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Okay... That'll fund like what.. An hour of governance? Why more Americans Are not mad at the complete waste of our tax money is beyond me For a billion doll

Okay... That'll fund like what.. An hour of governance? Why more Americans Are not mad at the complete waste of our tax money is beyond me For a billion dollars, other countries are successfully building entire transit systems, high speed rails, other infrastructure, or running massive welfare programs. We should be getting so much more.

edmundsauto 2y ago
We should receive much more value and yes the people who owe on taxes should pay much more than when it’s not enforced. All this fake patriotism in America. Pay your fucking taxes and you won’t be threaten by IRS efficiency.
- anon291 2y ago
  I'm not threatened by the IRS. I pay my taxes on time every year, and plan on doing so. I think it's your duty. But I'm also not a complete pushover and realize I should be getting more for them. We all should.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primar...
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S Basically stable since WWII, which is kind of nuts considering it's still only just below the level necessary for a World War, and on top of that real GDP per capita has increased, so this is a huge increase in taxation per capita over time even adjusted for inflation. And yet with a much smaller budget the WPA and so on did more, which does quite imply that the problem is government efficiency rather than government revenue.
  - merrywhether 2y ago
    Or it implies that society and technology have advanced in the meantime, expanding the scope of what the government is expected to do. For instance, at the end of WWII we did not have the federal highway system but the nation is much better off for that on-going expenditure. Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. And to use your direct comparison, can you imagine what the data would look like if the US economy actually pivoted to a war footing with the existential urgency akin to that during WWII (which was vastly more expensive than WWI even)?
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > For instance, at the end of WWII we did not have the federal highway system but the nation is much better off for that on-going expenditure. The federal highway budget is $60 billion. It probably isn't spending the money particularly efficiently, but it's also only 1% of the federal budget. > Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. Shouldn't this result in lower costs? You need a $100,000 system administrator instead of two dozen $40,000 clerks, but that doesn't sum to a larger number. > And to use your direct comparison, can you imagine what the data would look like if the US economy actually pivoted to a war footing with the existential urgency akin to that during WWII (which was vastly more expensive than WWI even)? It's not obvious that it would dramatically change, because the US already maintains an enormous standing army, and much of the other expenditures are in the nature of assistance for low income people, which would be displaced by those people getting drafted into the war, or obviated because they're meant to offset e.g. high rents, which would decline with local demand if 10% of the population left the continent to go fight in a foreign land.
    - anon291 2y ago
      > Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. This is the sort of rhetoric from pro-waste activists that just sends me over the edge. Actually, no. The federal government today is less pleasant to interact with due to the online systems. However, the online systems are supposed to make it cheaper. If you're saying we're paying more for worse service, then we should axe the online systems. Duh. The few times I've had to interact with the feds, I now just escalate direct to my house representative and get a person on the line who can actually fix something directly. Much more pleasant. And if that's cheaper, we should do that.
Glyptodon 2y ago
It's be nice if the two parties didn't have a goal of making bad policies to prove their points.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  They don’t. They make bad policy, to stay in power. Political ideologues nowadays generally have no points to make. They believe in whatever will keep them in power. That’s how we end up with a nation full of ‘conservatives’ who routinely outspend ‘liberals’. And we have a nation full of ‘liberals’ who ‘believe’ in increasing the power of the state.
palmfacehn 2y ago
Many are fed up with the status quo, the other portion seems intolerant of any criticism of state largess. As another comment has pointed out, those who approve of the state's spending and feel it is a good value are free to donate to the Treasury Dept. I imagine this wouldn't be so controversial if taxes were not so exorbitant, if the tax code was straightforward and if institutions were more inspiring of the public's confidence. Class warfare isn't an alternative to acknowledging these problems.
- danaris 2y ago
  "exorbitant" compared to what modern democracy...? Certainly not exorbitant compared to what they were here in the US in, say, the period post-WWII. Y'know, one of the biggest boom times in our nation's history, when we had massive innovation and growth of the middle class.
  - palmfacehn 2y ago
    The US has a unique foundational culture of individualist liberalism. It is hard to understand the modern context of the right to self-government without the American precedent. Many of the things we take for granted were created by this philosophy. To compare it to other "modern democracies" is to discount the unique tradition of the US. Compare America to America rather than expecting that the US adhere to the relatively more collectivist norms of other nations. The Gilded Age was an even more productive era in terms of growth and upward mobility, with no income taxes levied at the Federal level. It was the progressive era that brought an end to this prosperity and ushered in the IRS, the 3rd central bank and an increasing number of foreign conflicts. Further economic interventions brought about and prolonged the great depression. After WWII, much of the world's industrial base had been destroyed. Militaries funded by taxes destroyed productive capacity. Attributing this period of relative prosperity to the income tax would be seriously misguided. Instead you might have asked how much more successful the post-war economy would have been with lower taxes and less central planning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913 > It also established a one percent tax on income above $3,000 per year; the tax affected approximately three percent of the population. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/independence-day-taxes-then-and-now/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/independence-day-taxes-then-a... >Taxation in the United States in 1776 was incredibly different than what it is today. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, and no payroll taxes. Instead, the American Colonies (and to a larger extent, the British Crown) were primarily funded by tariffs and excise taxes. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-today/early-american-economics-facts https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-... >The average tax rate in colonial America was between 1 and 1.5% And for that much the colonists fought a war for independence. The "modern democracies" you reach for would most likely not exist as such if not for that precedent.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
It is extremely clear why when you look at the outlays. [1] 75%+ of revenue is spent on welfare of various kinds. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727
- bobmcnamara 2y ago
  Where are you seeing that? Or are you counting taxpayer funded and taxpayer paying programs as welfare?
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    im counting everything. If the question is "what do we get for 4.5 trillion in taxes, and 6 trillion is spending", the answer is largely "welfare programs".
    - merrywhether 2y ago
      Isn’t anything a government does ostensibly classified as working to improve collective welfare? That’s the basis of the social contract.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        "welfare" [1] is generally a distinct concept from "public goods" [2] Welfare is typically ment to mean policies to alleviate the hardships of poverty. These can be wealth transfers or socialized insurance policies to reduce the variability of outcomes. Public goods are services like roads, courts, or firemen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
        anon291 2y ago
        In that case, neither Social Security and Medicare are welfare. Social Security is given to everyone regardless of income; so is Medicare.

