Harry Browne used to ask, “Would you give up yuor favorite federal program if it meant you never had to pay income taxes again?” It was one of the better arguments for small government.
Of course, he usually used the singular, “program,” when what he really meant was “programs.” If the government stopped funding PBS, you would never notice the difference in your paycheck. Same with foreign aid, FEMA, NTSB, and most of the other programs that are not writing checks to individual citizens.
That has to be the deal, spoken loudly and clearly: we will shut down ALL the programs outside of rudimentary defense, courts, and aprehending violent criminals who cross state lines and you will never have money taken from your paycheck again. Most federal lands will be auctioned off and used to pay annuities to taxpayers, which will help all, but especially those currently dependent on federal funds.
Pie in the sky? Yes, but it is the only argument I found to be persuasive to those who are not rabidly small government.
“Most federal lands will be auctioned off and used to pay annuities to taxpayers”
I like having access to public lands. They should be opened up to more different types of users and maybe some sold but divesting of them would be a mistake.
You bring up a good point about what would someone give up. We are in a budgetary hole and everyone should be willing to sacrifice a little. Demand is infinite and there are endless worthy causes. Quite often, there are little things that wouldn’t make much of a difference if they exist or don’t but all those things add up.
There are a lot of intelligent people who are NASA fans who know the dire straights we are in and don’t think their favorite area of government spending should be impacted but everything adds up. NASA is lucky that their wasteful spending can hide behind a much larger problem.
Personally, I think the greatest savings would be found going after fraud in the healthcare industry but we should also increase our standards for people who should know better, like NASA.
My wife and I took a road trip around the Western US – including to Mt. St. Helens. The drive into the observatory there passes mixed USFS and private forest lands – 1 section (square mile) each.
The USFS forest looked like it was ready to explode – lots of underbrush, unhealthy looking trees, poor access. The managed forest looked managed: Trees the same distance apart, etc. But, it wasn’t going to burn easily.
Perhaps we should make the people who benefit from the resources the stewards of maintaining them?
It sure would be nice if the state took care of forests. You know the social reasons why this doesn’t take place which overshadows costs of doing so. Even opening the land to people who make money off it wont solve the problem.
IMO, in this era of generation one of the big shifts will be using robotics for forestry. It will still cost money but parking out the forests will soon be attainable.
Some of the dumbest examples of the magical thinking of smart people is that you don’t need to do anything because nature takes care of itself, that technology and nature are mutually exclusive, and that everything natural is good.
I strongly agree, in principle.
But path dependence is a real thing. Every retiree in America, for example, has planned his career (and paid FICA) on the expectation of getting Social Security and Medicare. (Yes, I know there was no lockbox and it was really a big Ponzi scheme. That doesn’t contradict what I said.) It’s a political non-starter — and maybe *should* be — to inflict the pain required in order to end entitlements, even if a generation hence it would be seen as the act of statesmen.
I’d love to see a plan for reverting to the Constitution that took seriously the problem of where we are starting and not just where we want to go. This article is not terrible on that score but there’s a long way from there to good.
I’m afraid the only sound solution is to invent a time machine and kill Wilson. But apparently nobody is ever going to do that, because they didn’t.
I’m afraid the only sound solution is to invent a time machine and kill Wilson. But apparently nobody is ever going to do that, because they didn’t.
Well, not on our timeline anyway…
They didn’t SO FAR.
Nearly all time travelers appear to be lunatics to us…
It’s kind of a maxim.
At 68, I am not dependent on Social Security. I would give up my share if that was part of the price of eliminating the Ponzi scheme.
As so much of the government’s largess is tied to retirement programs, that has to be target, otherwise it will always fail. But, of course, we are told that it is a non-starter.
True. My “scheme” focuses on the retirement age. Obviously, every plan to up the retirement age to some arbitrary age ends up failing and, considering increasing lifespans, is doomed to failure.
So, instead, why not simply raise the retirement plan – just to pick a doable number – four months a year, every year. After nine years, the retirement age is three years higher. The beauty of the plan is that those who are close to retirement are only mildly inconvenienced, a few months or a couple of years, while those further down the cohort have time to prepare, and for those already receiving “benefits,” nothing will change.
How long would we do this? There would be pressure to have it end after hitting some, again, arbitraty target age, say seventy-five. I would suggest that we just keep slowly raising the age by the same increment every year in perpetuity. This way, you don’t have to have the same political battle every year – everyone would know the plan and the schedule and can make plans around it. These abominable programs would simply disappear over time.
Unless, of course, the life extension people do much better than they have so far. That’s a problem I would love to have.
I like this idea. I wonder what the increment would have to be to ease us past the 2033 cliff.
I have heard a term too many times, ‘Non-discretionary spending.’ All that is needed is to eliminate the idea that some spending is beyond the control of our elected representatives, and this spending problem can be fixed.
Everyone wants to f over the old people and beat them like a pinata on their way to the ethereal plane. To be fair, I have met a lot of old people that think their benefits should be means tested. The right way to handle social security is to make changes for young people. They are the ones who have their working life to adapt. Springing it on old people is a dick move.
Kind of off topic but not really when thinking generationally, RMDs should be done away with. RMDs target people who are too poor to have to pay an inheritance tax. To reduce reliance on government programs, we want people to pass on wealth to their family. In a generational mindset, splitting that money 6-10 ways doesn’t go very far and shouldn’t be penalized if the parents are able to live without RMDs.
Forward link to “Off The Air Thread” but with relevant Federal spending comment posted by Curt Thomson.
