4 ms·

And how do you propose that government finds money to pay for roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental prote

And how do you propose that government finds money to pay for roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards etc?

JoshTriplett 13y ago
> roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards Congratulations, you've enumerated most of the uncontroversial activities of government, which take up a few percent of the budget, and several of which are paid for in whole or in part by use fees.
- chiaro 13y ago
  >few percent of the budget >national security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY...
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    To be fair, if it was only actually used for defense, it really would be only a few percent. And then to be extra fair, "old people and the poor should not die of starvation or easily preventable diseases just because they haven't saved," is also not very controversial, and takes up more than a few percentage points of our governments budget.
- alphakappa 13y ago
  These aren't just a few percent. Defense spending itself is a fifth of the budget [1]. Regardless of how much of the budget each of these items are, the point is that these are paid through taxes. Corporate taxes are just another one of the many forms of taxation we have, so while you can make an argument to simplify these, or to cut some spending, it's silly to characterize taxation itself as some sort of robbery. Your western standards of living would not exist if not for the things that society has deemed appropriate for government to do. 1. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
cinquemb 13y ago
Issue more treasuries and sell them to the Federal Reserve (since no one else will buy them) in another kick the can down the road way… oh wait…
praxeologist 13y ago
Anarchist libertarians do have answers to all of those. Of course, I am not going to attempt to answer it all in one post here. If you genuinely want to learn, you could start with Block's excellent book on roads, free online here: http://mises.org/document/4084/ http://mises.org/document/4084/ "But who will build the roads!?!?" is the question we typically make fun of statists for believing that monopoly provision is ideal.
icelancer 13y ago
>roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards Take a guess on the percentage of federal budget these services consume on a yearly basis.
aantix 13y ago
Aren't most of those paid for by property and energy (gasoline) taxes?
cdoxsey 13y ago
Corporate taxation is just double taxation anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_taxation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_taxation. Why not just tax individuals?
ahomescu1 13y ago
About half of these are paid and run by local or state governments. Concretely: roads, bridges, police, firefighters, even schools and hospitals. They're not supported by federal taxes.

And how do you propose that government finds money to pay for roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards etc?

JoshTriplett 13y ago

> roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards Congratulations, you've enumerated most of the uncontroversial activities of government, which take up a few percent of the budget, and several of which are paid for in whole or in part by use fees.

chiaro 13y ago
>few percent of the budget >national security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY...
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  To be fair, if it was only actually used for defense, it really would be only a few percent. And then to be extra fair, "old people and the poor should not die of starvation or easily preventable diseases just because they haven't saved," is also not very controversial, and takes up more than a few percentage points of our governments budget.
alphakappa 13y ago
These aren't just a few percent. Defense spending itself is a fifth of the budget [1]. Regardless of how much of the budget each of these items are, the point is that these are paid through taxes. Corporate taxes are just another one of the many forms of taxation we have, so while you can make an argument to simplify these, or to cut some spending, it's silly to characterize taxation itself as some sort of robbery. Your western standards of living would not exist if not for the things that society has deemed appropriate for government to do. 1. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258

cinquemb 13y ago

Issue more treasuries and sell them to the Federal Reserve (since no one else will buy them) in another kick the can down the road way… oh wait…

praxeologist 13y ago

Anarchist libertarians do have answers to all of those. Of course, I am not going to attempt to answer it all in one post here. If you genuinely want to learn, you could start with Block's excellent book on roads, free online here: http://mises.org/document/4084/ http://mises.org/document/4084/ "But who will build the roads!?!?" is the question we typically make fun of statists for believing that monopoly provision is ideal.

icelancer 13y ago

>roads, bridges, dams, police, firefighters, national security, national parks, environmental protection, regulatory standards Take a guess on the percentage of federal budget these services consume on a yearly basis.

aantix 13y ago

Aren't most of those paid for by property and energy (gasoline) taxes?

cdoxsey 13y ago

Corporate taxation is just double taxation anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_taxation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_taxation. Why not just tax individuals?

ahomescu1 13y ago

About half of these are paid and run by local or state governments. Concretely: roads, bridges, police, firefighters, even schools and hospitals. They're not supported by federal taxes.