• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Can A Nation Tax Itself Into Prosperity?

Can a nation tax its way to prosperity?


  • Total voters
    61
I read your post. You made an indirect suggestion that tax rates cause economic activity and then veered off in a different direction about anti-trust regulation.

Anyways dude, I can't debate you if you aren't going to read or respond to what I post. It just isn't possible to debate when the other person isn't reading what you write, so not really sure what you're hoping I'll do for you here.
 
Seriously? That's your angle here? There isn't a conservative around, including Churchill, who's against taxation used to build and maintain infrastructure and on research and development. That's not, however, what liberals have in mind when they talk of raising taxes. With liberals, it's all wealth redistribution and making life easier for the poor and lazy.

there are many conservatives who are against the bolded.
 
The formulation of the question is way too simplistic. Just raising taxes alone obviously won't make a country rich. But, yes, raising taxes is a necessary part of getting the US back on a more economically sound path.

The way it works is that if you listed off all most beneficial things the country can do and that we can afford to do, and you figured out which percentage of those things are more efficiently done by government, then your ideal tax rates are those which collect that percentage of the GDP. For example, government seems to do a better job of enforcing criminal law, so put that in the government column. Private companies seem to be better at making smartphones, so put that in the private sector column, government is better at ensuring that disabled people get care, private industry is better at designing jeans, etc.

It seems pretty clear that we're currently below that line. The economy has tended to perform better when taxes were higher than they are today and there are many important things that the government does better which are not being adequately done. For example, antitrust regulation provides some mindblowingly large return on investment. Just one really bad merger or serious collusion can cost the economy tens of billions of dollars a year due to the sapping of competition, and it only costs hundreds of thousands or maybe millions to block a merger like that or to discover collusion like that. But, the DOJ and the antitrust groups in the FCC and FTC are woefully under-staffed. Often, the companies seeking to merge will have teams of over 100 lawyers working on it literally for years while the government agencies combined might only have one person part time for 2 months. The result is very predictable- tons of terrible mergers go through that should not. Anyways, there are a lot of penny-smart, pound-stupid things like that where the amount we save in taxes is only a tiny fraction of the economic cost we incur by underfunding those things.

Happy July 4, tuhaybey! :2wave:

Putting the brakes on spending is also very important, IMO. When people are taxed more by the government, they have fewer dollars available to spend on everything else. For many, crunch time has already arrived for the middle class - what's going to happen if more of their money is taken in taxes? We are already seeing businesses like restaurants and other retail establishments in this area close, and I feel it's likely to continue. Sad....
 
there are many conservatives who are against the bolded.

That's fair - I should have noted research and development related to the primary business of government. Most conservatives don't oppose things like NASA, the CDC, weapons systems, etc. Most conservatives are opposed to the government spending money researching bovine farts, etc.
 
The fastest was in the late 1800's.

No, that isn't true. Most years in the last 1800s were under 2%. In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.

During FDR's term, we over 5% nine years, over 10% four years, and over 17% three years. No other president ever broke 10% and FDR did it four times.

Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective: US Real Per Capita GDP from 1870–2001

You might be looking at a chart that isn't adjusted for inflation. There were some years in the last 1800s that had really crazy inflation I think, so that could distort it pretty badly.
 
Cool blog link, bro.

It pulls the numbers out of that book listed at the bottom. Anyways, it's your claim, and it doesn't appear to be true, so lets see your source.
 
Happy July 4, tuhaybey! :2wave:

Putting the brakes on spending is also very important, IMO. When people are taxed more by the government, they have fewer dollars available to spend on everything else. For many, crunch time has already arrived for the middle class - what's going to happen if more of their money is taken in taxes? We are already seeing businesses like restaurants and other retail establishments in this area close, and I feel it's likely to continue. Sad....

Generally speaking, the middle class does better with higher taxing and spending. The taxes tend to hit the rich a bit more heavily and the spending tends to benefits the middle class a bit more heavily. Keep in mind, the money doesn't actually disappear from the economy. The government takes it as taxes and spends it, then whoever it paid- construction workers, teachers, social security beneficiaries, etc.- buys things with the money.
 
It pulls the numbers out of that book listed at the bottom.

333wjdc.jpg
 

That seems to match what I said, no?

Again:

Most years in the last 1800s were under 2%. In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.

During FDR's term, we over 5% nine years, over 10% four years, and over 17% three years. No other president ever broke 10% and FDR did it four times.
 
Generally speaking, the middle class does better with higher taxing and spending. The taxes tend to hit the rich a bit more heavily and the spending tends to benefits the middle class a bit more heavily. Keep in mind, the money doesn't actually disappear from the economy. The government takes it as taxes and spends it, then whoever it paid- construction workers, teachers, social security beneficiaries, etc.- buys things with the money.

I thought social security benefits were just slowly returning money that the recipients paid in while they were working, and had it taken out by the government whether or not they wanted it taken. Not that it is bad, because with SS, people at least have some money coming in after retirement, since too few have any savings accumulated on their own. In other words, that was never government's money in the first place, but unfortunately they have taken it and used it for many other things over the years, and have not made good on the IOU's they gave in return for the cash.
 
In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.

1891-224027
1892-245757

7.5 percent? How?

1894-227131
1895-254552

10 percent? How?

1893-233857
1894-227131

4.7 percent? How?
 
1891-224027
1892-245757

7.5 percent? How?

1894-227131
1895-254552

10 percent? How?

1893-233857
1894-227131

4.7 percent? How?

I mean, we didn't really have good official records back in those days. These are all estimates, so we'd expect the numbers would be slightly different from one source to another. You don't say what your source is, but it is in internationalized dollars, so we would certainly not expect that to be the same as my numbers, which were in US dollars. Internationalized dollars apply cost of living adjustments across countries to normalize it internationally, so, for example, if the cost of living went way up in some other country, that would change the GDP growth reflected in the chart for the US.

But, it doesn't really matter which source we use. They're about the same. For example, for 1895, (254 - 227) / 227 = 11.9%. Certainly not up near FDR's best years.

Also, more fundamentally, obviously the economy we're in today is a radically different world than we were in in the 1800s, so that seems kind of silly to look back that far to see what level of taxes work best. Presumably what worked then would have no bearing on what works in the modern world. All the issues involved are completely different.
 
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1436042635.349597.jpg
 

Attachments

  • ImageUploadedByTapatalk1436042570.121590.jpg
    ImageUploadedByTapatalk1436042570.121590.jpg
    14.9 KB · Views: 298
This debate is so old that it's become pretty useless.

The approach to a nation's economic recovery is the same as an individual's recovery. Increase revenue, decrease spending. Have we done either of those things? No, we haven't.

Unless something radical and out of our control happens like an inevitable war (not like the ones we've been waging of late), or a disaster of some kind, then there's no real reason why our government can't follow these simply tenets.

The problem is that our government is no longer accountable to its people, but to the larger non-state global actors. These actors don't really care if America is bankrupted because they are no longer relying on American soil to sustain them. They can go anywhere they please after they've leeched our system into oblivion like the parasites they are.
 
Back
Top Bottom