It’s hard to argue with the logic of Horatio Bunce.
Harry Browne used to ask, “Would you give up yuor favorite federal program if it meant you never had to pay income taxes again?” It was one of the better arguments for small government.
Of course, he usually used the singular, “program,” when what he really meant was “programs.” If the government stopped funding PBS, you would never notice the difference in your paycheck. Same with foreign aid, FEMA, NTSB, and most of the other programs that are not writing checks to individual citizens.
That has to be the deal, spoken loudly and clearly: we will shut down ALL the programs outside of rudimentary defense, courts, and aprehending violent criminals who cross state lines and you will never have money taken from your paycheck again. Most federal lands will be auctioned off and used to pay annuities to taxpayers, which will help all, but especially those currently dependent on federal funds.
Pie in the sky? Yes, but it is the only argument I found to be persuasive to those who are not rabidly small government.
“Most federal lands will be auctioned off and used to pay annuities to taxpayers”
I like having access to public lands. They should be opened up to more different types of users and maybe some sold but divesting of them would be a mistake.
You bring up a good point about what would someone give up. We are in a budgetary hole and everyone should be willing to sacrifice a little. Demand is infinite and there are endless worthy causes. Quite often, there are little things that wouldn’t make much of a difference if they exist or don’t but all those things add up.
There are a lot of intelligent people who are NASA fans who know the dire straights we are in and don’t think their favorite area of government spending should be impacted but everything adds up. NASA is lucky that their wasteful spending can hide behind a much larger problem.
Personally, I think the greatest savings would be found going after fraud in the healthcare industry but we should also increase our standards for people who should know better, like NASA.
My wife and I took a road trip around the Western US – including to Mt. St. Helens. The drive into the observatory there passes mixed USFS and private forest lands – 1 section (square mile) each.
The USFS forest looked like it was ready to explode – lots of underbrush, unhealthy looking trees, poor access. The managed forest looked managed: Trees the same distance apart, etc. But, it wasn’t going to burn easily.
Perhaps we should make the people who benefit from the resources the stewards of maintaining them?
It sure would be nice if the state took care of forests. You know the social reasons why this doesn’t take place which overshadows costs of doing so. Even opening the land to people who make money off it wont solve the problem.
IMO, in this era of generation one of the big shifts will be using robotics for forestry. It will still cost money but parking out the forests will soon be attainable.
Some of the dumbest examples of the magical thinking of smart people is that you don’t need to do anything because nature takes care of itself, that technology and nature are mutually exclusive, and that everything natural is good.
I strongly agree, in principle.
But path dependence is a real thing. Every retiree in America, for example, has planned his career (and paid FICA) on the expectation of getting Social Security and Medicare. (Yes, I know there was no lockbox and it was really a big Ponzi scheme. That doesn’t contradict what I said.) It’s a political non-starter — and maybe *should* be — to inflict the pain required in order to end entitlements, even if a generation hence it would be seen as the act of statesmen.
I’d love to see a plan for reverting to the Constitution that took seriously the problem of where we are starting and not just where we want to go. This article is not terrible on that score but there’s a long way from there to good.
I’m afraid the only sound solution is to invent a time machine and kill Wilson. But apparently nobody is ever going to do that, because they didn’t.
I’m afraid the only sound solution is to invent a time machine and kill Wilson. But apparently nobody is ever going to do that, because they didn’t.
Well, not on our timeline anyway…
They didn’t SO FAR.
Nearly all time travelers appear to be lunatics to us…
It’s kind of a maxim.
At 68, I am not dependent on Social Security. I would give up my share if that was part of the price of eliminating the Ponzi scheme.
As so much of the government’s largess is tied to retirement programs, that has to be target, otherwise it will always fail. But, of course, we are told that it is a non-starter.
True. My “scheme” focuses on the retirement age. Obviously, every plan to up the retirement age to some arbitrary age ends up failing and, considering increasing lifespans, is doomed to failure.
So, instead, why not simply raise the retirement plan – just to pick a doable number – four months a year, every year. After nine years, the retirement age is three years higher. The beauty of the plan is that those who are close to retirement are only mildly inconvenienced, a few months or a couple of years, while those further down the cohort have time to prepare, and for those already receiving “benefits,” nothing will change.
How long would we do this? There would be pressure to have it end after hitting some, again, arbitraty target age, say seventy-five. I would suggest that we just keep slowly raising the age by the same increment every year in perpetuity. This way, you don’t have to have the same political battle every year – everyone would know the plan and the schedule and can make plans around it. These abominable programs would simply disappear over time.
Unless, of course, the life extension people do much better than they have so far. That’s a problem I would love to have.
I like this idea. I wonder what the increment would have to be to ease us past the 2033 cliff.
I have heard a term too many times, ‘Non-discretionary spending.’ All that is needed is to eliminate the idea that some spending is beyond the control of our elected representatives, and this spending problem can be fixed.
Everyone wants to f over the old people and beat them like a pinata on their way to the ethereal plane. To be fair, I have met a lot of old people that think their benefits should be means tested. The right way to handle social security is to make changes for young people. They are the ones who have their working life to adapt. Springing it on old people is a dick move.
Kind of off topic but not really when thinking generationally, RMDs should be done away with. RMDs target people who are too poor to have to pay an inheritance tax. To reduce reliance on government programs, we want people to pass on wealth to their family. In a generational mindset, splitting that money 6-10 ways doesn’t go very far and shouldn’t be penalized if the parents are able to live without RMDs.
Forward link to “Off The Air Thread” but with relevant Federal spending comment posted by Curt Thomson.