Broadly speaking, the Right believes that your stuff is yours. The Left believes your stuff doesn’t really become your stuff until the government says it is. So the Right sees taxes as a way to pay for necessary government services. The Left sees taxes as an instrument of social control and redistributive justice.
Because it’s what Marxists do. And Barack Obama is a perfect example, when in the debates he said that he’d raise capital gains tax rates, even if it resulted in reduced revenue, out of “fairness.”
It’s not new with the Marxists. The idea that what you earn is yours only by the grace of the King, or God, or the local lord, goes back a long way. The only novelty the Marxists and their more recent avatars have introduced is depersonalizing The Owner.
You’re not owned by one specific man any more — you’re owned by The People, Society, The Good Of The Many, et cetera. Somewhat more abstract than Zeus or Jehovah, but, ha ha, still in need of (well-paid!) earthly oracles and priests to interpret its mighty and divine will.
It’s much like the transformation of religion from Catholicism to Greenism: the new religion is more depersonalized, more inscrutable. Perhaps to the high priests this is a feature, not a bug, since a more inscrutable abstract Diety is harder for the hoi polloi to interpret on their own. Less danger of a protestant reformation wherein the common believer rejects the expensive services of priest and bishop.
But man, isn’t it mind-blowing that people can buy indulgences (e.g. “carbon offsets”) with no awareness at all that they are acting exactly like their 15th century ancestors?
Or it could simply be a matter of math. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, given what the Republican Pledge to America explicitly exempts from the budget axe, keeping the Bush tax cuts and balancing the budget would require abolish all the rest of government to get to balance by 2020. Everything. No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more NIH. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security.
In short, you can’t get there from here.
The reintroduction of indulgences isn’t half as irritating as the reintroduction of the Inquisition.
Chris, nothing you wrote had anything to do with the topic of the post. I can see why you’d like to change the subject, though.
he said that he’d raise capital gains tax rates, even if it resulted in reduced revenue, out of “fairness.”
This is clearly not about math – at least not in the way you mean, Chris.
It appears from your comments that Team Obama can do no wrong, and opponents always have a fatal flaw in their plans.
I think the differences have more to do with your view of economic activity than property per se. The left essentially view most economic activity as one party taking something from another, while the capitalist views most economic activity as one party trading something to another. This difference leads the left to a view where most economic activity is fundamentally unjust. Both sides believe the role of government is to police society so that injustice is mitigated. They just don’t see justice in the same places.
Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would go a long way in correcting this since folks will see the government taking their money every time they buy something. It also eliminates the redistribution argument since it would be the same rate for everyone.
Karl is correct. To the Left, any difference in net worth is also a net difference of power: there can be no “trade” between poor people and McDonalds or Walmart because the consumer has no choice. He is forced to buy Walmart’s tainted goods — he is forced to eat high-calorie/low-nutrient Big Macs. Thus the proper role of government is to perpetually redistribute wealth to minitgate this social injustice.
The Left does not think “your stuff doesn’t really become your stuff until the government says it is.” Nor do they think that ” most economic activity as one party taking something from another.” These are false and very hollow strawmen, which have nothing to do with the current tax argument.
The current tax argument is that it is mathematically impossible to reduce the deficit and cut taxes unless you are willing to cut Federal spending to pre-20th century levels.
*mitigate. “minitgate” sounds like a word Rush Limbaugh invented.
The current tax argument is that it is mathematically impossible to reduce the deficit and cut taxes unless you are willing to cut Federal spending to pre-20th century levels.
I’m assuming you mean tax rates (your reference above to “the bush tax cuts”). So higher rates will lead to increased revenue? I hear laffing in the background.
>Unless you are willing to cut Federal spending to pre-20th century levels.
YES!!!!! DING DING DING DING Chris says somthing I agree with.
Reducing the federal Government to the levels before the great depression. (whoose length and severity was increased by the very government programs designed to fix it)
You need to revert to the point that the government can not buy votes with other peoples money. To the point where NO ONE can count on the government handouts and must be personally responsible.
Somewhere about 5% of GDP (1/8th its current size) would be about right.
