure companies don't dump toxic waste into rivers and lakes Note that comparing Walmart vs the government is especially funny since most of Warlmart's expansion comes from the fact that it under-pays it's workers so much that the federal government has to support them since they aren't able to afford housing and food. It's also really funny that he brings up Fanny Mae as an argument against government efficiency since they are a private company that screwed up so badly they basically destroyed the economy. It's also really funny that he brings up healthcare since Medicare and Medicaid both run several times more efficiently than privately run healthcare.

ericmay 5y ago
> Healthcare (in civilized countries) When you say things like this, you just push back the goal of national healthcare in America. Stop. I want national healthcare and the only way to get it involves not pissing people off by calling them uncivilized.
- Talanes 5y ago
  But pissing people off by jumping in to police their speech is better?
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Yes? Imagine if you had a goal and I just showed up and made fun of people who you need to convince of your goal and get their support. That wouldn’t make you mad as I undermined you?
    - Talanes 5y ago
      You've completely reversed which party is inserting themselves into the existing conversation though, which gives it an entirely different context. And honestly, there is no perfect band-aid for how to treat views that you find honestly stupid. Sure, some people won't listen if you're out there calling them stupid, but some people won't listen unless you do. People are messsy, complicated, and different.
      - ericmay 5y ago
        > You've completely reversed which party is inserting themselves into the existing conversation though, which gives it an entirely different context. How so? > And honestly, there is no perfect band-aid for how to treat views that you find honestly stupid. Sure, some people won't listen if you're out there calling them stupid, but some people won't listen unless you do. People are messsy, complicated, and different. When you talk down to people, tell them that they are uncivilized, and call them stupid or “deplorable” they’ll sink the entire ship and take themselves down with you just to spite you. If you want nation healthcare, or any number of other things the exact wrong approach is this approach. I think most people’s stance on guns or capitalism is downright stupid. You think if I say to someone who wants to ban AR-15s that they’re stupid and uncivilized that they’ll have an epiphany? I doubt it. They’ll double down. If I approach them with an approach to partner and find solutions to problems and understand their point of view, I’m far more likely to gain their support or at least sympathy. People are certainly messy, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that when you’re trying to get someone to do something that starting off telling them that they are stupid or uncivilized is a sure fire way to get them to do the opposite.
        Talanes 5y ago
        >How so? Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. >When you talk down to people, tell them that they are uncivilized, and call them stupid or “deplorable” they’ll sink the entire ship and take themselves down with you just to spite you. And if you go around pissing off the people who are trying to achieve the same goals as you, they'll stop putting in any effort.
        ericmay 5y ago
        > Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. So they were having a conversation and I’m not? I don’t really get your point. > And if you go around pissing off the people who are trying to achieve the same goals as you, they'll stop putting in any effort. …sure ok. I guess if they’re going to talk down to people and call them uncivilized then I’ll stop supporting the goal too. Everyone wins.
zz865 5y ago
That might be true in some countries, but in the USA it goes to the military, farmers to make GMO soya beans & corn syrup, and other random corporations.
- dlp211 5y ago
  Ok, yes, the US spends a lot on the military, but the vast majority of taxes goes towards social programs (specifically SS and healthcare programs) and the current administration and majority of Democrats are trying to spend more on common infrastructure and additional social programs with an emphasis on families. It sucks that we have a terrible implementation of government that requires using vastly inefficient loopholes to fund programs, but it is what it is and we should do the best we can with it.
  - zz865 5y ago
    Surely SS and healthcare are largely funded by SS payments. Taxes go toward Medicare but premiums are a big part too. https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/medicare https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/medicare
    - coryrc 5y ago
      SS "payments" are taxes.
      - tylersmith 5y ago
        Those are payroll taxes, not income or wealth taxes that would be targeting the rich.
        dlp211 5y ago
        SS payments are now also paid from treasury reserves, so collected general taxes do in fact pay for (part of) SS. Also, there is no reason that the cap on SS tax collection shouldn't be lifted.
- 5y ago
coryrc 5y ago
All that money we spent on roads has locked us into car-dependent infrastructure, killing 40k+/year directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly (air pollution, etc). Great job us.
- Sabinus 5y ago
  I still don't see private corporations building better public infrastructure. You get the quality of government you deserve. Remove corruption and regulate lobbying and donations and government money will be spent more effectively.
  - coryrc 5y ago
    Who built most of the rail lines, including commuter, in the US and Japan? Private companies.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Financed through Federal land grants: Between 1850 and 1872 extensive cessions of public lands were made to states and to railroad companies to promote railroad construction.[18] Usually the companies received from the federal government, in twenty- or fifty-mile strips, alternate sections of public land for each mile of track that was built. Responsibility for surveying and mapping the grants fell to the U.S. General Land Office, now the Bureau of Land Management. Numerous maps of the United States and individual states and counties were made which clearly indicated the sections of the granted land and the railroad rights-of-way. https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/articles-and-essays/history-of-railroads-and-maps/land-grants/ https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/a...
      - coryrc 5y ago
        Still required them to actually pay for the thing, which is a funny usage of financed. NYC public transit trains and subway were predominately privately-owned and -operated until 1940: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City... How long did the second avenue subway take to finish under benevolent government leadership?
busymom0 5y ago
