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That’s not the case where I am at all. Even with transportation funding per capita being a quarter of what it was when the gas taxes were last adjusted 30 years ago (inflation adjusted), the interstate system in my state is still well constructed and regularly upgraded. It sounds like you just live in a crappy state that’s intentionally sabotaging things. I know that’s how Texas is, which is part of why I left.
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uhm Denver has some of the worst roads in the nation
Yeah, road roughness can be a tough measure on places that have intense freeze/thaw cycles. 14th out of 52 metros with populations over 1 million isn’t bad when most roads need a mill and overlay every year with a 5-month window. The CDOT freeways I drive have been used as models all over the world (thinking I-25 in the south Denver metro, the Eisenhower tunnels that no private entity could have ever built or kept up). All for a couple cents per mile. Denver has among the lowest property taxes in the nation too. Meanwhile, E-470 is about to start defaulting on its bonds despite being the most expensive road per mile in the nation. Lowering the tolls didn’t attract the development needed, so it had to raise the tolls to ridiculous levels by captive users and the occasional airport runners.
This is all compared to the other major metros I’m most familiar with, Austin, DFW, and Houston. DFW has notably worse roads on that survey you brought up, despite the much warmer weather and extensive tollway system. DFW, Houston and Austin all rank worse on congestion and have traffic jammed tollways. They all have 3-4x the property taxes I pay too.
That’s not the case where I am at all. Even with transportation funding per capita being a quarter of what it was when the gas taxes were last adjusted 30 years ago (inflation adjusted), the interstate system in my state is still well constructed and regularly upgraded. It sounds like you just live in a crappy state that’s intentionally sabotaging things. I know that’s how Texas is, which is part of why I left.
If the government does it better cheaper, then prove it. Compete. Without taxpayer dollars. Start a SOE that is independent from the government and compete with the private sector for highway operation business. In my area tollways and TEXpress lanes are in the best shape followed by highways with TX in front of their names followed by highways with I in front of their names. If the private tollway operators can build and maintain better highways while answering to shareholders that demand returns, by all means let them do it.
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Originally Posted by Westerner92
Advocating for the abandonment highly beneficial public projects because you’re among those who can afford the luxury version of what they’re providing is sociopathic. Go to Mexico or India if that’s the kind of society you want to live in.
Public projects should be abandoned and quickly when they are no longer beneficial. "Government" is not a carte blanche to set money on fire. Public schools have been doing that for ages. Government doesn't need to take care of anyone who's able bodied - people are generally better off when they take care of themselves. You might have a point if you're talking about disabled people. What's sociopathic is maintaining a government monopoly on these social services under the guise of "taking care" of people and regulating the competition out of business, all the while the government monopolist provides a **** poor service.
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Originally Posted by Westerner92
Infrastructure and urban planning. I’ve been stating as much. It’s just going over your head. Also, profit motives will never find it worth it to educate poor and lower middle class kids. Profit motives create things like home insurance but will never put out a house fire. Profit motives are unable to create our vast ecological reserves that allow you to freely roam for hundreds of miles.
It's going over your head that the government is essentially setting more and more money on fire for worse outcomes. That is not defensible.
If the government does it better, compete. But if it can't compete without being propped up by taxpayers, it needs to admit defeat and exit the business. You have public sector unions lobbying government to defend its monopoly though...no doubt because they can't compete. If the service they're offering is superior to the private sector, and cheaper, compete without taxpayer money and prove it. Poor people are not served by poorly performing public schools or government-run fire departments/police departments, they're served by effective and efficient schools or fire/police departments, public, private, nonprofit or otherwise.
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Originally Posted by Westerner92
I agree that capital-driven self-interest is better at extracting the most wealth within a short time period. I’ve said as much. Public interest as determined by elected officials is the best way we have at translating that extracted wealth into quality of life for the working class that actually did the work. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a good balance that we’ve had for ~100 years that should not be dismantled the way you want to.
The Federal Government spent $27 trillion waging war on poverty. The Government isn't looking to create a balance, it's looking to bleed the private sector dry. Quality of life isn't achieved by regulation or government, it's achieved by a healthy market for products and services. And yes, I want government programs that do not generate a net economic benefit to be dismantled yesterday.
And btw, the so-called 'capital barons' you want destroyed so badly or taxed to death spend more money on philanthropy than anyone else, pay more taxes than anyone else, buy more things than anyone else, and create more jobs than anyone else.
Last edited by albert648; 09-24-2021 at 01:27 PM..