Excuse me, Chris, but the Brookings and Urban Institutes — the authors of the study you quote — are “nonpartisan”? On what planet?
It’s all bullshit. I’ve looked at the Federal Budget myself — anyone can, it’s online — and I’d have no problem balancing it right now, for FY 2011, even using the miserable revenues garnered by a “progressive” (= stupid, fiscal boom-and-bust promoting) tax rate system, let alone the more stable and healthier revenues of a reasonable system. And, no, I wouldn’t need to shut down the National Parks or FAA.
The fundamental flaw in your “analysis” is that it’s projection, out into the future. The lovely thing about projection is you can project anything you like. That’s how Presidents have “balanced” the budget in only five more years for the last half century or so, excepting Clinton the Lucky. We’re always on the road to a balanced budget, according to the party in power, just like an economy powered entirely by fusion energy or solar power, or the Democrats’ “Recovery” is right around the corner.
It’s time to stop swallowing the bullshit promises. Cut spending right now. Drastically. Let government live within its traditional Constitutional borders and the taxpayers’ means right now. No more bailouts. No more equalizing “opportunity” for historical “injustices” no longer within living memory even by great-grandparents. No more social engineering. Keep the borders strong, run the Federal Courts and air-traffic control, pay the park rangers and Coast Guard, and to hell with trying futilely to guarantee the welfare and engineer the behaviour of every last of the 200 million adults in this land.
Government does:
Courts, FAA, EPA, Defense, Border protection,
Maybe Parks and Transportation infrastructure.
No overseas bases, no foreign aid, NO entitlements of any kind.
Ideally all paid for by a consumption/sales tax.
Functions that have become government like FDA would be handled by private organizations like UL handles electrical safety.
Enforcement would by via contracts and the courts.
Take the FDA as an example, there is no consequence or recourse when the FDA screws up. A private organization would loose its credibility, and cease to exist if it approved things in error.
The private organizations only value, its only real asset its reputation.
If it does badly then people will stop trusting its approvals.
Think consumer reports.
The Rahn curve shows that gov’t spending should be between 15%-25% of GDP in order to maximize economic growth. I guess one way to assuage leftists is to tell them that they can have a gov’t every bit as big and powerful and they want. Just keep it at levels of spending that encourage optimal economic growth rates and eventually your total GDP will be such that a larger gov’t will be sustainable. Their problem is they keep trying to pluck ever bigger governments out of the future and unnecessarily bring them back to our time. What are they saying now? That it would take us 120 years to pay off all our unfunded liabilities. Our politicians have accelerated the growth of government to one of 2120 sizes and proportions. In the rush to have it all right now they’ve bloated our outlays to levels that exceed the entire revenue of the world’s countries combined. If the progressives would just hold their horses they’d get the levels of revenue needed to sustain the entitlements they feel people deserve. Now they are unwittingly smoothering the levels of growth that are needed to responsibly attain the expansion of government entitlements.
Rand,
I think there’s a different liberal position than what you are expressing that you should understand.
Conservatives believe that capitalism is an inherently fair system, and whatever you can manage to grab and stuff in your pocket you must have deserved it. Liberals disagree with this.
For example, do we have equal opportunity in this country? If we did there should be no statistically significant difference between the incomes of the children of rich people and the incomes of the children of poor people. In reality, however, your parent’s income is a strong statistical predictor of your income. The most sensible explanation of this fact is that we don’t have complete equal opportunity.
As another example, between 2001 and 2006 I owned a house and the price went up $300,000. Between 2006 and now I owned a different house and the price went down $100,000. In both cases I did the same thing. I wasn’t buying a house as an investment. I just needed somewhere to live near where I worked, and I kept the house in good shape both times. But in one case I made a lot of money and in the other I lost a lot of money due to macroeconomic factors completely outside my control. What sense does it make to say that I deserved both of those different results when I didn’t do anything different?
So the liberal position is that due to unfairness in the system, or events outside your control, or just dumb luck, there is a fraction of your income that you really didn’t do anything to deserve. If you didn’t do anything to deserve it why do you have any moral claim more than anyone else to call it yours?
