Quote (dro94 @ 10 Mar 2021 15:21)
I thought you were being facetious when you inferred my taxation preferences were just about building a shit load of roads
Healthcare and Education cost a bomb, Welfare isn't cheap, pension liabilities for civil servants are enormous too. Healthcare would be a lot cheaper under a single payer system but maybe not as high quality. Education is unavoidable. Controversial though it may be, Welfare is essential. Pension liabilities can be dialled down from ridiculous final salary type arrangements over a few decades but isn't going away any time soon
Also, we need to pay for roads
My roads references weren't specifically directed at you at all, tbh. It's just such a common and nonsensical point that I figured I'd toss it out there. The question itself was the point of the post, and thank you for your answer.
Onto the bulk: From a federal perspective, "Education Spending" is pretty much a wash. We spend roughly $20 billion annually on education. The rest of the revenues for education come from education. Why? Because the bulk of the education spending is in the form of high interest loans. And the bulk of the revenue that is used to cover educational spending? Comes from payments on those high interest loans. Quite literally, if the Treasury were given over the student loan portion of the Federal Department of Education, all that'd be left would be $20 billion in annual spending, and most of that'd boil down to primarily affirmative action-based scholarships and simple administrative fees for the department itself. While America spends in excess of $3 Trillion on education annually, the bulk comes from private grants, tuition, endowments, etc. The next largest buy-in are state and local governments. The federal government is basically a massive null. Which makes perfect sense, given that the US does not have a federal education system, we have a State Education system and a Private Education System. Due to the way the US is structured, and the very nature and differences of the states, a Federal Education system doesn't make sense. So, regarding education spending, on a federal level, loans should be handed to the Treasury department. It falls under the same revenue generation category as bonds anyhow, it makes no sense that it has it's own department. The rest of the DOE should simply be disbanded. There's no Federal Education System, therefore, the federal government should fuck off with that noise. Likewise with Healthcare, the government does not provide healthcare. Most government spending in this sector falls under research grants, which are bad business. Research loans? All down. Hand it to the Treasury Department. Grants do not inspire results, they inspire justifications for further grants. FICA, which covers medicaid/Medicare is a separate entity, and is self-funding through a non-avoidable tax. Rich to poor, everyone pays regardless. Though Ironically, it has a cutoff, so anyone making above 128K/year doesn't pay additional. AKA, Bill Gates pays the exact same into FICA as the person who makes 128K/year. Doesn't matter how many billions he rakes in. Social security is the same way. Hence why both programs should ALSO be axed, as they're simply programs that "steal from the poor to... Fund the poor? Wut?" Pensions for civil servants shouldn't exist period. In a private sector job, you don't get a pension. You invest a portion of your paycheck into stock or a 401K or whatever, and your employer makes a match or gives a slight discount. There's no reason whatsoever the government shouldn't operate the same way. My employers have never "given" me a pension. I choose to forgo 6% of my earned income to invest towards retirement. My employer matches that 6%. The portfolio I choose determines how well my retirement ends up. Government guaranteed pensions are the single largest drain on taxpayers, and are completely fiscally irresponsible, as are lifetime salaries for congress and POTUS/VP. None of that shit should EVER exist. Welfare in the US goes 90% to single mothers. Literally. Under it's current structure, Welfare should not exist. It's simply incentivizing bad behavior by whores. We already covered roads.
See, this is where Dems have consistently failed to understand the Conservative viewpoint. The federal government exists for 2 reasons: Insure the safety of the states (aka federal military), and insure the states abide by the bill of rights. That's it. Nothing further. Everything else is a local matter. From a local perspective, if a state is taxing their working classes to death to pay the welfare of their cities, fine. Eventually, the working classes move to states that don't do so, and those high tax poor management cities and states fail. Right now, the #1 use for the federal government seems to be high tax high deficit spending states like NY and California using every Federal Spending Bill as a personal bailout fund for their state. The more push there is to Federalize everything, the more the states that are NOT consistently in the Federal Government's pocket will object.
And thus we get right back to the question: As a taxpayer, what product or service are you offering ME in return for my agreement to pay you more taxes? As it stands right now, literally nothing I have or use is paid for by the federal government. Sure, I get the occasional stimulus check, along with my change from paying too many taxes throughout the year. Beyond that? Nothing. Literally every "tax benefit" I gain comes from local or state sources. Yet all the states combined spend less than the federal government. So... What's the federal government doing for me? Why do I want to pay them more? If I don't like state/local tax policy, I can simply move. When it comes to federal taxes, what are my options, and why am I paying?