6 ms·

The USA had all of those things before the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

by oceanplexian 3y ago

TulliusCicero 3y ago
We had waaayyyyy less of them.
- sneak 3y ago
  We also had way fewer people. The system scales with the same people doing the same work for the same money, with or without taxes. Roads, schools, and hospitals existed before taxes, and they will exist after them.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    No, we had far less per capita. Medical services are far more commonly used now than in 1913, partially because we have a lot more of them that are actually useful.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Roads were paid either by taxes, or by forced labour, schools were paid for by church tithes[1] or were only available for the rich, but I'll give you hospitals. [1] AKA taxes.
notahacker 3y ago
and also state taxes on income or pretty close proxies thereof. I'm not sure anyone wants 1913 roads, hospitals or access to schooling either.
lawlessone 3y ago
They outlawed slavery in 1865. Theres about 48 years between these two things. Many states raised income via property taxes which also included taxes on slaves. I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest slavery subsidized not having an income tax.
sangnoir 3y ago
Interstates were built after 1913, and I think they are great.
autoexec 3y ago
And they were all total garbage. Roads were a mess, sometimes paid for by private individuals to suit their own interests. Rich people had better quality roads than poor people, but travel was terrible basically everywhere. Roads were also sometimes built and maintained by the use of slaves and forced labor (corvée) where local courts just ordered people to start digging while letting rich people buy their way out of their obligation, while poor people were stuck serving out their time. Policing often depended partly on volunteers, while once again, rich people routinely hired private police/security/slave patrols and poor people got little protection comparatively. Garbage collection was just people dumping their shit wherever they felt like it, including into water supplies. All the same problems with schools too. Schools were for the rich or the religious, and even when the country saw a need for public schools they were a huge mess. (https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/ https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/) Taxes gave us organized systems and standards that meant that services like roads and policing and trash collection were more consistent and a little less dependent on how much money you had. Things are so much better now thanks to taxes that I can't imagine anyone wanting to go back to how things were before them.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sneak 3y ago
  I believe things are so much better now thanks to technological and social improvements which are orthogonal to, and not caused by, taxation. Your argument seems to be like the pirates and global warming one; correlation is not causation. A steelman argument might be that tax-funded schools and mandated public education caused these things, but ultimately the root cause there would be greater access to education, not the taxes used to fund them. Improving educational outcomes is not dependent on taxes; we use laws to force people to buy automobile insurance and the same could be done with children’s education without the state in the payment loop. Indeed, private schools are routinely better for educational outcomes than the ones funded by taxes. By this logic (that taxation is the basis for the progress in society) one should see greater technological and social advances and quality of life with increased taxation and more centralized standardization, but we don’t. Instead we got a forever drone war and the military-industrial complex. For every GPS or space shuttle or NIST, there is also an Iraq or Vietnam or Afghanistan.
tzs 3y ago
I think you overlooked the context. Someone said they had a philosophical objection to taxes--they did not limit it to income taxes. The USA of course had taxes long before the 16th Amendment.

The USA had all of those things before the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

We had waaayyyyy less of them.

sneak 3y ago
We also had way fewer people. The system scales with the same people doing the same work for the same money, with or without taxes. Roads, schools, and hospitals existed before taxes, and they will exist after them.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  No, we had far less per capita. Medical services are far more commonly used now than in 1913, partially because we have a lot more of them that are actually useful.
- vkou 3y ago
  Roads were paid either by taxes, or by forced labour, schools were paid for by church tithes[1] or were only available for the rich, but I'll give you hospitals. [1] AKA taxes.

notahacker 3y ago

and also state taxes on income or pretty close proxies thereof. I'm not sure anyone wants 1913 roads, hospitals or access to schooling either.

lawlessone 3y ago

They outlawed slavery in 1865. Theres about 48 years between these two things. Many states raised income via property taxes which also included taxes on slaves. I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest slavery subsidized not having an income tax.

sangnoir 3y ago

Interstates were built after 1913, and I think they are great.

autoexec 3y ago

And they were all total garbage. Roads were a mess, sometimes paid for by private individuals to suit their own interests. Rich people had better quality roads than poor people, but travel was terrible basically everywhere. Roads were also sometimes built and maintained by the use of slaves and forced labor (corvée) where local courts just ordered people to start digging while letting rich people buy their way out of their obligation, while poor people were stuck serving out their time. Policing often depended partly on volunteers, while once again, rich people routinely hired private police/security/slave patrols and poor people got little protection comparatively. Garbage collection was just people dumping their shit wherever they felt like it, including into water supplies. All the same problems with schools too. Schools were for the rich or the religious, and even when the country saw a need for public schools they were a huge mess. (https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/ https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/) Taxes gave us organized systems and standards that meant that services like roads and policing and trash collection were more consistent and a little less dependent on how much money you had. Things are so much better now thanks to taxes that I can't imagine anyone wanting to go back to how things were before them.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sneak 3y ago
I believe things are so much better now thanks to technological and social improvements which are orthogonal to, and not caused by, taxation. Your argument seems to be like the pirates and global warming one; correlation is not causation. A steelman argument might be that tax-funded schools and mandated public education caused these things, but ultimately the root cause there would be greater access to education, not the taxes used to fund them. Improving educational outcomes is not dependent on taxes; we use laws to force people to buy automobile insurance and the same could be done with children’s education without the state in the payment loop. Indeed, private schools are routinely better for educational outcomes than the ones funded by taxes. By this logic (that taxation is the basis for the progress in society) one should see greater technological and social advances and quality of life with increased taxation and more centralized standardization, but we don’t. Instead we got a forever drone war and the military-industrial complex. For every GPS or space shuttle or NIST, there is also an Iraq or Vietnam or Afghanistan.

tzs 3y ago

I think you overlooked the context. Someone said they had a philosophical objection to taxes--they did not limit it to income taxes. The USA of course had taxes long before the 16th Amendment.