So the liberal position is that yes, there is a fraction of your income for which there is no reason why you should deserve it and so it’s not really yours, and the only fair thing to do with that money is to divide it equally among everyone.
Notice this only applies to the fraction of your income that you happened to acquire, but didn’t do anything to deserve.
Now, I know you don’t agree with that, and you are free to argue against it, but I think you have a tendency to present liberal straw men without actually arguing against the real basis of liberal philosophy.
You may actually believe that all liberals believe the straw men that you present. In that case, you should stop trolling the web for liberals who happen to be stupid that you can make fun of, and instead find the smartest liberals you can and ask them why they believe what they believe and be willing to listen with an open mind.
Caveats:
Yes, there are leftists who believe that the individual should be subservient to “the group”. Those people are scary and wrong. Don’t paint all liberals with that brush.
The question of how much of your income is in the category “didn’t do anything to deserve it” is an implementation question left to the reader. And yes, progressive taxation is a blunt instrument for answering that question. But that doesn’t invalidate the philosophy that part of what you happend to get you didn’t do anything to deserve so you can’t call it yours.
Liberal policies have had problems with perverse incentives, and in general I think liberals think too much about what people should do and not enough about how they will actually react to a particular policy, especially of the “government should make everything perfect” sort. Once again, this is an implementation question that doesn’t invalidate the core philosophy.
In reality, however, your parent’s income is a strong statistical predictor of your income. The most sensible explanation of this fact is that we don’t have complete equal opportunity.
No, the most sensible explanation is that parents with higher incomes do a better job preparing their children for success.
But in one case I made a lot of money and in the other I lost a lot of money due to macroeconomic factors completely outside my control.
It was within your control to rent instead. I’m thinking you decided to buy because of your previous experience. The 300k felt good.
The question of how much of your income is in the category “didn’t do anything to deserve it” is an implementation question left to the reader.
OK, none of it.
And yes, progressive taxation is a blunt instrument for answering that question. But that doesn’t invalidate the philosophy that part of what you happend to get you didn’t do anything to deserve so you can’t call it yours.
The “philosophy” invalidates itself. I don’t see many wealthy liberals voluntarily writing large checks to the federal government, their wracking guilt notwithstanding.
“Conservatives believe that capitalism is an inherently fair system, and whatever you can manage to grab and stuff in your pocket you must have deserved it. “
That seems a little off to me. How about this: The core ideal is the trade. So long as certain conditions are met (no force or intimidation, false advertising etc.) an honest trade is beneficial to both parties involved. Anything that isn’t perceived by the actual participants as personally beneficial isn’t a fair trade.
Note that this is quite a ways from laissez faire.
Liberals appear to think one side of a trade is a sucker by definition.
Bob,
Being born Rich means you get good food, good care, good schools and other enriching experiences.
Its thermodynamics ,Life is not fair, You can’t fix that.
No one argues that the NBA should have 20% of each team be short people..
No one argues that attractive people should give 40% of their dates to unattractive people.
The above two examples are significantly more unfair then income because people had almost no control of their height or beauty.
With income there is a very direct correlation between how hard one works and one’s income. It should be LESS subject to redistribution than the two examples above.
Why do poor Asians families arriving in the U.S only stay poor for one generation when poor families born here have multiple generations of poor?
Why do poor black Jamaicans arriving in NY city become successful in one generation or less and native born blacks don’t?
The elephant in the room is the significant cultural aspect of expectations and success. My son’s girl friend is Asian. When she was in high school a single A- would result in a months grounding.
How many inner city poor kids get grounded for an A-?
Lets work on having the same parental attitude to education?
I don’t watch more than 1 hour of TV a month. I work 80 hours a week because I like what I’m doing why should ANY of my income be given to someone that works less hard?
I would gladly support any program that has been shown to be effective in improving peoples lives. Note that step one is to define “improve” I would use the definition improve ==make them happier.
The poor in Mexico are happier than most welfare recipients even though they are nominally much poorer. They are happier because what they have is theirs created by labor with their own hand. Liberal wealth re-distribution systems destroy that sense of self value because it makes people powerless, you can’t improve your own lot in life, all you can do is complain to the masters in gov to increase your stipend.
