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Are you in the U.S.? If so what specifically do you feel that tax revenue is going to do for you? The government is currently running a $1T-$1.5T deficit, mea

Are you in the U.S.? If so what specifically do you feel that tax revenue is going to do for you? The government is currently running a $1T-$1.5T deficit, meaning they haven't cared about tax revenue as it relates to spending in quite some time. I'd love to reduce wealth inequality but I just don't think throwing all that money at the government is a viable path towards that goal.

wolverine876 5y ago
So what solution do you offer? It's just reactionary to oppose a solution. The anti-government stuff needs some support and nuance. Government isn't all good or bad; it is what we want it to be. If we want it to invest in our people, such as through education, health care, housinng, etc., nothing is stopping us. We're not powerless at all.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The government giving you $100 for school is strictly worse than the government just giving you $100. You can spend it on school if you want to go to school, on housing if you want better housing, on child care if you need child care, or on whatever it is that you need. Which you know better than a committee of politicians who have never even met you. For anyone paying more than zero taxes, this is the same as a $100 tax cut. For anyone who is paying zero taxes, we can still do the same thing by giving them a tax credit (e.g. increase the EITC) and letting their effective rate be negative. This is better than subsidizing student loans (thereby inflating the cost of college) or any of the other bad ideas politicians have had over the years. But it forecloses the majority of political corruption. Which is why it's good, and also why it's unpopular.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > Which you know better than a committee of politicians who have never even met you. If you haven't met your local elected representatives, that might be on you. It's not hard to meet them, and usually IME they make an effort to know voters. > The government giving you $100 for school is strictly worse than the government just giving you $100. We the people might be willing to fund schooling, but not other things. Regardless, I tend to agree with giving cash for charitable purposes. But where is this coming from? Who disagreed? > Which is why it's good, and also why it's unpopular. How do you know that? School vouchers are popular, and people could have said the same about them. These rants about government - that we see commonly - are somehow given a pass for establishing a factual basis and making strong arguments. But they don't really say much except express frustration.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > If you haven't met your local elected representatives, that might be on you. It's not hard to meet them, and usually IME they make an effort to know voters. Most of these proposals, and the things people object to, are at the federal level. A Senator from New York has 20 million constituents. If she met with each one for one minute, sixteen hours a day every day of the week for her entire six year term, she would have met with ~11% of them by the end of her term. And still not really know any of them. > We the people might be willing to fund schooling, but not other things. We the people are the ones receiving the money. If you want to spend yours on schools, go for it. Someone else wants to spend it on books, or private tutors, or compensating one of the parents to take time off of work to teach the children themselves. > But where is this coming from? Who disagreed? The existence of many of these programs that don't work like this. The government will subsidize your student loans, which inflates the cost of education, but you don't get the cash equivalent of the subsidy if you work your way through college busing tables instead of borrowing money, or attend a less expensive school. You can't get the money if you want to buy the books yourself and then follow along with the lectures on OpenCourseWare. > How do you know that? School vouchers are popular, and people could have said the same about them. I should say popular with elected officials. School vouchers are popular with the public and yet most states still don't have them. > These rants about government - that we see commonly - are somehow given a pass for establishing a factual basis and making strong arguments. But they don't really say much except express frustration. The general problem with government programs is that there is a powerful incentive to direct money to politically connected groups. Why do we subsidize ethanol? Because it's made