You missed my point. As for schools: 13 Baltimore City High Schools, Zero Students Proficient in Math https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7bvreb/13_baltimore_city_high_schools_zero_students/ https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7bvreb/13_baltimore_c... https://archive.ph/VfciU https://archive.ph/VfciU http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-21/news/bs-md-ci-census-schools-20130521_1_school-system-per-pupil-spending-districts http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-21/news/bs-md-ci-ce... https://archive.ph/cqIZd https://archive.ph/cqIZd Just so everyone is aware Baltimore is 2nd in per pupil spending. This is not because the schools dont get enough money. In fact its just about as far away from that as you can get. If despite getting the 2nd more funded, your students still can't do high school math, then the problem isn't about money, it's probably about corruption, gangs, fatherlessness, teacher unions and lack of school choice. This is also not exclusive to Baltimore. Money just disappears from these places. Everyone I know who works in the government themselves tell me how inefficient the government is and how much waste of money there is. For example, they have built the regulations in such a way that a hammer you may be able to purchase for $10 will cost $50 for the government or military. Forever feeding it more and more money while they keep spending it without any benefit to people does nothing. Look at what the US just did. 2 trillion dollars wasted in Afghanistan and then left 83 billion dollars worth of tax payer funded military gear for the Taliban. You want to give them more money? How exactly is paying more taxes ensuring "companies selling medicine aren't killing people" or "companies don't dump toxic waste into rivers and lakes"?
neilwilson 5y ago
Tax money funds nothing. Read Stephanie Kelton's Deficit Myth for details. Funding is provided by congressional appropriation. When congress says spend on something at this price, that is all that is required. At that point the issue is whether the something is being used by the private sector. If it is then you have to stop the private sector using it somehow. Tax is one way of doing that, or you can just ban the private sector using that resource (nationalising healthcare for example). Money isn't a thing, it is a unit of account. It grows and shrinks within the banking system as required to ensure all transactions that can be undertaken are undertaken.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Another short list: Regulating the business cycle, the Interstate Highway System, FDIC/SLIC, Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, the GI Bill, clean air and water, scientific research, public health, vast amounts of public information, the Library of Congress (largest collection of printed material in the history of Earth), anti-discrimination policies, investor protections, the military, the courts, air traffic control, airline safety regulation and investigation (including as a worldwide standard and often agent), GPS and weather satellites, the West, fire protection, farm information and training, student aid and support, food and drug safety, containerised shipping (who do you think created the unified-standard demand finally fixing shipping container dimensions?) Municipal freshwater systems, waste removal, sewerage, electric and gas utilities, rural electric and telephone service, railroads, highway systems, post offices, standards of weights and measures (Herbert Hoover (R)), police departments (and here I particularly recommend looking up the Peelian Principles of London's Metropolitan Police), public health systems, social welfare systems, port and harbour districts, national defence, air traffic control, the Internet, Silicon Valley, GPS, satellite weather systems, major oil and gas pipeline systems, stockpiles of critical strategic minerals (to prevent market-gaming by private individuals), the Texas Railroad Commission (which of course regulated global oil prices from 1930 - 1973 -- fascinating story), and a great deal more. https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105504124162132201 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105504124162132201 V]ociferous attacks on successful government programs like Social Security reveal one of the dirty little secrets of anti-government conservatives and libertarians: they hate successful government programs even more than unsuccessful ones. Government programs that work contradict the conservatives' contention that government is bad and always screws things up. Worse, successful programs may actually encourage people to view the government and their taxes in a more positive light. So it is the very success of a program like Social Security that invites attack by conservatives. As Paul Krugman has explained, government haters "are not sincerely concerned about the possibility that the system will someday fail; they're disturbed by the system's historic successes. For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it." https://governmentisgood.com/articles.php@aid=7&print=1 https://governmentisgood.com/articles.php@aid=7&print=1 Citing Paul Krugman, “Inventing a Crisis” New York Times, December 7, 2004, p. A31. Ezra Klein also recently addressed criticisms of government inefficiency in an interview of Tyler Cowan: [O]ne thing I know from covering the government is it part of the reason things are bureaucratic and slow moving and you have to file everything in triplicate and things get checked over and over again and it’s way too cautious, is that there has been for decades and decades an organized effort on the part of libertarian and right- wing institutions to embarrass the government if it funds anything that can be made to look silly or that ends up failing, like Solyndra, that ends up seeming to people like a waste of money. [I]t seems to me that if you want this faster, more agile, more risk- taking government, you also have to somehow quiet these players looking to point out every failure, because being too afraid of failure makes you too afraid of quick processes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-tyler-cowen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/podcasts/transcript-ezra-... It's interesting when the interviewer has the more insightful lines than the guest, though I don't hold that agaisnt Klein. But yes: government exists in an adversarial space, and has to both engineer itself against and work in the face of that adversity. Unsurprisingly, efficiency can suffer. Though in many, many cases, government does prove highly efficient.
fcanela 5y ago
Than can be done with less taxes than the average europeans one. It is also debatable which of the estates attributed roles can't be done better by private companies.
- winstonschmidt 5y ago
  I can't seem to think of any instances where that is the case. So my conclusion would be that it can not really be done. Or can you give some pointers? (not saying there is no room for improvement)