So question to Bob
Step 1 precisely define the goal of Liberal intervention?
Step 2 given that goal find me ANY government program or department that is more effective in advancing that goal than a well run private charity?
Bob, I said nothing about liberals.
In reality, however, your parent’s income is a strong statistical predictor of your income. The most sensible explanation of this fact is that we don’t have complete equal opportunity.
No, the most sensible explanation is that parents with higher incomes do a better job preparing their children for success.
So, did some children do something to deserve having good parents while other children did something to deserve worse parents? The fact that some children get better parents than others is exactly the sort of unequal opportunity that liberals think needs to be compensated for.
The question of how much of your income is in the category “didn’t do anything to deserve it” is an implementation question left to the reader.
OK, none of it.
That’s the core question. Do you think that our current economic system is inherently fair so that anything you happen to get you must automatically deserve. You obviously think so. Liberals do not.
And yes, progressive taxation is a blunt instrument for answering that question. But that doesn’t invalidate the philosophy that part of what you happend to get you didn’t do anything to deserve so you can’t call it yours.
The “philosophy” invalidates itself. I don’t see many wealthy liberals voluntarily writing large checks to the federal government, their wracking guilt notwithstanding.
The fairest system would be one where everybody is required to share the undeserved portion of their income. This isn’t stealing from people. It’s forcing them to live up to their moral obligation just as if we were forcing parents to support their children. Individual rich liberals can and I’m sure many do pay what they consider to be their fair share through charitable donations, but as you suggest, in a voluntary system compliance is spotty.
But in one case I made a lot of money and in the other I lost a lot of money due to macroeconomic factors completely outside my control.
It was within your control to rent instead. I’m thinking you decided to buy because of your previous experience. The 300k felt good.
I saved this one for last since I think it’s hardest. Yes, theoretically there are other things I could have done that would have affected my outcome. But I think the important question is not, “Is there anything I could have done to change my outcome?”, instead it’s, “Is any part of my outcome due to factors outside my control?” If so, then that part I didn’t do anything to deserve.
Now I think libertarians take the attitude that we should expect people to be perfect. You are expected to perfectly predict the future and know everything that’s going to happen that could possibly affect your outcome. If I lost money because of a macroeconomic downturn then what I did to deserve it is I failed to predict the macroeconomic downturn and choose to rent instead of buy.
To what extent is it reasonable to expect ordinary people to predict and react perfectly to things that they can’t directly influence? I think this is a values question that good people can disagree on. All I will say is that conservatives are always claiming that their philosophy deals with human nature as-it-really-is while liberalism requires perfect people that don’t exist. Is assuming that ordinary people can perfectly predict and react to every possibile contingency human nature as it really is?
Caveat:
This is an area where liberals get into trouble with perverse incentives because everything you get is going to be a mixed up combination of things you control and things you don’t.
Bob, I said nothing about liberals.
Valid point, my apologies.
So you do make a distinction between Marxists and liberals, and you consider Barrack Obama a Marxist.
Could you name someone who you consider to be a liberal?
Me.
😉
The fact that some children get better parents than others is exactly the sort of unequal opportunity that liberals think needs to be compensated for.
Soooo, I’m a good parent. My neighbor isn’t. Take some money from me to compensate my neighbor. I no longer have as much incentive to be a good parent. See where this is going?
Do you think that our current economic system is inherently fair so that anything you happen to get you must automatically deserve.
Hardly. I’m reminded of what I deserve every April. And the trend isn’t encuraging. Basically, i’m taxed enough already.
The fairest system would be one where everybody is required to share the undeserved portion of their income.
Would Paul’s extra 40 hours per week be included in that?
Good news Paul, you can dial it back.
Now I think libertarians take the attitude that we should expect people to be perfect.
No, we should just leave them the hell alone.
Rand
I know you like Classical Liberal but I think Liberal has been destroyed as a term. I think Progressive and Libertarian are better as they have not been split into multiple meanings.
Life is not fair, You can’t fix that.
Step 1 precisely define the goal of Liberal intervention?
