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If that's the case, when was the last time the size, responsibilities and revenues of the government have meaningfully decreased in a permanent manner? I'm tal

• D13Fd 4y ago
  > If that's the case, when was the last time the size, responsibilities and revenues of the government have meaningfully decreased in a permanent manner? What government are you talking about? The U.S. government? Any government anywhere? Governments change all of the time. Look at the end of the Soviet Union for a recent example.
• panarky 4y ago
  What's absurd is any tax scheme that takes a larger share of labor income than it does of passive income. People who live off the labor of others should pay tax at a higher rate than people who actually perform the labor.
• pwinnski 4y ago
  Why would maximizing the well-being of its citizens naturally result in abandoning responsibilities and shrinking by more than 15%? That seems counter-intuitive to me.
• leoedin 4y ago
  The UK privatised whole swaths of industries in the 1980s and 90s. Telecoms, transport, manufacturing - all were owned by the government and then sold off. Taxes were lowered. The scope of out-of-work benefits was reduced. You can see the drop in the charts - https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-have-government-revenues-changed-over-time https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-have-gove... So it clearly can happen. Whether it should happen or not is a different question.