Social welfare spending gets confounded by emotions. Well wishing (raise your taxes type) see themselves as morally superior because they’re in support of a broader wider, deeper net for society. A more moderate mindset espouses a hand up instead of a handout approach. The problem with both of these are they lead to bigger government. Personally, I never feel warm and fuzzy about writing a check for my taxes. It does feel mighty fine to volunteer at the veterans home cookout, to support a neighbor through a crisis, or donate to a local charity. If only there were a way to incentive being a good charitable human being.
Ah yes, unfortunately we can only sleep well at night. There don't seem to be any medals handed out for being a good human. (any they do hand out I suspect are bogus public relations)
Well extremes are never good no matter for which side, agreed. How much can we fund locally? If we don’t have government be in charge of paying for street repair or the fire department, would the community pay for it and maintain it? What about bigger infrastructure, like bridges and tunnels? What about that old idea where you decide which bucket to put your taxes in? Perhaps, out of 100%, I put 20% into health care, 20% into education, 20% infrastructure, 20% into social services and the last 20%, the government chooses where it’ll go. Let’s see how many wars get started if they have to bake cupcakes to raise money for warheads. This is all arbitrary, but Americans don’t get angry enough about how much of our taxes go towards killing innocent people abroad.
Hmm... when I think of "socialism", I'm thinking of "wealth redistribution" programs. "Infrastructure" and "Military" I think of as "government".
You make a fantastic point that we don't get angry enough about tax money being spent to kill innocent people across the world. So yes, if I was in government, the first budget item that I'd reduce is the military budget.
The idea of "voluntary" buckets is terrific. That way each of us could prioritize what is important to us. However, I think that would have to be coupled with preventing the government from just printing more money to fund the items it wants to fund that the people didn't fund.
I don’t know enough about economics to have a good sense of how money can be fixed properly. I think having it be deflationary is a good start and so preventing the government from injecting liquidity might mean that they’re not in charge of the money. But neither would the private banks be in charge. How can the people be in charge of the money? 🤔 I don’t know.
Being the son of two mathematicians and having studied economics in college, I *thought* I knew a fair amount of the subject of money but basically ignored it my entire life. Now I've been intensively studying it for several years now.
Guess what? "Money" is absurdly complex!
Trying to answer this comment would really justify a whole article. Something that is very critical to consider is *who* is in charge of money! It's not the government and it's not your local (even major international banks) bank.
In theory we elect politicians to spend our tax dollars in a representative manner that reflects our wishes. Well, that failed! We have a corrupt disaster currently.
The "rebuilding" is what is of concern. Who benefits? Who gets screwed? At the moment it seems like only the very wealthy are benefiting. Yet if I was wealthy I'd be terrified at the collapse of the dollar!
Social welfare spending gets confounded by emotions. Well wishing (raise your taxes type) see themselves as morally superior because they’re in support of a broader wider, deeper net for society. A more moderate mindset espouses a hand up instead of a handout approach. The problem with both of these are they lead to bigger government. Personally, I never feel warm and fuzzy about writing a check for my taxes. It does feel mighty fine to volunteer at the veterans home cookout, to support a neighbor through a crisis, or donate to a local charity. If only there were a way to incentive being a good charitable human being.
Ah yes, unfortunately we can only sleep well at night. There don't seem to be any medals handed out for being a good human. (any they do hand out I suspect are bogus public relations)
Well extremes are never good no matter for which side, agreed. How much can we fund locally? If we don’t have government be in charge of paying for street repair or the fire department, would the community pay for it and maintain it? What about bigger infrastructure, like bridges and tunnels? What about that old idea where you decide which bucket to put your taxes in? Perhaps, out of 100%, I put 20% into health care, 20% into education, 20% infrastructure, 20% into social services and the last 20%, the government chooses where it’ll go. Let’s see how many wars get started if they have to bake cupcakes to raise money for warheads. This is all arbitrary, but Americans don’t get angry enough about how much of our taxes go towards killing innocent people abroad.
Hmm... when I think of "socialism", I'm thinking of "wealth redistribution" programs. "Infrastructure" and "Military" I think of as "government".
You make a fantastic point that we don't get angry enough about tax money being spent to kill innocent people across the world. So yes, if I was in government, the first budget item that I'd reduce is the military budget.
The idea of "voluntary" buckets is terrific. That way each of us could prioritize what is important to us. However, I think that would have to be coupled with preventing the government from just printing more money to fund the items it wants to fund that the people didn't fund.
I don’t know enough about economics to have a good sense of how money can be fixed properly. I think having it be deflationary is a good start and so preventing the government from injecting liquidity might mean that they’re not in charge of the money. But neither would the private banks be in charge. How can the people be in charge of the money? 🤔 I don’t know.
Being the son of two mathematicians and having studied economics in college, I *thought* I knew a fair amount of the subject of money but basically ignored it my entire life. Now I've been intensively studying it for several years now.
Guess what? "Money" is absurdly complex!
Trying to answer this comment would really justify a whole article. Something that is very critical to consider is *who* is in charge of money! It's not the government and it's not your local (even major international banks) bank.
In theory we elect politicians to spend our tax dollars in a representative manner that reflects our wishes. Well, that failed! We have a corrupt disaster currently.
Yes, indeed. Corrupt and pervasive. This is why the acceleration it’s want to collapse it all and rebuild from scratch. I don’t blame them.
The "rebuilding" is what is of concern. Who benefits? Who gets screwed? At the moment it seems like only the very wealthy are benefiting. Yet if I was wealthy I'd be terrified at the collapse of the dollar!