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Policy makers don’t raise enough taxes for pay for it.

• nickff 5y ago
  But taxes were lower in the past! That's the interesting part; everyone is paying more, but we can't afford as much.
  • solarmist 5y ago
    Were they? I'm pretty sure taxes have been going down for decades.
    • nickff 5y ago
      Rates have gone up and down (down overall at the federal level), but inflation-adjusted revenue is way up, and spending has increased even more than that.[1] [1] https://annualreport.usafacts.org/articles/43-government-tax-revenue-capita-increased-54-1980-adjusting-inflation https://annualreport.usafacts.org/articles/43-government-tax...
      • hcurtiss 5y ago
        And property taxes and fuel taxes, which pay for most of the stuff under consideration, have only gone up. In some cases, way up.
        • acdha 5y ago
          I grew up in California. You could see when Prop 13 capped property taxes in things like schools or libraries: everything built before it was nice but falling apart, everything built after it was designed to be cheap to build. They could try to bridge the gap with bonds but that was unreliable.