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I'm a little confused by your question, but let me suggest that if you individually had to pay for all the services currently available to you as a tax-payer, I think you'd find you needed more income, not less.
You just can't make up a salary amount and determine all will be satisfied.
Everyone is different - so different people have different needs and desires.
Plus it depends on the cost of goods and services needed to live comfortably. And again, that will differ based on the person, and the business selling the goods and services.
...use what you make, and then think of how you would even need less to be comfortable if all of that money you pay to taxes and programs didnt have to go...
Again, I don't buy your premise. If I had to pay for all of the services individually that are available to me as a tax-payer, I'd need more money, not less.
I was pondering...If we had a very liberty oreinted govt. in place, and all these ridiculous programs, taxes, etc...dissapeared...
What would be the comfortable living salary?
For example...lets say right now you are comfortable making 40,000 a yr...
...if the above happened...do you think that same person would be comfortable at 25,000?
No. He'd be dead.
No kidding, such a situation would have very few safeties in place to keep people alive, and basic functions would soar in cost.
It is hard to guess how much more expensive most things would be, though. Because the increase in expense will vary a lot by the commodity. For example, only Bill Gates could afford a military. Sanitation would be pretty much non-existent, we'd be back to excrement flowing in the gutters. Its also hard to set an income you'd need to be comfortable, because the dollar would plunge in value. Try to keep a modern industrialized society going without police and with most roads degenerating into dirt-tracks.
The US would quickly come to resemble parts of Pakistan. All those government services do not magically materialize, absent taxes and a government. Police, sanitation, epidemics control, roads, courts, defense, etc, etc would still be needed and have to be paid for. And absent the advantages of bulk, they would be a lot more expensive.
No kidding, such a situation would have very few safeties in place to keep people alive, and basic functions would soar in cost.
It is hard to guess how much more expensive most things would be, though. Because the increase in expense will vary a lot by the commodity. For example, only Bill Gates could afford a military. Sanitation would be pretty much non-existent, we'd be back to excrement flowing in the gutters. Its also hard to set an income you'd need to be comfortable, because the dollar would plunge in value. Try to keep a modern industrialized society going without police and with most roads degenerating into dirt-tracks.
The US would quickly come to resemble parts of Pakistan. All those government services do not magically materialize, absent taxes and a government. Police, sanitation, epidemics control, roads, courts, defense, etc, etc would still be needed and have to be paid for. And absent the advantages of bulk, they would be a lot more expensive.
I think this exemplifies the simplicity in the thinking of many of the anti-government, anti-tax zealots.
They think that if we eliminated necessary government programs and services, the need for these would simply disappear. The opposite is likely true-- the lack of programs would exacerbate the needs. Hunger and poverty lead to street crime, for example. Black markets flourish without proper enforcement increasing the price of hard-to-get items.
Screaming to cut government spending radically and lowering taxes has an obvious appeal-- and an obvious effect on our standard of living.
I'm confused, but what does this question have to do with liberals?
Are you implying that liberals are the only ones who have the common sense to realize the above mentioned realities?
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