ericmay 5y ago

> Healthcare (in civilized countries) When you say things like this, you just push back the goal of national healthcare in America. Stop. I want national healthcare and the only way to get it involves not pissing people off by calling them uncivilized.

Talanes 5y ago
But pissing people off by jumping in to police their speech is better?
- ericmay 5y ago
  Yes? Imagine if you had a goal and I just showed up and made fun of people who you need to convince of your goal and get their support. That wouldn’t make you mad as I undermined you?
  - Talanes 5y ago
    You've completely reversed which party is inserting themselves into the existing conversation though, which gives it an entirely different context. And honestly, there is no perfect band-aid for how to treat views that you find honestly stupid. Sure, some people won't listen if you're out there calling them stupid, but some people won't listen unless you do. People are messsy, complicated, and different.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      > You've completely reversed which party is inserting themselves into the existing conversation though, which gives it an entirely different context. How so? > And honestly, there is no perfect band-aid for how to treat views that you find honestly stupid. Sure, some people won't listen if you're out there calling them stupid, but some people won't listen unless you do. People are messsy, complicated, and different. When you talk down to people, tell them that they are uncivilized, and call them stupid or “deplorable” they’ll sink the entire ship and take themselves down with you just to spite you. If you want nation healthcare, or any number of other things the exact wrong approach is this approach. I think most people’s stance on guns or capitalism is downright stupid. You think if I say to someone who wants to ban AR-15s that they’re stupid and uncivilized that they’ll have an epiphany? I doubt it. They’ll double down. If I approach them with an approach to partner and find solutions to problems and understand their point of view, I’m far more likely to gain their support or at least sympathy. People are certainly messy, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that when you’re trying to get someone to do something that starting off telling them that they are stupid or uncivilized is a sure fire way to get them to do the opposite.
      - Talanes 5y ago
        >How so? Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. >When you talk down to people, tell them that they are uncivilized, and call them stupid or “deplorable” they’ll sink the entire ship and take themselves down with you just to spite you. And if you go around pissing off the people who are trying to achieve the same goals as you, they'll stop putting in any effort.
        ericmay 5y ago
        > Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. So they were having a conversation and I’m not? I don’t really get your point. > And if you go around pissing off the people who are trying to achieve the same goals as you, they'll stop putting in any effort. …sure ok. I guess if they’re going to talk down to people and call them uncivilized then I’ll stop supporting the goal too. Everyone wins.