I think these two statements are related. I think a conservative would say life’s not fair and that’s fine, or it’s not my problem to make life fair for others. While a liberal would say life’s not fair and we have a moral responsibility to try to make it as fair as possible.
So one of the goals of liberal intervention is to increase fairness. There’s another goal to reduce human misery that relates to programs like food stamps. I think there are a lot of liberals who would say, “I don’t care if he’s a lazy moocher who won’t lift a finger to help himself, I won’t deny him food. That would be wrong.” I think for a lot of liberal thinkers these get lumped together in as much as redistribution serves both purposes. The argument I made only addresses fairness. The other would be like a separate “state of nature” duty to help others and there’s disagreement about how far that duty should go, but I would say liberals believe it exists.
Of course, we can’t make everything perfectly fair. Height and beauty are good examples, but should that stop us from trying to reduce other unfairnesses? And if someone gets to the NBA and makes millions of dollars because of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, work ethic, and the fact that they are tall, then some small sliver of their money is coming because they are tall and we should fix that economic unfairness if we can do it without creating worse side effects.
Caveat:
Liberals don’t emphasize productivity enough. There’s the problem of making everything fair by dragging the lucky down to match the unlucky. And there may be situations where we have to choose between fairness and productivity, but we can look for things where we can help one without hurting the other, and when they are in conflict productivity shouldn’t automatically win.
Step 2 given that goal find me ANY government program or department that is more effective in advancing that goal than a well run private charity?
I didn’t talk about this before because my post was long and I wanted to stick with my core argument which was that I thought Rand was misrepresenting the reason why liberals feel that redistribution per se is not inherently immoral. It turns out he was only talking about Marxists, but I’m not so sure he doesn’t think the same about liberals.
So in answer to your question, the government’s record is not so good. The government wastes a lot of money. Let me rephrase that. The government wastes A LOT!$!$!$! of money. It wastes more than I could burn in my fireplace if I had a shovel and $100 bills. I’m not sure if I could find a government program that does better than a well run private charity. It’s entirely possible that private charity and good cultural norms are the right answer. The only thing that bothers me about that solution is that it says that fairness is optional and the burden falls on peple who do the right thing while people who do the wrong thing get a pass.
I don’t really have an idea of what the best implementation would be. We’re still waiting for our Regan. But there are a few underlying core principles that I do feel confident in and that’s what my post was about.
The fact that some children get better parents than others is exactly the sort of unequal opportunity that liberals think needs to be compensated for.
Soooo, I’m a good parent. My neighbor isn’t. Take some money from me to compensate my neighbor. I no longer have as much incentive to be a good parent. See where this is going?
No, it’s not unfair to your neighbor, it’s unfair to your neighbor’s children. And yes, I do see the potential problem with perverse incentives. You don’t think there’s any way we could help your neighbor’s children without creating perverse incentives? Make sure they have good nutrition, good schools, health care? You don’t think your children, who by the grace of god got a good parent, have any moral responsibility to help your neighbor’s children who didn’t?
The fairest system would be one where everybody is required to share the undeserved portion of their income.
Would Paul’s extra 40 hours per week be included in that?
I already said anything you get because you did something to deserve it is yours.
Something that leftists will never understand or accept: there are some problems that government just can’t solve.
Who has good or bad parents is one of those.
Bob,
>The other would be like a separate “state of nature” duty to help >others and there’s disagreement about how far that duty should go, >but I would say liberals believe it exists.
I agree that it is a Moral Duty to help others.
I also think that doing this at the point of a gun enforced by the government is morally wrong, inefficient and counter productive.
I think positive rewards are much more effective than negative forced rules. Having the ability to say XYZ corp proud sponsor of the soup kitchen. and work skills development center.
Look at the number of large corporations that have “Charity” programs, where employees volunteer and the companies give donations.
Try the Bill Gates foundation!
Conservatives donate a lot more to charity than liberals do. There have been many studies the ratios go as high as 2:1.
Look at how much good Andrew Carnegie did.
When you make the government in charge it becomes an adversarial transaction. The Government is also the most inefficient mechanism every created for getting resources to where they are needed.
