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Re: The Case in Support of HIgh Taxes and Big Government
Have you even looked into African tax rates? I did a quick google search, and found this wiki article. I noticed that the tax rates actually seemed relatively high in some African nations. Regardless, taxation alone cannot indicate the extent to which an economy is free.
It is not relevant how much first-hand experience I have to know that free markets do not exist in Africa much at all. Those African nations don't have the money to pay their workers more money. You can raise the rates all you want, but raising rates on such a small monetary base wont do much. As such, there is so much more to economic freedom than tax rates. If you think tax rates alone are representative of the size of government, you are sorely mistaken. I suggest looking into the index of economic freedom here. You will notice that Africa is the lowest scoring region.How much first-hand experience do you have in third-world nations? The corruption is there because the governments are small enough to drown in a bathtub. When you pay policemen a mere pittance, how do you think they're going to find enough money to feed their families? When you pay low-level government functionaries a pittance, again, how do you think they're going to get the money to feed their families? And as these people slowly move up the ladder, they carry that tradition of corruption with them...and it spreads and perpetuates through the society as a whole.
If you want a nation with a low level of corruption, you MUST, repeat MUST pay your government workers well enough so that the naturally-more-honest ones won't be forced to engage in corruption just to feed their families. And that, sir, requires higher tax rates.
Have you even looked into African tax rates? I did a quick google search, and found this wiki article. I noticed that the tax rates actually seemed relatively high in some African nations. Regardless, taxation alone cannot indicate the extent to which an economy is free.