edmundsauto 2y ago

We should receive much more value and yes the people who owe on taxes should pay much more than when it’s not enforced. All this fake patriotism in America. Pay your fucking taxes and you won’t be threaten by IRS efficiency.

anon291 2y ago
I'm not threatened by the IRS. I pay my taxes on time every year, and plan on doing so. I think it's your duty. But I'm also not a complete pushover and realize I should be getting more for them. We all should.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primar...

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S Basically stable since WWII, which is kind of nuts considering it's still only just below the level necessary for a World War, and on top of that real GDP per capita has increased, so this is a huge increase in taxation per capita over time even adjusted for inflation. And yet with a much smaller budget the WPA and so on did more, which does quite imply that the problem is government efficiency rather than government revenue.
- merrywhether 2y ago
  Or it implies that society and technology have advanced in the meantime, expanding the scope of what the government is expected to do. For instance, at the end of WWII we did not have the federal highway system but the nation is much better off for that on-going expenditure. Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. And to use your direct comparison, can you imagine what the data would look like if the US economy actually pivoted to a war footing with the existential urgency akin to that during WWII (which was vastly more expensive than WWI even)?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > For instance, at the end of WWII we did not have the federal highway system but the nation is much better off for that on-going expenditure. The federal highway budget is $60 billion. It probably isn't spending the money particularly efficiently, but it's also only 1% of the federal budget. > Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. Shouldn't this result in lower costs? You need a $100,000 system administrator instead of two dozen $40,000 clerks, but that doesn't sum to a larger number. > And to use your direct comparison, can you imagine what the data would look like if the US economy actually pivoted to a war footing with the existential urgency akin to that during WWII (which was vastly more expensive than WWI even)? It's not obvious that it would dramatically change, because the US already maintains an enormous standing army, and much of the other expenditures are in the nature of assistance for low income people, which would be displaced by those people getting drafted into the war, or obviated because they're meant to offset e.g. high rents, which would decline with local demand if 10% of the population left the continent to go fight in a foreign land.
  - anon291 2y ago
    > Most government interaction is now possible online which requires expensive staff and infra to maintain, but is certainly an improvement over having to do everything in person. This is the sort of rhetoric from pro-waste activists that just sends me over the edge. Actually, no. The federal government today is less pleasant to interact with due to the online systems. However, the online systems are supposed to make it cheaper. If you're saying we're paying more for worse service, then we should axe the online systems. Duh. The few times I've had to interact with the feds, I now just escalate direct to my house representative and get a person on the line who can actually fix something directly. Much more pleasant. And if that's cheaper, we should do that.