>No, it’s not unfair to your neighbor, it’s unfair to your neighbor’s >children. And yes, I do see the potential problem with perverse >incentives. You don’t think there’s any way we could help your >neighbor’s children without creating perverse incentives? Make sure >they have good nutrition, good schools, health care?
Where they put school voucher programs in place in DC and Milwaukee they were a positive success, both have been canceled because of pressure from the teachers unions that don’t want any competition leaking into their domain. This protect my empire at all costs is a key immutable characteristic of monopolies. Government by definition is a monopoly. There is no direct mechanism to end bad, inefficient,destructive programs. Which is going to to do better a school that needs to compete to get students and puts its energy into competing or a a school that puts its energy into making sure it has a monopoly and there are no other alternatives.
With a market bad companies cease to exist. The only place where this is not true is where companies use the Government power to protect their position and restrict the market. The root cause of opressive corprate power is almost always government power.
Bob, your contrived ethical argument is an abomination, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. You’re obviously making a consequentialist argument (“Life is not fair, we want the greatest good for the greatest number, therefore redistribute.”) and then trying to reason backwards some kind of deontological rationalization (“They don’t deserve it!”) that makes no sense (“What is ‘undeserved’ wealth?” “I dunno, you figure it out.” “Damn, I’m sold!”).
Consequentialists don’t need that kind of justification; deontologists argue the social contract. Pick one (for you, that would be the first one) and stick to it.
Interesting comments.
Who determines what income is undeserved? At what point are people over taxed or when can we expect state and federal governments to work with the revenues they have and not take more from the citizenry?
No tax system will ever be perfect. Capitalism isn’t perfect. It is better than bartering chickens and honey.
The main flaw with capitalism is the human component, you can’t always count on people not to take advantage of each other but that is true of Marxism as well. With Marxism, there is a lot of subjectivity over who doesn’t deserve money or what portion of their income isn’t deserved, which is very easily abused by humans.
“So the liberal position is that yes, there is a fraction of your income for which there is no reason why you should deserve it and so it’s not really yours, and the only fair thing to do with that money is to divide it equally among everyone.”
This is the kind of attitude to justify things like the “death tax”. It sickens me.
Gonna say one last thing, I like the way Bob went about this. He makes some good arguments, is anyone really against public schools?
The best thing about our country is social mobility. Everyone gets an education and has the chance to improve on it as their lives go on. College has never been easier to get into. Anyone who doesn’t go to college either doesn’t want to or isn’t aware of the vast resources available to help them.
When it comes to good nutrition, I view that as the choice of the people. Often times a good home cooked meal is not any healthier than fast food. I think things are going too far when we start telling people what they can or can’t eat.
For health care, everyone has access to it. It is vastly less expensive to pay for your average health care expenses out of pocket than paying for health insurance, which is why HSA’s are so great. Health insurance is only good for massive unexpected emergencies like tearing an acl, cancer, or heart attacks.
I really dislike the class warfare angle. Rich people don’t lead more moral lives than poor people and poor people are not more virtuous than the rich. If a rich person is born into that life, why blame them? You wouldn’t blame a poor person for being born poor.
If neither has a choice when being born, why punish one group?
Broadly speaking, the Right believes that your stuff is yours.
Except that they believe your children’s stuff is the government’s.
When push comes to shove the Right is no more interested in making big cuts in government spending than any other group in US politics. Instead they cut taxes and borrow, giving the state a claim on future wealth.
The three biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, and defense. The GOP Pledge to America promises to cut none of them. Instead they call for repealing the parts of the Affordable Care Act that attempt to restrain the growth of Medicare spending, and they suggest an openness to increases in defense and homeland security spending.
The notion that “the Right”, as represented by actual elected officials, is any less interested in “your stuff” than the Democrats, is pure fantasy.
When push comes to shove the Right is no more interested in making big cuts in government spending than any other group in US politics.
This disconnect is what the Tea Party is all about.
“When push comes to shove the Right is no more interested in making big cuts in government spending than any other group in US politics. Instead they cut taxes and borrow, giving the state a claim on future wealth.”
