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Conservatives want to cut taxes to force liberals to cut spending. Liberals want to increase spending to force the conservatives to increase taxes. But voters

by jimmar 1y ago

Conservatives want to cut taxes to force liberals to cut spending. Liberals want to increase spending to force the conservatives to increase taxes. But voters don't like increased taxes (on themselves) or decreased spending. So we end up with the worst of both worlds--higher spending without the tax revenue to afford it. Then we get to watch each side win the war of opinion on cable news. They throw each other under the bus, eventually come to a deal, and both sides claim victory. Rinse. Repeat.

ryan_lane 1y ago
> Conservatives want to cut taxes to force liberals to cut spending. Liberals want to increase spending to force the conservatives to increase taxes. This is straight propaganda. Both parties increase spending. One party cuts taxes for the rich, the other increases taxes on the rich. Conservatives haven't been "small government" and haven't cut taxes for folks other than the rich in a long, long time. Even calling them "small government" is a misnomer, because that propaganda is about privatization, not reducing costs (private services are less efficient and more costly than the government service they replace!) Let's stop calling the problem "both-sides". One side is considerably worse for the economy, and you and I know it's the conservatives.
- anon291 1y ago
  A 'cost' paid for by a private service directly translates into prices and salaries. Whereas a government wealth transfer program appears as taxation and handouts. Everyone likes the former. No one likes the latter. Why this is still confusing in 2025 is beyond me
  - ryan_lane 1y ago
    This is why I say it's propaganda. The same underlying service is being done. It hasn't been cut. It's been shifted from a government service, to a private industry. The government pays roughly the same amount they were previously paying (or in a lot of cases slightly more, with the promise of paying less in the future), the private company provides the service as cheaply as they can, and takes a cut of the cost for profit, benefiting a small number of people, while providing a worse service level for tax payers. This isn't a capitalism vs socialism thing. My issue with it is that privatization is blatant corruption sold as "capitalism". There's no capitalism here, because there's no competition, outside of the bidding on the contract. Competing on who can provide the cheapest service doesn't improve the service; in fact, it reduces the service quality to maximize profit. Reducing service quality to maximize profit would be fine, from a capitalism point of view, if others were offering the same service to the customer.
    - anon291 1y ago
      It really depends on the industry, but 'bidding for a contract' does not entail a lack of competition. Yes, for certain industries, like utilities, there is no competition based on the way things are set up (and really based on the foreseeable way in which things could be set up). For things such as requisitions of commodity items, then competition is not only possible but preferable. So I disagree with your blanket characterization of things. People really need to have more nuance when discussing these things. Privatizing railroads is different than privatizing food processing.
      - ryan_lane 1y ago
        I'm saying it's not competitive because they're not competing to provide a better service, they're competing to provide the same service at a lower cost, but the quality of the service is effectively always worse than the original government provided service. That isn't capitalism. Capitalism would be to provide multiple options to the users of the service, and have the providers compete against each other in a proper market. I used to work for the government (Naval Oceanographic Office), and I worked with the contracting agencies on areas that had been privatized and it was a nightmare. Every few years you'd have multiple companies bid to run the service, but for the most part the same contractor would win the bid because they wrote the software in such a way that only they could run. It had relatively no documentation, had piss poor processes wrapping it, and the subject matter experts worked for the contracting agency. When the contract did change, everything would grind to a halt. For sure, that was more expensive than the original government provided service, but once something is privatized, it can never go back. I agree we need to have more nuance here. You for some reason think I'm suggesting that "things such as requisitions of commodity items" shouldn't be private, which is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that existing government provided services, like the post office, for example, are run cheaper and more effectively by the government, and turning services like these private is for the sake of corruption.
- marcusverus 1y ago
  > Conservatives... haven't cut taxes for folks other than the rich in a long, long time. This is a lie: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-tax-cut.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-t... > private services are less efficient and more costly than the government service they replace! Yes, this is why capitalism famously collapsed in the 90s, and all of the formerly capitalist countries socialized their economies!
  - stahtops 1y ago
    > The tax savings were relatively small for many families, however. The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center. > The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings, according to the Tax Policy Center; the top 1 percent received nearly 17 percent of the total benefit, and got an average tax cut of more than $30,000. And that’s not even factoring in the law’s huge cut to corporate taxes, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy households that own the most stock. Don’t be part of the problem Marcus. The reality is cutting taxes for the poor by $2/day, for the rich by $80/day, and telling everyone they got a tax break with a straight face… while you simultaneously cut services, issue policies that cause inflation, and levy taxes domestically on the poor through tariffs is the republican way!
    - marcusverus 1y ago
      This makes me laugh. > The tax savings were relatively small for many families, however. The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center. If you take someone who pays a small amount of taxes (the middle fifth paid $2170 in taxes in 2017), and give them a big tax cut ($780 in savings would mean they got a ~30% cut), the number is still small. Pretending that this is insignificant is just goofy. > The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings. People who pay the most taxes get the most out of tax cuts? Scandalous! Income taxes paid by quintile: Lowest: $-476 Fourth: $-677 Third: $2170 Second: $6952 First : $31,132 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0103M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0103M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0104M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0104M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0105M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0105M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0106M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0106M
anon291 1y ago
The underlying belief of both is that America is exceptional thus will magically be saved from debt. Now America is exceptional for many reasons, but if we don't fix our debt we will meet the same unexceptional fate as many empires before us.

