Joe Sixpack on Taxes

Honestly sometimes I wonder if some politicians apply the same methodology to their personal spending that they do to government spending. Then I remember they can vote themselves a raise.

Alphie,

I, too, am a secular conservative. I can care less about religion.

The MTS website is a great resource. It informs you of the month to month status of Federal spending and receipts. It is also updated with ever more current projections for spending and receipt.

You are, of course, incorporating entire budgets of entire Departments to substantiate your claim that 'defense' consumes $700 Billion. That is not the standard way of looking at things. Anyway, you are including supplimentals that haven’t been voted on yet. My money is on yet another 6% increase in total DOD spending – that is, to $545 Billion or so. That number will include the supplemental. Personally, I think the DOD can tighten its belt a bit. It really doesn't need an annual budget increase past inflation anymore. We have survived the Clinton Legacy!!!

However, when you make a statement like:

"I’m all for disbanding our $700 billion a year war machine so we can balance the budget, Morgan."

You are talking about having NO DOD budget, NO Veterans Affairs budget, and apparently NO Homeland Security budget.

Even Mexico has a DOD budget, a form of a Homeland Security budget, and some type of Veterans retirement budget.

Shall we help the veterans by building cardboard shacks on the Whitehouse lawn? Been there, done that.

Obviously, not all of the $700 Billion is being spent on Bush's War Machine. No military, no disaster relief, no boarder patrol, no customs control, and no veteran’s benefits. You are exceedingly compassionate.

How about this statement:

I am all for disbanding Health and Human Services so we can balance the budget, Alphie. I am all for disbanding Social Security – the Boomers could have saved some retirement money.

Regardless, next year the Federal budget will be balanced.

What then...

Boghie,

Here's the numbers on interest paid last year on the national debt put out by the treasury Dept:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/i...

$405 billion last year, just like I said.

Defense Budget just passed - $460 billion
War on terruh - $147 billion

We're at $607 billion

Throw in Veteran's admin budget - $86 billion
Homeland Security(yeah, it's defense) - $40 billion

..and we're well over $700 billion on "defense" spending and there's plenty more tucked into the budget elsewhere.

I'm not a liberal, just a secular conservative.

Alphie and probably WaitAMinue are Libs...

Pure and simple.

One blathers out budget numbers that are easy to verify. He (Alphie) was wrong on both numbers. We are actually paying more in interest, but far, far less in DOD spending. The other thinks I am offended when the government spends a bit more money on national defense. He probably thinks we could defend the nation using mothballed passenger jets - maybe he thinks we can convince those stupid morons who volunteer in our rapacious military to suicide bomb the glorious high-rises bin Laden is building for widows and orphans in Iran or Pakistan or Syria or the Caucuses or wherever he is!!! You know, send out the assassination squads to pinpoint bin Laden and arrest him – or secretly kill him when he is all alone; or roll a d20 and try some magic feat…

To WaitAMinute:
I want to spend or borrow money to defeat militant Islam. Don’t you think Osama looks a bit down in the mouth? I don’t think he was counting on a Weak Horse lasting half a decade. I mean, we spent the 80’s and 90’s running from him and the other miscreants in the militant Islamic movement. At least Reagan had bigger fish to fry. Why run in the 90’s when you are the lone superpower?

To Alphie:
It is going to be really hard to beg for more taxes when we are running surpluses. Our problem is that our oldsters will be having their savings bonds redeemed by the government. They are counting on years of interest to keep them off the Alpo. Where are they going to invest their savings? And, the biggest problem other nation’s central banks will soon have is that they will not be able to purchase the safest investment in the world – the US Treasury Bond. Much like our oldsters, these central banks kinda like the safe returns of these investments. And, they are liquid. Now they will have to look at the Yen or Euro or Ruble or the Taiwanese Bat or whatever. Whose investing in the Chinese Yan… Yawn…

Because as everyone knows, most people are libertarians and approach the world accordingly.

WaitAMinute,

A rising tide lifts all boats!!!

In actuality, the tide is rising so fast both government revenue and government spending are falling as a percentage of GDP. Both tax collection and spending are now at the low end of the norm.

And, the trend is normalized.

Why do you want to change this trend?

Are you looking to explode spending or crush revenue!!!

WaitAMinute...

You cannot cut both tax rates and spending??? Why???