zz865 5y ago

That might be true in some countries, but in the USA it goes to the military, farmers to make GMO soya beans & corn syrup, and other random corporations.

dlp211 5y ago
Ok, yes, the US spends a lot on the military, but the vast majority of taxes goes towards social programs (specifically SS and healthcare programs) and the current administration and majority of Democrats are trying to spend more on common infrastructure and additional social programs with an emphasis on families. It sucks that we have a terrible implementation of government that requires using vastly inefficient loopholes to fund programs, but it is what it is and we should do the best we can with it.
- zz865 5y ago
  Surely SS and healthcare are largely funded by SS payments. Taxes go toward Medicare but premiums are a big part too. https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/medicare https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/medicare
  - coryrc 5y ago
    SS "payments" are taxes.
    - tylersmith 5y ago
      Those are payroll taxes, not income or wealth taxes that would be targeting the rich.
      - dlp211 5y ago
        SS payments are now also paid from treasury reserves, so collected general taxes do in fact pay for (part of) SS. Also, there is no reason that the cap on SS tax collection shouldn't be lifted.
5y ago

coryrc 5y ago

All that money we spent on roads has locked us into car-dependent infrastructure, killing 40k+/year directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly (air pollution, etc). Great job us.

Sabinus 5y ago
I still don't see private corporations building better public infrastructure. You get the quality of government you deserve. Remove corruption and regulate lobbying and donations and government money will be spent more effectively.
- coryrc 5y ago
  Who built most of the rail lines, including commuter, in the US and Japan? Private companies.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Financed through Federal land grants: Between 1850 and 1872 extensive cessions of public lands were made to states and to railroad companies to promote railroad construction.[18] Usually the companies received from the federal government, in twenty- or fifty-mile strips, alternate sections of public land for each mile of track that was built. Responsibility for surveying and mapping the grants fell to the U.S. General Land Office, now the Bureau of Land Management. Numerous maps of the United States and individual states and counties were made which clearly indicated the sections of the granted land and the railroad rights-of-way. https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/articles-and-essays/history-of-railroads-and-maps/land-grants/ https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/a...
    - coryrc 5y ago
      Still required them to actually pay for the thing, which is a funny usage of financed. NYC public transit trains and subway were predominately privately-owned and -operated until 1940: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City... How long did the second avenue subway take to finish under benevolent government leadership?

busymom0 5y ago

You missed my point. As for schools: 13 Baltimore City High Schools, Zero Students Proficient in Math https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7bvreb/13_baltimore_city_high_schools_zero_students/ https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7bvreb/13_baltimore_c... https://archive.ph/VfciU https://archive.ph/VfciU http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-21/news/bs-md-ci-census-schools-20130521_1_school-system-per-pupil-spending-districts http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-21/news/bs-md-ci-ce... https://archive.ph/cqIZd https://archive.ph/cqIZd Just so everyone is aware Baltimore is 2nd in per pupil spending. This is not because the schools dont get enough money. In fact its just about as far away from that as you can get. If despite getting the 2nd more funded, your students still can't do high school math, then the problem isn't about money, it's probably about corruption, gangs, fatherlessness, teacher unions and lack of school choice. This is also not exclusive to Baltimore. Money just disappears from these places. Everyone I know who works in the government themselves tell me how inefficient the government is and how much waste of money there is. For example, they have built the regulations in such a way that a hammer you may be able to purchase for $10 will cost $50 for the government or military. Forever feeding it more and more money while they keep spending it without any benefit to people does nothing. Look at what the US just did. 2 trillion dollars wasted in Afghanistan and then left 83 billion dollars worth of tax payer funded military gear for the Taliban. You want to give them more money? How exactly is paying more taxes ensuring "companies selling medicine aren't killing people" or "companies don't dump toxic waste into rivers and lakes"?

