Social Welfare, Low Taxes, Low Debt

All I can do is lead you to water

But I cant make you drink

 

Right...70 years...haha...funny stuff

 

The Military is 20% of our current budget and at least some of that is health care for veterans. When you can convince China, far and away the largest military in the world, and Russia to do without there military spending, we can cut ours.

Of the remaining 80% around 5% is infrastructure which is primarily geared to building new rather than maintaining old (a huge problem in it's own right but another thread) The rest of it is a social safety net, which covers a lot more than just the poor. For instance s.chip health care program currently covers the children of people making up to 80 grand a year. And by the way that's just at the federal level. We have unlike any other country in the world 3 other levels of government with the power to tax and spend and a lot of that is mandated by the feds as well though the money to cover a lot of those mandates is nearly nonexistent. We have counties in this country that are bigger than some European countries. All in all, sir if we stopped all military spending tomorrow the red ink would continue to flow for the forseeable future. The problem lies in the very nature of government's in built need for nearly infinite expansion.

 

Yes we should have a strong military. and we should let the armed services decide what they need to protect our country and not defense contractors and politicians that want jobs in their home districts. The armed services should be given carte blanche to close what ever bases they choose to and to cancel what ever programs they don't want. Soldiers and sailors to receive degrees and schooling as part of their first enlistment. These vets will have first priority on federal employment and will only receive a stipend while serving.

 

You mean "left-wing" Independent evaluations that have a specific agenda.

 

Find your own then.

 

Your taxation illustration is from 2013 five years before our current taxation schedule was passed into law,it is no longer realistic to our personal or corporate taxes.

 

high carb diets are raising the cost of health care
citizens are buying foreign made goods
corporations are using foreign labor

the countries that are copying off us are starting to feel the pain too, even Canada

the more American hands a dollar touches, the more taxes are collected, if that dollar is sent overseas... game over

and yes, two 10+ year wars did not help

 

"Why doesn't the US try something similar? How about Americans just pay for DEFENSE and let the rest of the world worry about its own problems? That's what the founders practiced and preached. Perhaps we should do the same."

Oil....

 

Well, now we have the space force, thanks to President Trump. Weapons in space, woo hoo!

 

There's an interesting political economic debate here. Marxists will refer to how the military sector is used to stabilise capitalism without empowering the working classes. Liberals will refer to profiteering and the military industrial complex. Both agree on inefficiency and economic waste. The difference is in the detail. Given the Liberal focus on limited government, the Marxists arguably think restricting the military sector will have a greater positive impact on individual freedom. There's an irony in that for the right wingers...

 

The data I posted is a measure of the total tax burden on the average worker inside each country. All the countries I mentioned have a lower tax wedge on average income than the US does. And it's because they aren't wasting trillions of dollars on a bloated military empire.

 

It's more like 30%.

 

Most of the developed world has a higher tax burden than the US.

 

Sorry nope, not even close.

 

Most of the rest of the world isn't dealing with four independent levels of government taxing them. The federal tax bite is depending on the state, city and county in which you reside as little as 2/3 of what you pay and under certain circumstances can be much less.

 

You need to verify for yourself that isn't true. Just take Canada for instance. Their national income taxes are similar to ours. Their top marginal rate is 33% while ours is 37%. HOWEVER,,,,,,, their province income tax is a whopping 15%. I don't pay no stinking state income taxes.

 

But not the countries I mentioned.

 

Yup. When you count spending on veterans benefits, interest payments on the debt, and various "national security" programs, the total is closer to 30%.

 

Well, the point I was making was that those countries, at the national level, have relatively lower taxes and lower debt, so I fail to see how the various local taxes enter into it. Plus, the US also has lots of taxes apart from federal income and payroll taxes (federal excise taxes, duties, and tariffs, State income and sales taxes, various fees associated with regulatory compliance, etc.). Granted, my analysis does not capture the entire picture, but it's a fairly good approximation for the purposes of an internet forum.

 

It is fair, but really not the full picture. In Canada's case they have lower national taxes and let the provinces collect income taxes (and spend) how they see fit. We in the US have a handful of states that do that and more, and yet somehow manage to piss it all away and whine for even more tax revenues, (you know which culprits those are, we all do).

 

Oh yeah? How many additional terrorist attacks would have occurred on US soil if we werent obliterating Al Queda and ISIS on their own soil?

 

I

'm all for giving Israel even more aid so they can "clean up" their own neighborhood. No need to get our hands dirty.

 

I believe if we looked at the "full picture", the US would come out looking even worse. Consider the hidden tax of inflation, for example. Arguably the largest tax of all. And it falls disproportionately on the poorest among us.

 

For the most part, we dont. We are in these countries for support and to train other countries militaries.

Isnt it kinda telling that we have to train our allies armys so they can defend themselves?