The conservatives will never admit it, but, when the government cuts taxes, they need to get that money from somewhere. They are going to get it by either raising taxes somewhere else, borrowing money and adding to the deficit in doing so, or taking money out of the education system and in effect robbing our offspring. If you are a conservative, this is targeted at you: the last time you voted for a politician because he promised to lower your taxes, did you consider at all where that money was going to come from? I know that you are not naive enough that you really believe it just appears from somewhere by magic. Were you smoking this stuff at the time? :m: I have never known a conservative who thought about the means first and what he could gain out of it afterward. There are very few conservatives out there who think that far ahead.
That's a TOTALLY absurd claim about conservatives! In the first place, they are precisely the ones who understand most that the money has to come from somewhere. It's you bleeding-heat liberals that want to spend now and worry about paying for it later. In other words, you've got the whole thing upside down!
AC, you assume that they are supposed to cut taxes without cutting spending. Obviously money can't come out of thin air (unless you have Obama in office!), and thus the idea is to cut spending and cut taxes.
where's the benefit. all tax money is spent at best all the money lost from government revenue from the tax cuts will be spent. So how does no change in total spending expand the economy?
Hikes in Welfare will ensure one thing for sure: More people living on Welfare. If you offer to pay good money for something, the market will surely supply it to you.
Welfare is an inferior good. Demand for the inferior good is related to the availability and desirability of the normal good. A) In this case, the normal good comprises 1) availability of employment, and 2) desirability of employment. B) Now, if there is a very high demand for the inferior good, then the people who control the availability and desirability of the normal good are failing to deliver. C) Therefore, let's say the government lobs a tax-cut to the people who are in control of the normal good during a time when there is a high demand for the inferior good. D) The result of this maneuver will invariably be to produce a reward stimulus for failing to deliver on the normal good. However, if we were to raise taxes on the people who control the normal good when we see a heightened demand for the inferior good, then this will result in changing the behavior of the people who control the normal good. Now, because causality shifts both ways, we would want to throttle our spending on the inferior good when those who produce the normal good are meeting or exceeding our expectations. If jobs are plentiful and the working environments are attractive, it would then be prudent to cut spending on welfare. On the other hand, if there is a poverty of jobs out there that are capable of sustaining a family, then we should spend more money on the welfare system. This is not only a response to need, but I see nothing wrong with the economics. In any event, a tax-cut is an expense for the government. Unless you can somehow justify that expense, then you are wasting the government's money. The government needs funding to support the things that you use every day: it needs to pay for construction on the transit system; it needs to pay for the schools; it needs to pay the salaries of building inspectors, so you won't walk into a building one day and have it collapse on you; the person who does inspections at the restaurant you go to dine at needs to be paid; the people who did the R&D on your father's pace-maker needed a grant from the government to do all of their background research because they were not the people who actually invented the gadget therefore did not directly profit from it; the military needs to be in the budget. Now, I have been impoverished and hungry before, and I have tried to apply for emergency food stamps. It is not as simple as you guys are thinking it is. You can't just go into the social security office and say, "I don't feel like working, but I am hungry." Without variation, they will direct you to the nearest soup kitchen, alright? If you are a gay bachelor, you will not get free food and housing from the government just because you are there. I know you think it works that way, but it doesn't work that way. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html In fact, here is how the government's spending on welfare actually breaks down. Now, I argue that the government has a vested public interest in supporting families. If there is a high correlation between childhood malnutrition and violent crime, then the government is justified in spending money on it for exactly the same reasons that they hire cops. http://www.naturalnews.com/006194.html If you voted for the government to hire more cops but you voted against feeding the children, this article right here tells me that you are being very silly. I argue that the government is no more justified in unjustifiable tax-cuts than it would be in unjustifiable welfare spending.
Are you sure this is true? I mean, you're speaking of employment itself as the good being bought and sold. The government can buy "unemployment" by printing paper money and handing it out for free, your average employer has to actually sell something people want to create real employment. Also, for many people, being on welfare is better than working a job. I'd guess 5 people in 100 just want life handed to them.
OK, I agree. But where do we draw the line? We have have private schools. Private transit systems. Even private military wings. That aside, instead of giving people unemployment, I'd like to see people PUT to work on infrastructure. The Gods only know who bad it's gotten in the US.
Well, that is how the Interstate Highway System was built in the first place. The next time you drive on the Interstate, consider the fact that it is unparalleled in the world as the largest public works project in history, and it is also the largest single highway system in the entire world. When you are driving on that baby, think about the fact that you are driving on a national monument. Public works is an old idea. It has had great successes. Another great work was Lincoln's railroad. It doesn't always help the economy, though. For example, another would-be progressive, President Hoover, supposedly invested a great deal of money in public works. They would not have very much of an impact, though, until the same programs were adopted and expanded by President Roosevelt. One thing that Roosevelt knew that Hoover did not was that, for public works to really have a measurable economic impact, they need to be done big. They need to be done on a scale that is measurable. They need to be done on a scale, like the Interstate, that they will actually have a psychological impact. They need to be large enough to inspire innovation. They need to be things that inspire confidence in the public. That is one thing that Roosevelt knew that Hoover did not. This is because the economy is driven pretty much entirely by human behavior. Psychological impact is something that we cannot get away with excluding from the equation. Economists can play with their algorithms until the cows come home, but human psychology is what ultimately determines how much people are willing to spend, how much they are inclined to invest, whether they are saving money away or spending it, whether they are using it to advance their education or using it to go on trips to the Bahamas. It determines people's willingness to work. However, where is the government going to get all of this money? It is always going to come from taxes. Always. The government cannot just borrow money indefinitely. It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility to demand costly things from the government, and then ask for a tax-cut. It is ignorant. Next time you want a tax-cut from the government, consider where it is exactly that you want the government to cut spending. Be like a prospector. Examine things that the government is spending more money on than should be. That is what the people should do, not just stick their hands out like children demanding their weekly allowance.
Great post. I was asking my grandfather about it a while back and he was saying that the government had a lot more power over the actions of people back then. They'd build some barracks and get some young men in to do the work. Then send most of the money to their mother's house for her to look after giving the young men a bit to spend by leaving most in mom's hand. He said there's no way you'd get people today to work like that. They'd holler before one day's work was done, see you in the court the next and have their hand out by the third! Yup, we live in a different time. For now.
