a "little" wrote:
Facts bro wrote:You have any clue how little of our spending goes towards wellfare?
Welfare is considered all entitlements (as opposed to military/other discretionary spending/functions) so basically most of it. And it's rapidly growing due to changing demographics.
I think we all know that isn't what the OP was talking about.
Best answer here:
No, we cannot keep subsidizing the wealthy at the expense of the lower middle class.
Read more:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7240663#ixzz473eWfw9N.
mellow seeds wrote:
a "little" wrote:Welfare is considered all entitlements (as opposed to military/other discretionary spending/functions) so basically most of it. And it's rapidly growing due to changing demographics.
I think we all know that isn't what the OP was talking about.
The OP is angry that all his tax money is going to the Welfare State. He wants it all for himself, to spend as he pleases.
mellow seeds wrote:
a "little" wrote:Welfare is considered all entitlements (as opposed to military/other discretionary spending/functions) so basically most of it. And it's rapidly growing due to changing demographics.
I think we all know that isn't what the OP was talking about.
Yeah it was. It's in the link he posted.
bitter pills wrote:
mellow seeds wrote:I think we all know that isn't what the OP was talking about.
The OP is angry that all his tax money is going to the Welfare State. He wants it all for himself, to spend as he pleases.
Maybe he should make more money then.
mellow seeds wrote:
bitter pills wrote:The OP is angry that all his tax money is going to the Welfare State. He wants it all for himself, to spend as he pleases.
Maybe he should make more money then.
Except he'll want that money for himself as well. It's a vicious cycle the OP is riding.
a "little" wrote:
Welfare is considered all entitlements (as opposed to military/other discretionary spending/functions) so basically most of it. And it's rapidly growing due to changing demographics.
Why isn't military spending considered welfare. It's the government employing people to build useless weapon systems designed for the cold war. Then when we talk about ending these programs, everyone cries "think of all the jobs that will be lost." Billions of dollars just disappeared in Iraq thanks to Halliburton. Hell, we paid 2 men $80MM to come up with new methods of torture. Our military is the biggest money pit our government has going.
With the right steady growth in GDP we could sustain the spending.
Welfare is is very useful spending.
Because recipients turn it over immediately into the economy.
You can look it as the poor person getting free food or rent.
But a second later it is the grocery store getting higher sales and the landlord receiving rental income.
The grocery sales and rent payment become taxable income. And they in turn spend the money they receive on their expenses.
The more costly welfare is the tax loopholes that enable a wealthy person to pile onto their savings, which does nothing to help the economy.
Whether by tax increase or selling bonds the government gets its money to cover this from the same people - the wealthy.
The wealthy would rather buy a $1,000 bond at 0.1% interest than pay an extra $1,000 in taxes. So they are happier with government debt that with the balanced budget for the same spending.
What is going to happen?
Nothing
These last two answers nail it.
1. Cut military spending 20 percent (basically pay Home Depot prices for toilet seats, instead of what the military pays now), and boost current "real" welfare that amount.
2. The 1 percent are a leach on the economy.
We don't need to wonder what will happen, it's going to happen anyway. Just as seas are rising no matter what anybody says, this country's demographic is nothing like we've seen before. Trump will continue appealing to the Idicocracy crowd, and the Democratic party will hold office forever with the new population.
L L wrote:
The more costly welfare is the tax loopholes that enable a wealthy person to pile onto their savings, which does nothing to help the economy.
What an idiot! do you think the wealthy hide their fortune in their mattresses? Wealthy people put their savings into stocks or banks which subsequently give rise to growing businesses or loans to startups or young people.
But bank loans or capital injections to not help businesses as quickly or effectively as immediate sales.
Summary : It is not sustainable. Manage the Slow decline and blame right wingers.
If you set up your economy to incentivize bad behavior then productivity will fall, and no matter what else you do, the average standard of living must fall with it.
Starting at the top, government spending in general results in less efficient allocation of scarce resources as compared to private spending because the motivation behind government spending is not to maximize production or profits, but to attain power and control over people. So the larger percentage of your economy that is due to government spending the less efficient your economy will be, and the lower average standard of living will be the result.
Breaking it down to individual welfare, government spending creates the moral hazard of paying people to do nothing, or worse yet paying people to do the wrong things, like having children out of wedlock. This undermines the work ethic not to mention the fabric of the culture and ultimately the overall productivity of the average citizen falls.
Corporate welfare, and I include regulations tailored to favor one company over another in this, reduces the competitive forces that drive companies to win through creating the best product or service. If you are guaranteed a profit from the government, then why try hard? Again, productivity will suffer, and standards of living will fall.
In the long run we will continue our slide into second world status as our productivity falls to the levels of competing countries and our ability to maintain our military weakens as the money dries up. The goal of our representatives is to manage this decline in a way that keeps us from understanding that they've done this to us and eventually rebelling, while they stay in power by blaming people like Ted Cruz and the Tea Party for keeping them from implementing their next Utopian big government solution which certain to work THIS time... even though it was their last big government solution which creating the existing disaster, like ObamaCare.
Ultimately we become a welfare state where everyone is bought off in one form or another, and many people are dependent on the government for their very existence, while they live at a subsistence level and blame the villain-of-the-week for their plight.
recognizer of economytards wrote:
What an idiot!
