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Can A Nation Tax Itself Into Prosperity?

Can a nation tax its way to prosperity?

  • Total voters
    61
Neomalthusian said:
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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Anyways dude, I can't debate you if you aren't going to read or respond to what I post. It just isn't possible to debate when the other person isn't reading what you write, so not really sure what you're hoping I'll do for you here.
 

there are many conservatives who are against the bolded.
 

Happy July 4, tuhaybey! :2wave:

Putting the brakes on spending is also very important, IMO. When people are taxed more by the government, they have fewer dollars available to spend on everything else. For many, crunch time has already arrived for the middle class - what's going to happen if more of their money is taken in taxes? We are already seeing businesses like restaurants and other retail establishments in this area close, and I feel it's likely to continue. Sad....
 
SlevinKelevra said:
there are many conservatives who are against the bolded.
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That's fair - I should have noted research and development related to the primary business of government. Most conservatives don't oppose things like NASA, the CDC, weapons systems, etc. Most conservatives are opposed to the government spending money researching bovine farts, etc.
 
scatt said:
The fastest was in the late 1800's.
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No, that isn't true. Most years in the last 1800s were under 2%. In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.

During FDR's term, we over 5% nine years, over 10% four years, and over 17% three years. No other president ever broke 10% and FDR did it four times.

Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective: US Real Per Capita GDP from 1870–2001

You might be looking at a chart that isn't adjusted for inflation. There were some years in the last 1800s that had really crazy inflation I think, so that could distort it pretty badly.
 
scatt said:
Cool blog link, bro.
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It pulls the numbers out of that book listed at the bottom. Anyways, it's your claim, and it doesn't appear to be true, so lets see your source.
 

Generally speaking, the middle class does better with higher taxing and spending. The taxes tend to hit the rich a bit more heavily and the spending tends to benefits the middle class a bit more heavily. Keep in mind, the money doesn't actually disappear from the economy. The government takes it as taxes and spends it, then whoever it paid- construction workers, teachers, social security beneficiaries, etc.- buys things with the money.
 
scatt said:
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That seems to match what I said, no?

Again:

Most years in the last 1800s were under 2%. In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.

During FDR's term, we over 5% nine years, over 10% four years, and over 17% three years. No other president ever broke 10% and FDR did it four times.
 

I thought social security benefits were just slowly returning money that the recipients paid in while they were working, and had it taken out by the government whether or not they wanted it taken. Not that it is bad, because with SS, people at least have some money coming in after retirement, since too few have any savings accumulated on their own. In other words, that was never government's money in the first place, but unfortunately they have taken it and used it for many other things over the years, and have not made good on the IOU's they gave in return for the cash.
 
tuhaybey said:
In 1892 we hit 7.5% and in 1895 we hit 10%. But, those good years were interspersed with some very bad years, like 1894 when we lost 4.7% and whatnot.
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1891-224027
1892-245757

7.5 percent? How?

1894-227131
1895-254552

10 percent? How?

1893-233857
1894-227131

4.7 percent? How?
 
scatt said:
1891-224027
1892-245757

7.5 percent? How?

1894-227131
1895-254552

10 percent? How?

1893-233857
1894-227131

4.7 percent? How?
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I mean, we didn't really have good official records back in those days. These are all estimates, so we'd expect the numbers would be slightly different from one source to another. You don't say what your source is, but it is in internationalized dollars, so we would certainly not expect that to be the same as my numbers, which were in US dollars. Internationalized dollars apply cost of living adjustments across countries to normalize it internationally, so, for example, if the cost of living went way up in some other country, that would change the GDP growth reflected in the chart for the US.

But, it doesn't really matter which source we use. They're about the same. For example, for 1895, (254 - 227) / 227 = 11.9%. Certainly not up near FDR's best years.

Also, more fundamentally, obviously the economy we're in today is a radically different world than we were in in the 1800s, so that seems kind of silly to look back that far to see what level of taxes work best. Presumably what worked then would have no bearing on what works in the modern world. All the issues involved are completely different.
 

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This debate is so old that it's become pretty useless.

The approach to a nation's economic recovery is the same as an individual's recovery. Increase revenue, decrease spending. Have we done either of those things? No, we haven't.

Unless something radical and out of our control happens like an inevitable war (not like the ones we've been waging of late), or a disaster of some kind, then there's no real reason why our government can't follow these simply tenets.

The problem is that our government is no longer accountable to its people, but to the larger non-state global actors. These actors don't really care if America is bankrupted because they are no longer relying on American soil to sustain them. They can go anywhere they please after they've leeched our system into oblivion like the parasites they are.
 
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