from corn grown in Iowa, which is the location of the Iowa caucuses. Why are the swing states the largest per capita recipients of federal money? To get at the root of this, you need to look into the details of thousands of pages of federal legislation. Because the complexity is purposeful. There is a broad class of programs whose general goal is to transfer resources to the poor. That entire class of programs could be replaced with a single cash money tax credit, but it isn't. Because the purpose of most of those programs isn't to help the poor, it's to create jobs for government employees or subsidize specific products which the public is then forced to buy if they want the subsidies even if preferable alternatives are available in the market. The complexity keeps people from rooting it out. Ordinary taxpayers don't have the time to look through the details of that much legislation to find just exactly how the corruption and inefficiency is costing them. So you end up with just a general feeling that the government is ripping them off and no obvious path to correcting it.
- tengbretson 5y ago
  > So what solution do you offer? It's just reactionary to oppose a solution. This argument is only sound if you assume things can't be made worse than the status quo. They obviously can.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    No, we have problems to solve, and we have a responsibility to solve them. Just shooting down what other people say is not acceptable in any serious situations - for example, if that's what you do at work you'll find yourself on the outside looking in. It's also a signal of an argument with no real effort behind it.
    - nightski 5y ago
      I wasn't shooting it down. I was asking you what the government realistically was going to do with that money to solve wealth inequality, but you never answered that. Based on the last several years of obscene spending with little results I'd say it's a tough question to answer.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        I see lots of results. What do you mean? How do you measure it? Again, what is your solution?
        nightski 5y ago
        Wealth inequality is relatively straightforward to measure, and it has steadily been getting much worse. So I am not sure what results you are seeing. That is the topic of the post you originally replied to anyways.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        I see lots of return for government spending. I wasn't addressing inequality in that statement. Also, it could be much worse; we don't know what it would be without the current government investment.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Government isn't all good or bad; it is what we want it to be. If we want it to invest in our people, such as through education, health care, housinng, etc., nothing is stopping us. We're not powerless at all. You're obviously living on a different planet than I am, because on the planet I live on, ordinary working people are basically powerless in determining where government spending goes. The government talks a lot about "investing in our people" and other such rhetoric, but its actual track record over decades is very poor.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I think the more hyperbolic the statements, the less basis in reality. Voters have plenty of influence where I live, but how do you measure it? What do you mean? What is stopping us from having influence? It's pretty straightforward - politicians who anger their constituents enough get replaced. Generally they stay within the limits. I see that defeatism and quitting prevents you from having influence. It's amazing to see people give away their power, but that's their choice. The biggest problem I perceive is manipulation of the public through disinformation. The defeatism is the biggest source of disinformation. You have all the power, but your enemies have convinced you that you are powerless, to drop your weapons - and you went along with it!
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > The biggest problem I perceive is manipulation of the public through disinformation. I agree that this is a problem, but I suspect we disagree sharply about where the most dangerous disinformation is coming from.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        Disinformation isn't a matter of opinion, but crucially a matter of fact. If we disagree about what is disinformation, there's a good chance you are wrong.
        pdonis 5y ago
sva_ 5y ago
> Are you in the U.S.? No, I'm not. I'm in the EU where those US tech giants successfully dodge paying any tax, which just isn't fair, especially for local businesses who already have a hard time competing without them having that advantage.