If the government does it better cheaper, then prove it. Compete. Without taxpayer dollars. Start a SOE that is independent from the government and compete with the private sector for highway operation business.
It did and won out handily in the early 20th Century. That’s what all these Ayn Rand/libertarian circle jerkers don’t get. It’s like the world didn’t exist before Reagan for these types.
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Public projects should be abandoned and quickly when they are no longer beneficial. "Government" is not a carte blanche to set money on fire. Public schools have been doing that for ages. Government doesn't need to take care of anyone who's able bodied - people are generally better off when they take care of themselves. You might have a point if you're talking about disabled people.
It's going over your head that the government is essentially setting more and more money on fire for worse outcomes. That is not defensible.
If the government does it better, compete. But if it can't compete without being propped up by taxpayers, it needs to admit defeat and exit the business. You have public sector unions lobbying government to defend its monopoly though...no doubt because they can't compete. If the service they're offering is superior to the private sector, and cheaper, compete without taxpayer money and prove it. Poor people are not served by poorly performing public schools or government-run fire departments/police departments, they're served by effective and efficient schools or fire/police departments, public, private, nonprofit or otherwise.
Access to education didn’t exist for the masses until voters elected representatives to make school districts for them. There wasn’t even a private sector to compete against in this realm. Terrible schools are still better than no schools, and you work to make them better.
Fire protection did not exist until voters elected representatives to make fire departments. They are the only ones in the game.
All that said, anecdotally speaking, my public schools were far superior to the Bob-Jones-curriculum, expensive joke of a Christian school that had us color in world race maps and taught us black skin was the curse Noah put on his son Ham and his descendants. My university had cheaper tuition and is ranked top 50 in the world, top 5 in my major.
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Quality of life isn't achieved by regulation or government, it's achieved by a healthy market for products and services. And yes, I want government programs that do not generate a net economic benefit to be dismantled yesterday.
“Net economic benefit” is pointlessly vague. For instance, can you prove the net economic benefit of a city park? A lot of valuable things in life can be boiled down to a dollar value, but a lot of things can’t. That’s ultimately where libertarian ideology fails.
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And btw, the so-called 'capital barons' you want destroyed so badly spend more money on philanthropy than anyone else, pay more taxes than anyone else, buy more things than anyone else, and create more jobs than anyone else.
Trust busting is a well-established institution that makes for healthier competition and better outcomes. You do not want the winner of Monopoly to make up the rules for the next game because it would make for an unhealthy, pointless “competition” that nobody would willingly participate in.
You can cherry pick some more wordinf to find issue with while ignoring the rest of my post like you’ve been doing, but I’m done here btw.
Any VAT or sales tax is considered regressive, in that the poor pay a higher % of their income than do the rich. Here's a hint: rich folks don't spend all of their income, but poor folks do.
No, they aren’t regressive taxes. That’s not the definition of a regressive tax.
Every time I hear that "the wealthy" already pay the bulk of the taxes, I dig into the data and find that it's only income taxes that "the wealthy" pay the bulk of. Also, "the wealthy" seems to be anyone who earns more than $100K a year. Meanwhile, in reality, the non-wealthy pay more in state sales taxes and in payroll taxes, such that the middle 3 quintiles actually have about the same tax burden by income while the lower quintile (those without any money) pay the least total taxes and the highest quintile actually have a tax burden by income less than the middle three quintiles.
Donald Trump proposed a tax on wealth above $10 million to pay off the national debt...who are we to argue with him?
Can you provide the data that supports that contention?
Progressive tax rates are communism because it implies you don’t “NEED” more money after a certain point. And everyone should ultimately making around the same amount.
So a true flat tax rate if there is going to be an income tax.
However the income tax is really a 100% tax so I don’t support that. We should be billed for services rendered.
Regarding sales taxes, those at the lower end of the income scale spend more of their money on purchases than those on the higher end of the income scale. Proportionally speaking, the effective sales tax rate when compared to income falls heavier on those who make less money.
Regarding payroll taxes, there's a cut-off for FICA taxes. Only the first $142K of income is taxed for FICA. Make less than that and all of your income goes to pay the FICA tax. Make more than that and only part of your income goes to pay the FICA tax. For someone earning seven figures, the FICA tax is comparatively small.
You said that those with lower incomes pay more sales and payroll taxes. They don’t.
Yes, but the effective FICA payroll tax rate for the 50K person is 6.2%, while the effective rate for a 200K person is only 4.2%.
Why is that a problem? SS benefits are capped, and consistent with that, the earnings level is also capped. It makes perfect sense.
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