Then we get
“The notion that “the Right”, as represented by actual elected officials, is any less interested in “your stuff” than the Democrats, is pure fantasy.”
Which is it, Jim? Two different groups there. I know which one I’m in. What’s your explanation for Bennet, Castle, Crist et. al. losing in the primaries? Other than YOUR fantasy.
Moral duty? The only moral duty I have is to treat others as I would want to be treated were I in the same situation.
This disconnect is what the Tea Party is all about.
There are a few Tea Party candidates who have made noises in the past about cutting Social Security and Medicare (e.g. Angle and Paul), but now that they’ve won primaries they are running away from those comments as fast as they can.
What’s your explanation for Bennet, Castle, Crist et. al. losing in the primaries?
They certainly didn’t lose because their opponents promised to cut Social Security, Medicare and defense, and their opponents definitely aren’t talking about doing those things now. If they aren’t brave enough to even make promises now, you can hardly expect them to actually follow through once they’ve had a taste of Congressional power.
The Right (including the Tea Party) is clearly interested in talking about shrinking government as a route to political power. Judging by its past actions, and its current election-year promises, it is not interested in using political power to actually shrink the government.
The three biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, and defense. The GOP Pledge to America promises to cut none of them.
OK, caps on SS, M, and PledgeOA. Not on defense.
Instead they call for repealing the parts of the Affordable Care Act that attempt to restrain the growth of Medicare spending
I think it’s OCA, but….. M… Yep.
and they suggest an openness to increases in defense and homeland security spending.
Maybe DHS, Defense and Homeland Security?
“Judging by its past actions, and its current election-year promises, it is not interested in using political power to actually shrink the government.”
This is laughable on its face. Repealing Obamacare alone will shrink gov’t.
Moral duty? The only moral duty I have is to treat others as I would want to be treated were I in the same situation.
I refer to this as the Kant fallacy – it assumes that everyone wants to be treated the same and is a fundamental crude approximation in the modern legal system. People are different, there is not a one size fits all morality/legal system/government.
I really would not appreciate a little old lady coming along and treating me as if I was a little old lady – even though that might be how she would like me to treat her.
The Right (including the Tea Party) is clearly interested in talking about shrinking government as a route to political power. Judging by its past actions, and its current election-year promises, it is not interested in using political power to actually shrink the government.
The question here is whether they will shrink government or not? I don’t care about their motives.
I really would not appreciate a little old lady coming along and treating me as if I was a little old lady – even though that might be how she would like me to treat her.
Note that he modified it by saying “if I were in the same situation”. You’d have to be a little old lady (or at least appear to be one) first for your statement to apply. And you’d have a moral obligation to tell her that you don’t appreciate being treated that way. Past that, sure the system could break down, but I think it works a lot better than you seem to think it does.
Finally, I see once again that Chris and Jim are once again providing their stilted views on what should be done. Sure Social Security, Medicare, and Defense are currently relatively untouchable for spending cuts (aside from a possible reduction in Iraq). That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to cut spending in other areas (which currently still make up a good portion of the budget). Nor does it mean that we’ll forever be unable to consider spending cuts in the three big areas.
Second, spending control is more important than deficit reduction. The problem is that is you attempt the latter without doing the former, you’re stuck with the choice of raising taxes. And then someone else will increase the deficit again. There’s no way to raise enough revenue in taxes that can’t be overspent by irresponsible people. I’d rather have the current situation of relatively low tax collection and high deficit than high tax collection and high deficit.
What Obama has shown here is that even deliberately low taxation cannot starve enough the government beast. That was the Reagan strategy. And frankly it doesn’t work. Someone can come along and borrow nearly arbitrary amounts. We need to actually cut government services and spending.
If it requires returning to “pre-20th Century” spending levels, as Chris alleges, then so be it. If such a thing were true, then that’d be a huge indication that the US is spending way too much.
Paul, because it’s not about you.
We live in the civilized world. What is civilization? That’s where your philosophy of life should start.
Would you prefer to live in the wild, hunt deer and smelt iron ore for horse shoes? Go right ahead.. back in the civilized world we have a duty to look out for people other than ourselves. We especially have a duty to look out for the sick and the lame – should you ever fall sick or become unable to work, we’ll do the same for you.