by jimmar 1y ago

ryan_lane 1y ago

> Conservatives want to cut taxes to force liberals to cut spending. Liberals want to increase spending to force the conservatives to increase taxes. This is straight propaganda. Both parties increase spending. One party cuts taxes for the rich, the other increases taxes on the rich. Conservatives haven't been "small government" and haven't cut taxes for folks other than the rich in a long, long time. Even calling them "small government" is a misnomer, because that propaganda is about privatization, not reducing costs (private services are less efficient and more costly than the government service they replace!) Let's stop calling the problem "both-sides". One side is considerably worse for the economy, and you and I know it's the conservatives.

anon291 1y ago
A 'cost' paid for by a private service directly translates into prices and salaries. Whereas a government wealth transfer program appears as taxation and handouts. Everyone likes the former. No one likes the latter. Why this is still confusing in 2025 is beyond me
- ryan_lane 1y ago
  This is why I say it's propaganda. The same underlying service is being done. It hasn't been cut. It's been shifted from a government service, to a private industry. The government pays roughly the same amount they were previously paying (or in a lot of cases slightly more, with the promise of paying less in the future), the private company provides the service as cheaply as they can, and takes a cut of the cost for profit, benefiting a small number of people, while providing a worse service level for tax payers. This isn't a capitalism vs socialism thing. My issue with it is that privatization is blatant corruption sold as "capitalism". There's no capitalism here, because there's no competition, outside of the bidding on the contract. Competing on who can provide the cheapest service doesn't improve the service; in fact, it reduces the service quality to maximize profit. Reducing service quality to maximize profit would be fine, from a capitalism point of view, if others were offering the same service to the customer.
  - anon291 1y ago
    It really depends on the industry, but 'bidding for a contract' does not entail a lack of competition. Yes, for certain industries, like utilities, there is no competition based on the way things are set up (and really based on the foreseeable way in which things could be set up). For things such as requisitions of commodity items, then competition is not only possible but preferable. So I disagree with your blanket characterization of things. People really need to have more nuance when discussing these things. Privatizing railroads is different than privatizing food processing.
    - ryan_lane 1y ago
      I'm saying it's not competitive because they're not competing to provide a better service, they're competing to provide the same service at a lower cost, but the quality of the service is effectively always worse than the original government provided service. That isn't capitalism. Capitalism would be to provide multiple options to the users of the service, and have the providers compete against each other in a proper market. I used to work for the government (Naval Oceanographic Office), and I worked with the contracting agencies on areas that had been privatized and it was a nightmare. Every few years you'd have multiple companies bid to run the service, but for the most part the same contractor would win the bid because they wrote the software in such a way that only they could run. It had relatively no documentation, had piss poor processes wrapping it, and the subject matter experts worked for the contracting agency. When the contract did change, everything would grind to a halt. For sure, that was more expensive than the original government provided service, but once something is privatized, it can never go back. I agree we need to have more nuance here. You for some reason think I'm suggesting that "things such as requisitions of commodity items" shouldn't be private, which is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that existing government provided services, like the post office, for example, are run cheaper and more effectively by the government, and turning services like these private is for the sake of corruption.
marcusverus 1y ago
> Conservatives... haven't cut taxes for folks other than the rich in a long, long time. This is a lie: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-tax-cut.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-t... > private services are less efficient and more costly than the government service they replace! Yes, this is why capitalism famously collapsed in the 90s, and all of the formerly capitalist countries socialized their economies!
- stahtops 1y ago
  > The tax savings were relatively small for many families, however. The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center. > The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings, according to the Tax Policy Center; the top 1 percent received nearly 17 percent of the total benefit, and got an average tax cut of more than $30,000. And that’s not even factoring in the law’s huge cut to corporate taxes, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy households that own the most stock. Don’t be part of the problem Marcus. The reality is cutting taxes for the poor by $2/day, for the rich by $80/day, and telling everyone they got a tax break with a straight face… while you simultaneously cut services, issue policies that cause inflation, and levy taxes domestically on the poor through tariffs is the republican way!
  - marcusverus 1y ago
    This makes me laugh. > The tax savings were relatively small for many families, however. The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center. If you take someone who pays a small amount of taxes (the middle fifth paid $2170 in taxes in 2017), and give them a big tax cut ($780 in savings would mean they got a ~30% cut), the number is still small. Pretending that this is insignificant is just goofy. > The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings. People who pay the most taxes get the most out of tax cuts? Scandalous! Income taxes paid by quintile: Lowest: $-476 Fourth: $-677 Third: $2170 Second: $6952 First : $31,132 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0103M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0103M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0104M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0104M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0105M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0105M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0106M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0106M

anon291 1y ago

The underlying belief of both is that America is exceptional thus will magically be saved from debt. Now America is exceptional for many reasons, but if we don't fix our debt we will meet the same unexceptional fate as many empires before us.