Yes, you are quite an idiot. Rich people hide their money in tax havens like Puerto Rico, Panama, and Delaware. You must have gotten your economics degree from Dunning–Kruger University.
recognizer of economytards wrote:
L L wrote:The more costly welfare is the tax loopholes that enable a wealthy person to pile onto their savings, which does nothing to help the economy.
What an idiot! do you think the wealthy hide their fortune in their mattresses? Wealthy people put their savings into stocks or banks which subsequently give rise to growing businesses or loans to startups or young people.
Exactly. If they decided to use their wealth to consume rather than invest, it would be MUCH WORSE for the average person, since they would bid up the prices for all the normal goods and services most consumers use.
HardLoper wrote:
recognizer of economytards wrote:What an idiot! do you think the wealthy hide their fortune in their mattresses? Wealthy people put their savings into stocks or banks which subsequently give rise to growing businesses or loans to startups or young people.
Exactly. If they decided to use their wealth to consume rather than invest, it would be MUCH WORSE for the average person, since they would bid up the prices for all the normal goods and services most consumers use.
Yes. Scrooge was right. By refusing to waste his valuable money on charity, and by investing it instead, he was helping create jobs for the poor that would help them more in the long run.
There is an inverse relationship between how useful an activity is and how much it pays to do that activity.
Creating Google and facebook- the biggest time-wasting activities ever created- (causing the most collosal waste of time ever) - were also the most profitable activities ever.
Yet farm work (the thing that keeps us all from starving) -is the least profitable.
We like to think we are important. And we justify out importance with our high pay.
(And my pay is higher than 99% of you).
But if we are honest- we have to admit the better our pay- the more useless we are.
You make a 7 figure income - try explaining why your job is important to a 5 year old!
The economy is a social activity. Just like government.
Hermits are the real "self made men."
That said - The chief advantage of capitalism is that it elevates useless people to positions of power and wealth.
Communism, socialism, and feudalism- saved the best positions for murderous sociopaths.
So, I guess we are better off.
DiscoGary wrote:
HardLoper wrote:Exactly. If they decided to use their wealth to consume rather than invest, it would be MUCH WORSE for the average person, since they would bid up the prices for all the normal goods and services most consumers use.
Yes. Scrooge was right. By refusing to waste his valuable money on charity, and by investing it instead, he was helping create jobs for the poor that would help them more in the long run.
While I'm not against charity, infecting parts of the world like Hong Kong (and slowly the rest of China) and others with more capitalism has done a lot more for the world's poor (financially and human rights) than any of our charity efforts.
Speaker of Hard Truths wrote:
Yes I do. 50% of our taxes are paid by the top 1%. 2/3 of this goes to social security and medicare. Corporate tax breaks and deferred taxes are a positive to our bottom line in the form of capital gains receipts and future taxes paid. So no we are not subsidizing the rich, and you're probably a just as much an idiot as the FeelTheBerners.
I love this. "I've memorized bogus conservative economic talking points. Go back to econ 101 libtards!"
The top 1% pay 50% of FEDERAL INCOME TAXES. The income tax represents less than half of total federal collections, and federal collections make up only 60% of total govt. collections (federal, state, and local). The top one percent pay less than 30% of all federal taxes and they own roughly 40% of the country’s private wealth. It's also been well-established that, perversely, within the top 1%, effective tax rates get lower as you move from “very well-off†to “super-rich.â€
You can argue that overall corporate tax rates are too high, but corporate tax breaks are obviously detrimental to our bottom line. Even conservative organizations like the Tax Foundation agree on this point. Giving public money to corporations that are already worth billions to perform normal business operations doesn’t produce growth, encourages inefficient business decisions, and is the definition of government “picking winners and losers.â€
Regarding our unfunded liabilities: Obviously the status quo is unsustainable. The payroll tax cap needs to go. We probably need to raise retirement rates. Health cost containment strategies are all ridiculously complex, although I think moving to single-payer would help. Maybe death panels?
blerp wrote:
Why isn't military spending considered welfare.
A good point. Of all the doggles in boon-town, the F-35 stands alone:
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.htmlL L wrote:
With the right steady growth in GDP we could sustain the spending.
Welfare is is very useful spending.
Because recipients turn it over immediately into the economy.
You can look it as the poor person getting free food or rent.
But a second later it is the grocery store getting higher sales and the landlord receiving rental income.
The grocery sales and rent payment become taxable income. And they in turn spend the money they receive on their expenses.
The more costly welfare is the tax loopholes that enable a wealthy person to pile onto their savings, which does nothing to help the economy.
Whether by tax increase or selling bonds the government gets its money to cover this from the same people - the wealthy.
The wealthy would rather buy a $1,000 bond at 0.1% interest than pay an extra $1,000 in taxes. So they are happier with government debt that with the balanced budget for the same spending.
What is going to happen?
Nothing
This Keyensian trash didn't turn out so well by the 1970s. Demand side policies create inflation, nothing more.
bitter pills wrote:
mellow seeds wrote:Maybe he should make more money then.
Except he'll want that money for himself as well. It's a vicious cycle the OP is riding.
Although I do want my money, that was not my motivation for this thread. I fully understand that taxes are a necessary part of society running smoothly. They fund the police, fire, trash pickup, defense, and shoot, even some welfare programs.
It is the MAGNITUDE and DIRECTION of these payments that alarms me, not their existence. It CANNOT continue forever. My question isn't WHETHER it will collapse. It will. My question is HOW will it collapse?