In return we all get access to an awesome system of human enterprise, including the magnificent achievements of our forebears. How hard you work today is nothing compared to the hundreds of years that have come before you were ever born.
Besides, it seems to piss you off and motivate you to make awesome rockets. 🙂
back in the civilized world we have a duty to look out for people other than ourselves. We especially have a duty to look out for the sick and the lame – should you ever fall sick or become unable to work, we’ll do the same for you.
Even the live in the wild crowd does that. My view is that civilization is large scale cooperative behavior. Things like markets, communication systems, etc. It’s not large scale parasitism like the sort of activities most US government funding goes to. Having a duty to look out for other people doesn’t give me the duty to play Robin Hood (especially when I somehow manage to benefit directly from the transfer of wealth).
Repealing Obamacare alone will shrink gov’t.
No, just the opposite. Over the next 50 years Social Security is going to grow a little (as the population ages), non-healthcare spending is projected to shrink a bit, and government health care spending will explode until it makes up most of the budget. The Affordable Care Act has provisions — namely the Medicare oversight panel and the excise tax on high-end health plans — that will slightly reduce the rate of health care spending growth. If you repeal the ACA, full stop, you buy yourself a bigger government down the road.
Note that the ACA provisions that reduce the rate of growth in health care spending are precisely those provisions that the GOP/Tea Party has singled out for attack (see: death panels).
The size of the federal government, as measured in dollars, is dominated by the issue of health care costs. It’s one of the biggest slices of the budget today, and it’s growing rapidly. Everything else pales in comparison. And on that issue, it’s the Democrats who have actually passed legislation to take modest steps in the right direction, while the congressional GOP and Tea Party have been vocally opposed to spending restraint.
Karl, absolutely.. don’t take my argument to suggest that I’m some sort of “redistribution of wealth is good social science” person.. I’m not. I just get a little annoyed when good sensible libertarian ideals are diluted into law of the jungle. As I’ve written on these pages before, if you have enough and someone else doesn’t have enough then you have an obligation to feed them. Said another way, they have the right to help themselves. Said another way, the government has the right to help them on your behalf. It’s exactly the same when it comes to self-defense. If I can defend myself from aggressors, that doesn’t mean everyone who can’t should just die. Everyone looking out for themselves is no way to run a society.
The problem is that is you attempt the latter without doing the former, you’re stuck with the choice of raising taxes. And then someone else will increase the deficit again.
That isn’t what has happened historically. The presidents who raised taxes in pursuit of lower deficits — Bush I and Clinton — actually ran lower deficits than the presidents who cut taxes — Reagan and Bush II.
I would argue that making a big deal out of the deficit is the most likely way to get spending cuts. Voters don’t like spending cuts or tax hikes, and politicians will ruthlessly attack anyone who proposes either one. But if you can convince the public that the deficit is a big problem, and get the two parties to make a bargain that pairs spending cuts with tax hikes so that neither side is taking the political hit alone, it’s possible to simultaneously shrink spending and put the country on a better fiscal footing.
Such bargains were successful in the 80s (SS reform) and 90s, but appear impossible today because the post-94 GOP has ruled out any and all tax hikes. By further purging the GOP of anyone open to such compromises the Tea Party is making action against spending even less likely.
That isn’t what has happened historically. The presidents who raised taxes in pursuit of lower deficits — Bush I and Clinton — actually ran lower deficits than the presidents who cut taxes — Reagan and Bush II.
Obama, one of the presidents who raised tax rates, didn’t lower deficits. We need long term solutions to lowering deficits. Merely giving the US government more money to spend isn’t a viable strategy, there’s always going to be Obamas out there, unless you can duplicate the circumstances of the Clinton administration for long periods of time.
Such bargains were successful in the 80s (SS reform) and 90s, but appear impossible today because the post-94 GOP has ruled out any and all tax hikes. By further purging the GOP of anyone open to such compromises the Tea Party is making action against spending even less likely.
That’s too bad. I guess we’ll just have to rely on the Democrats, “the party of compromise” to cut spending instead.