wolverine876 5y ago

So what solution do you offer? It's just reactionary to oppose a solution. The anti-government stuff needs some support and nuance. Government isn't all good or bad; it is what we want it to be. If we want it to invest in our people, such as through education, health care, housinng, etc., nothing is stopping us. We're not powerless at all.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The government giving you $100 for school is strictly worse than the government just giving you $100. You can spend it on school if you want to go to school, on housing if you want better housing, on child care if you need child care, or on whatever it is that you need. Which you know better than a committee of politicians who have never even met you. For anyone paying more than zero taxes, this is the same as a $100 tax cut. For anyone who is paying zero taxes, we can still do the same thing by giving them a tax credit (e.g. increase the EITC) and letting their effective rate be negative. This is better than subsidizing student loans (thereby inflating the cost of college) or any of the other bad ideas politicians have had over the years. But it forecloses the majority of political corruption. Which is why it's good, and also why it's unpopular.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > Which you know better than a committee of politicians who have never even met you. If you haven't met your local elected representatives, that might be on you. It's not hard to meet them, and usually IME they make an effort to know voters. > The government giving you $100 for school is strictly worse than the government just giving you $100. We the people might be willing to fund schooling, but not other things. Regardless, I tend to agree with giving cash for charitable purposes. But where is this coming from? Who disagreed? > Which is why it's good, and also why it's unpopular. How do you know that? School vouchers are popular, and people could have said the same about them. These rants about government - that we see commonly - are somehow given a pass for establishing a factual basis and making strong arguments. But they don't really say much except express frustration.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > If you haven't met your local elected representatives, that might be on you. It's not hard to meet them, and usually IME they make an effort to know voters. Most of these proposals, and the things people object to, are at the federal level. A Senator from New York has 20 million constituents. If she met with each one for one minute, sixteen hours a day every day of the week for her entire six year term, she would have met with ~11% of them by the end of her term. And still not really know any of them. > We the people might be willing to fund schooling, but not other things. We the people are the ones receiving the money. If you want to spend yours on schools, go for it. Someone else wants to spend it on books, or private tutors, or compensating one of the parents to take time off of work to teach the children themselves. > But where is this coming from? Who disagreed? The existence of many of these programs that don't work like this. The government will subsidize your student loans, which inflates the cost of education, but you don't get the cash equivalent of the subsidy if you work your way through college busing tables instead of borrowing money, or attend a less expensive school. You can't get the money if you want to buy the books yourself and then follow along with the lectures on OpenCourseWare. > How do you know that? School vouchers are popular, and people could have said the same about them. I should say popular with elected officials. School vouchers are popular with the public and yet most states still don't have them. > These rants about government - that we see commonly - are somehow given a pass for establishing a factual basis and making strong arguments. But they don't really say much except express frustration. The general problem with government programs is that there is a powerful incentive to direct money to politically connected groups. Why do we subsidize ethanol? Because it's made from corn grown in Iowa, which is the location of the Iowa caucuses. Why are the swing states the largest per capita recipients of federal money? To get at the root of this, you need to look into the details of thousands of pages of federal legislation. Because the complexity is purposeful. There is a broad class of programs whose general goal is to transfer resources to the poor. That entire class of programs could be replaced with a single cash money tax credit, but it isn't. Because the purpose of most of those programs isn't to help the poor, it's to create jobs for government employees or subsidize specific products which the public is then forced to buy if they want the subsidies even if preferable alternatives are available in the market. The complexity keeps people from rooting it out. Ordinary taxpayers don't have the time to look through the details of that much legislation to find just exactly how the corruption and inefficiency is costing them. So you end up with just a general feeling that the government is ripping them off and no obvious path to correcting it.
tengbretson 5y ago
> So what solution do you offer? It's just reactionary to oppose a solution. This argument is only sound if you assume things can't be made worse than the status quo. They obviously can.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  No, we have problems to solve, and we have a responsibility to solve them. Just shooting down what other people say is not acceptable in any serious situations - for example, if that's what you do at work you'll find yourself on the outside looking in. It's also a signal of an argument with no real effort behind it.
  - nightski 5y ago
    I wasn't shooting it down. I was asking you what the government realistically was going to do with that money to solve wealth inequality, but you never answered that. Based on the last several years of obscene spending with little results I'd say it's a tough question to answer.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      I see lots of results. What do you mean? How do you measure it? Again, what is your solution?
      - nightski 5y ago
        Wealth inequality is relatively straightforward to measure, and it has steadily been getting much worse. So I am not sure what results you are seeing. That is the topic of the post you originally replied to anyways.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        I see lots of return for government spending. I wasn't addressing inequality in that statement. Also, it could be much worse; we don't know what it would be without the current government investment.
pdonis 5y ago
> Government isn't all good or bad; it is what we want it to be. If we want it to invest in our people, such as through education, health care, housinng, etc., nothing is stopping us. We're not powerless at all. You're obviously living on a different planet than I am, because on the planet I live on, ordinary working people are basically powerless in determining where government spending goes. The government talks a lot about "investing in our people" and other such rhetoric, but its actual track record over decades is very poor.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I think the more hyperbolic the statements, the less basis in reality. Voters have plenty of influence where I live, but how do you measure it? What do you mean? What is stopping us from having influence? It's pretty straightforward - politicians who anger their constituents enough get replaced. Generally they stay within the limits. I see that defeatism and quitting prevents you from having influence. It's amazing to see people give away their power, but that's their choice. The biggest problem I perceive is manipulation of the public through disinformation. The defeatism is the biggest source of disinformation. You have all the power, but your enemies have convinced you that you are powerless, to drop your weapons - and you went along with it!
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > The biggest problem I perceive is manipulation of the public through disinformation. I agree that this is a problem, but I suspect we disagree sharply about where the most dangerous disinformation is coming from.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      Disinformation isn't a matter of opinion, but crucially a matter of fact. If we disagree about what is disinformation, there's a good chance you are wrong.
      - pdonis 5y ago

sva_ 5y ago

> Are you in the U.S.? No, I'm not. I'm in the EU where those US tech giants successfully dodge paying any tax, which just isn't fair, especially for local businesses who already have a hard time competing without them having that advantage.