neilwilson 5y ago

Tax money funds nothing. Read Stephanie Kelton's Deficit Myth for details. Funding is provided by congressional appropriation. When congress says spend on something at this price, that is all that is required. At that point the issue is whether the something is being used by the private sector. If it is then you have to stop the private sector using it somehow. Tax is one way of doing that, or you can just ban the private sector using that resource (nationalising healthcare for example). Money isn't a thing, it is a unit of account. It grows and shrinks within the banking system as required to ensure all transactions that can be undertaken are undertaken.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Another short list: Regulating the business cycle, the Interstate Highway System, FDIC/SLIC, Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, the GI Bill, clean air and water, scientific research, public health, vast amounts of public information, the Library of Congress (largest collection of printed material in the history of Earth), anti-discrimination policies, investor protections, the military, the courts, air traffic control, airline safety regulation and investigation (including as a worldwide standard and often agent), GPS and weather satellites, the West, fire protection, farm information and training, student aid and support, food and drug safety, containerised shipping (who do you think created the unified-standard demand finally fixing shipping container dimensions?) Municipal freshwater systems, waste removal, sewerage, electric and gas utilities, rural electric and telephone service, railroads, highway systems, post offices, standards of weights and measures (Herbert Hoover (R)), police departments (and here I particularly recommend looking up the Peelian Principles of London's Metropolitan Police), public health systems, social welfare systems, port and harbour districts, national defence, air traffic control, the Internet, Silicon Valley, GPS, satellite weather systems, major oil and gas pipeline systems, stockpiles of critical strategic minerals (to prevent market-gaming by private individuals), the Texas Railroad Commission (which of course regulated global oil prices from 1930 - 1973 -- fascinating story), and a great deal more. https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105504124162132201 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105504124162132201 V]ociferous attacks on successful government programs like Social Security reveal one of the dirty little secrets of anti-government conservatives and libertarians: they hate successful government programs even more than unsuccessful ones. Government programs that work contradict the conservatives' contention that government is bad and always screws things up. Worse, successful programs may actually encourage people to view the government and their taxes in a more positive light. So it is the very success of a program like Social Security that invites attack by conservatives. As Paul Krugman has explained, government haters "are not sincerely concerned about the possibility that the system will someday fail; they're disturbed by the system's historic successes. For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it." https://governmentisgood.com/articles.php@aid=7&print=1 https://governmentisgood.com/articles.php@aid=7&print=1 Citing Paul Krugman, “Inventing a Crisis” New York Times, December 7, 2004, p. A31. Ezra Klein also recently addressed criticisms of government inefficiency in an interview of Tyler Cowan: [O]ne thing I know from covering the government is it part of the reason things are bureaucratic and slow moving and you have to file everything in triplicate and things get checked over and over again and it’s way too cautious, is that there has been for decades and decades an organized effort on the part of libertarian and right- wing institutions to embarrass the government if it funds anything that can be made to look silly or that ends up failing, like Solyndra, that ends up seeming to people like a waste of money. [I]t seems to me that if you want this faster, more agile, more risk- taking government, you also have to somehow quiet these players looking to point out every failure, because being too afraid of failure makes you too afraid of quick processes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-tyler-cowen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/podcasts/transcript-ezra-... It's interesting when the interviewer has the more insightful lines than the guest, though I don't hold that agaisnt Klein. But yes: government exists in an adversarial space, and has to both engineer itself against and work in the face of that adversity. Unsurprisingly, efficiency can suffer. Though in many, many cases, government does prove highly efficient.

fcanela 5y ago

Than can be done with less taxes than the average europeans one. It is also debatable which of the estates attributed roles can't be done better by private companies.

winstonschmidt 5y ago
I can't seem to think of any instances where that is the case. So my conclusion would be that it can not really be done. Or can you give some pointers? (not saying there is no room for improvement)