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Can A Nation Tax Itself Into Prosperity?

Can a nation tax its way to prosperity?


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Nor can it SPEND its way into prosperity - It can't even spend it's way out of debt but Barack Obama seems to be trying.
 
Absolutly not.
 
That's not true at all. It might suprise you that one of our most liberal Senators Bernie Sanders wants to spend money to update our infrastructure, the problem though is that it would create jobs and the GOP is dead set against it. It took JFK to get the space program going, which if you think about it, the result have been millions of jobs.


Sanders Proposes Roads and Jobs Bill
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Saturday that he will introduce legislation when the new session of Congress convenes this month to authorize a $1 trillion, multi-year program to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges and invest in other infrastructure modernization projects. The investment not only would begin to address a growing backlog of badly-needed repairs, it also would put 13 million Americans to work at decent-paying jobs, according to Sanders, who will take over this month as the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

“America once led the world in building and maintaining a nationwide network of safe and reliable bridges and roads. Today, nearly a quarter of the nation's 600,000 bridges have been designated as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Let's rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Let's make our country safer and more efficient. Let's put millions of Americans back to work,” Sanders said.

The work needs to be done, he said. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $3.6 trillion would be needed by 2020 simply to get our nation’s infrastructure to a passable condition. More than $1.7 trillion is needed just to improve our roads, bridges and transit. More than 30 percent of our nation’s bridges have exceeded their 50-year design life. Almost one-third of America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 42 percent of major urban highways remain congested. In Vermont alone, the civil engineers say more than one-fifth of the paved roads are in poor condition.

And workers need the jobs, Sanders stressed. While the economy has improved since the worst days of the recession, millions of Americans are still out of work and looking for jobs. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the broadest measure of unemployment stood at 11.4 percent in November. That figure counts workers forced to settle for part-time jobs and others who gave up looking for work.

As a new session of Congress gears up, Sanders said infrastructure investment is one area that could win bipartisan support in Congress. “There are a number of Republicans who understand that it is vitally important that we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure,” he said.

Sanders Proposes Roads and Jobs Bill - Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont


okay

the devil is in the details

how is he proposing to pay for it?

my idea....raise federal gas tax by 15c a gallon......

that way everyone that uses the roads, pays for them

the money will rebuild the roads fund....and we can actually keep things from falling apart

putting it on the credit card....nope.....no thanks
 
Consider the following quote from Winston Churchill:
"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."​

Yes

No

Other



Kind of like.....pulling oneself up by the boot straps?
 
No and neither can we SPEND our way to prosperity or even out of debt.
 
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.



You are full of it.

I'll let you figure out what it is.

:lol:
 
It all depends on how the money is spent.
 
You are full of it.

I'll let you figure out what it is.

:lol:

There's a surprise - can't argue the content of the post, so you have to personally insult the poster. Your above post is pathetically predictable.
 
Consider the following quote from Winston Churchill:
"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."​

Yes

No

Other

I wonder why the most prosperous times with the most opportunity for middle class and upwardly mobile poor was when the top quintile was taxed near 70-80% on earnings over the next lower quintile.

Could it be because almost no one ever paid that rate because tax breaks were given for reinvesting in community, infrastructure, domestic job creation, expanding business, etc?

A progressive tax says that he first $25k (arbitrary) you earn is taxed at 15%, the next $50k is taxed a little higher, and so on... If you earn 400 times your average worke and don't want to give back to the community and producers that made it possible, then you will feel the full tax burden. If you want tax breaks, do good in your community. Not the PR faux, just for show crap that passes for altruism today... But real connected involvement and contribution to the general welfare of all.
 
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There's a surprise - can't argue the content of the post,
so you have to personally insult the poster.
Your above post is pathetically predictable.



How is it an insult to let someone figure out for themselves what they're full of?
 
How is it an insult to let someone figure out for themselves what they're full of?

It's no problem - your posts are predictable and devoid of substance and value. There's a benefit to consistency, even when it's pathetic.
 
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.
 
It's no problem -
your posts are predictable and devoid of substance and value.
There's a benefit to consistency, even when it's pathetic.



That's exactly how I see most of your posts.

Occasionally a good one slips through.




"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."
 
Consider the following quote from Winston Churchill:
"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."​

Yes

No

Other

I could also ask, "Can a nation bring prosperity by massive tax cuts for the super-rich?"
 
The economy has tended to perform better when taxes were higher than they are today

This suggests tax levels are causal of economic activity. Also, what taxes?

I could also ask, "Can a nation bring prosperity by massive tax cuts for the super-rich?"

You mean the capital gains tax cuts of the 1990s?
 
Wise man, that Winston Churchill - too bad they don't make Churchillian politicians these days.

Pick up a history book dude. Churchill was good against Nazis but would be a terrible politician today.

I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.
Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919

It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King.
Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931
 
And lower.

Yep. And the economy has tended to grow faster when they've been higher. Not because taxes themselves are good for the economy, because if you're below the optimal level, then the benefits of the spending the facilitate outweigh the economic harm the taxes themselves do.
 
Yep. And the economy has tended to grow faster when they've been higher.

The fastest US growth rate was before the income tax.
 
Read my post that you replied to. That is what it is about.

Tax rates do not create economic activity.

Pretty much all taxes have been higher at some point in the past or another.

You're dodging. You're softly suggesting tax rates cause economic expansions or contractions. If you don't mean to suggest that, say so. If you do, support the assertion.
 
Tax rates do not create economic activity.

Well, if you would like to have a debate with me in which you defend that position, the first step would be to read my post and see if you have a counter argument.
 
The fastest US growth rate was before the income tax.

No, not even close. The fastest growth, by far, was during FDR's presidency when, for example, the top income tax bracket's rate was over 90%.
 
No, of course not. But the idea that an incompetent buffoon like Winston Churchill is a valid argument against Keynesian economics is hilarious.

You must think very highly of yourself. Nobody else does, but you must.
 
Well, if you would like to have a debate with me in which you defend that position, the first step would be to read my post and see if you have a counter argument.

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.
 
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