I could. I would not cut rates any more than Bush. I find the rate fare - and thus simply pay my taxes without looking for every deduction Also, I would be willing to cut spending in some of the large Departments. Thus, I could keep the tax code changes and reduce spending.

Are you unwilling to make an actual cut? If so, tell me two or three Departments you would cut back.

A 4% spending cut will balance the budget - even without any tax revenue increase. But, tax revenues have grown by 8 - 13% each year after the tax rate cuts of 2003. Thus, I don't think we have to do anything.

However, we could guarantee a balanced budget - even if we go into recession - with a one-time 5% real cut in HSS and DOD (saving $60 Billion). Are you willing to do that? Otherwise, you have to grow the economy a bit more. So, if the tax revenues grows by just 5% we will have to cut spending by less than 1%. I think I could survive a 1% spending cut if my income rose by 5%.

If you increase my tax rate (my family falls in the 2nd quintile) than I will just spend more time playing Ariana Huffington tax games. Did it in the past, don't do it now. You will get less money from me because I don't like getting jobbed. Why don't you chase Huffington down. She has a popular website. Ask her how she paid $700 in taxes on $4 million in income. She is the biggest pig at the trough - and she is yours.

I just want a discussion on WHICH IS IT?

You can't both:

1) Cut tax rates
2) Reduce government pending

If you cut tax rates, this simply results in more government tax collection (all government revenue is then spent.)

Republicans have chosen to allow an explosion in taxes collected by the government.

Sheesh ... I thought Republicans were anti-tax?

Stop withholding tax money from every check and make everyone write a check to the government for the full amount every 4/15. Also make everyone pay some income tax so they have a stake in where the money goes. I bet politicians could find a great deal of pork they could cut out then. Allow investment of SS tax so that at least 30 years from now the current government wont have that huge obligation hanging over the current taxpayers heads.

Wow, to funny WaitAMinute...

I am much more concerned with government spending than government revenue.

Corporate Income Taxes have accounted for much of the growth in tax revenue. That is an odd thought, eh...

How much do you want to cut spending - and where?

Here, again, is the Monthly Treasury Statement.

How much do you think we should cut from each of the Departments?

That is a fair question, eh?

I can accept a DOD cut if you can accept a similar cut in Health and Human Services. Both have grown substantially under the Evil BusHitler!!! Perhaps a 5% cut in both.

We are almost at a balanced budget. While $120 Billion deficit looks huge it is tiny in GDP numbers. That is, the FY2007 deficit shall come in at about 0.8% of GDP. A 6% tax revenue growth will result in a balanced budget. We have seen greater growth than that every year since 2003. Next year we will balance the budget

Please stop reading Common Dreams and listening to Air America... The Rhodent even managed to create a conspiracy theory where the Evil bin Laden was part of the NeoCon movement. He probably snuck into an economics class in Chicago - or something.

waitaminute, that is retarded enough to require absolutely no response.

have a nice day.

Whoooooa Nelly:

I thought Republicans were for cutting government revenues?

Reducing tax rates results in increase tax revenues for the government ... right? So, if we're all paying more in taxes ... that's bad, right?


So, shouldn't Republicans be for RAISING tax rates? This would cut government revenues ... just like they claim to want?

Alphie,

If your $700 Billion dollar figure for DDD spending was off by, say, about 30% should I continue to respect your opinion?

The funding appropriated to the DOD - and, yes, this includes the war supplemental - is $539 Billion. That amount equates to $363 Billion in 1992 dollars. It is the equivalent of $421 Billion in 1998 dollars - two years after bin Laden publicly declared war on the United States and the year al-Qaeda bombed the embassies in Africa. Otherwise known as the era of peace in our time. And, a year (1998) we spent $256 Billion on the DOD. So, the war machine has grown by $165 Billion in 1998 dollars, or $94 Billion in 2000 dollars. Out of Federal spending of $2,700 Billion, and an economy of $13,500 Billion.

To summarize, President Bush is spending $94 Billion more on the DOD than the Clinton administration did in FY2000.

Finally, don't whine about the deficit. It will be less than $150 Billion for FY2007. That equates to $129 Billion in 2000 dollars. Next year we will run balanced - or even in surplus. And, the GDP has grown from $9.8 Trillion to $13.5 Trillion since then.