Glyptodon 2y ago

It's be nice if the two parties didn't have a goal of making bad policies to prove their points.

bilbo0s 2y ago
They don’t. They make bad policy, to stay in power. Political ideologues nowadays generally have no points to make. They believe in whatever will keep them in power. That’s how we end up with a nation full of ‘conservatives’ who routinely outspend ‘liberals’. And we have a nation full of ‘liberals’ who ‘believe’ in increasing the power of the state.

palmfacehn 2y ago

Many are fed up with the status quo, the other portion seems intolerant of any criticism of state largess. As another comment has pointed out, those who approve of the state's spending and feel it is a good value are free to donate to the Treasury Dept. I imagine this wouldn't be so controversial if taxes were not so exorbitant, if the tax code was straightforward and if institutions were more inspiring of the public's confidence. Class warfare isn't an alternative to acknowledging these problems.

danaris 2y ago
"exorbitant" compared to what modern democracy...? Certainly not exorbitant compared to what they were here in the US in, say, the period post-WWII. Y'know, one of the biggest boom times in our nation's history, when we had massive innovation and growth of the middle class.
- palmfacehn 2y ago
  The US has a unique foundational culture of individualist liberalism. It is hard to understand the modern context of the right to self-government without the American precedent. Many of the things we take for granted were created by this philosophy. To compare it to other "modern democracies" is to discount the unique tradition of the US. Compare America to America rather than expecting that the US adhere to the relatively more collectivist norms of other nations. The Gilded Age was an even more productive era in terms of growth and upward mobility, with no income taxes levied at the Federal level. It was the progressive era that brought an end to this prosperity and ushered in the IRS, the 3rd central bank and an increasing number of foreign conflicts. Further economic interventions brought about and prolonged the great depression. After WWII, much of the world's industrial base had been destroyed. Militaries funded by taxes destroyed productive capacity. Attributing this period of relative prosperity to the income tax would be seriously misguided. Instead you might have asked how much more successful the post-war economy would have been with lower taxes and less central planning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913 > It also established a one percent tax on income above $3,000 per year; the tax affected approximately three percent of the population. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/independence-day-taxes-then-and-now/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/independence-day-taxes-then-a... >Taxation in the United States in 1776 was incredibly different than what it is today. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, and no payroll taxes. Instead, the American Colonies (and to a larger extent, the British Crown) were primarily funded by tariffs and excise taxes. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-today/early-american-economics-facts https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-... >The average tax rate in colonial America was between 1 and 1.5% And for that much the colonists fought a war for independence. The "modern democracies" you reach for would most likely not exist as such if not for that precedent.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

It is extremely clear why when you look at the outlays. [1] 75%+ of revenue is spent on welfare of various kinds. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727

bobmcnamara 2y ago
Where are you seeing that? Or are you counting taxpayer funded and taxpayer paying programs as welfare?
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  im counting everything. If the question is "what do we get for 4.5 trillion in taxes, and 6 trillion is spending", the answer is largely "welfare programs".
  - merrywhether 2y ago
    Isn’t anything a government does ostensibly classified as working to improve collective welfare? That’s the basis of the social contract.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      "welfare" [1] is generally a distinct concept from "public goods" [2] Welfare is typically ment to mean policies to alleviate the hardships of poverty. These can be wealth transfers or socialized insurance policies to reduce the variability of outcomes. Public goods are services like roads, courts, or firemen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
      - anon291 2y ago
        In that case, neither Social Security and Medicare are welfare. Social Security is given to everyone regardless of income; so is Medicare.