Alphie, don't take this wrong, but you really should look at primary sources - and, not listen to the Randi Rhodent quite so much. It doesn't help your cause.

Here is the Monthly Treasury Statement for July 2007:
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0707.pdf
The DOD expenditures are on page 5.

Here is a convenient inflation calculator:

Martin Feldstein is the genius who told us that the Clinton tax increases would be disastrous. George Bush cut taxes and increased spending (massively), yet after six years the country is not as prosperous as it was during the bad old Clinton days, despite Alan Greenspan's low, low interest rates. Tax rates and similar factors that right-wingers like Feldstein (and you) like to emphasize as determining economic growth simply are not as important as you would have us believe.

And that’s $700 billion a year we’re spending on paranoia defense these days,

No we're not. And you can't cite a budget figure which says otherwise.

By the way stupid, I'd like you to explain the "paranoia" to the familes of all those killed on 9/11.

Funny how you don't bring up how much we're spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, S-Chip, HHS, HUD, Education, "income security" etc, et al. Which combined are 5 times more than we spend on the "war machine"

Now why do you think that is?

Of course Alpo, in his inimitable, talking telephione pole manner, completely ignores the cost of the destruction of our society if we zero out our defense budget.

It's almost as if Alpo were orbiting closer and closer and closer to The Black Hole of Stupidity.

*Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results* reality-based SDN.

The Ronald Reagan Memorial Missile Defense System and IED proof vehicles may prove tougher to commercialize than the internet.

And that's $700 billion a year we're spending on paranoia defense these days, not $700 million a year.

Leaving aside the facts (an al-phLie specialty) that the $700 million we spend on the war machine, like the money we spend on "useless" NASA manned missions, sparks a huge amount of useful tech development. Exhibit A: the Internet we're on now.

Unlike, say, redistribution of income thru Social Security and other entitlements.

You can argue til you're blue in the face about whether it costs $1.76 or $1.46, and at the end of the day you will have settled nothing.

The reality is that *every* *single* time tax rates have been cut, the government's revenue has increased - and not by a little bit. That's historical fact, not partisan fiction. Raising taxes has *always* led to depressed overall economic performance (compared to pre-increase). That's not even debatable.

The problem the government has is on the spending side of the equation. Again, we can argue about where to make the cuts, but the bottom line is that no matter how much money we've ever thrown at the government our elected leaders have managed to spend that much and more. Until and unless you're willing to make hard choices regarding entitlement spending and eliminating congressional earmarks, then you're really not serious about solving the problem: you're just playing politics.

What's more amusing is that Politician A invariably blames the vast Politician B conspiracy for this outcome.

Alphie I bet you and I could likely find some common ground if it involved decreased spending in preference of increased tax rates.

For one I don't think in a dynamic economy it's a guarantee that increasing rates will increase revenue. I like GDP growth over tax rate growth to increase revenue.

And although I wouldn't want the military to go to zero, I would honestly keep nothing off the table in terms of looking for where to spend less. If there is a way to protect ourselves and get a good value for our dollar, I'd love it.

Anyway, you don't know me, and I doubt you care, but I didn't just want to snark off and then disappear.

So Alphie seems to advocate spending of $0.00 on the US war machine. And reduction of such spending will affect only the "supply siders" who derive the sole benefit from the "war machine". I guess this means that everyone who works for a defense contractor is a supply sider. This is ironic since I would wager that many such merchants of death are unionized (who knew?).

The link between lower taxes and nuking Iran is somehow lost on me. Lower taxes means a massive war machine?

That's funny alphie. How will you defend this nation? By giving our enemies what they want? I bet it'll cost more than $700m.

(mostly to foreigners)

Wrong alphie. See here and compare here. You will see that the federal government itself owns about double what foreign holders own. You played loose with the facts at Protein Wisdom and you're doing it here. But, as Jeff says, it doesn't matter. It's all about controlling the narrative for guys like you.

I'm all for disbanding our $700 billion a year war machine so we can balance the budget, Morgan.

But I'm afraid well have to wait until the supply siders have decamped D.C. for Texas and the Cayman Islands before we can do that.

Very correct Alphie, and when he does sober up, does he go to his boss and force him to cover what he overspent? Or does he maybe take a look at his bills, cut back to the bare necessities, stop eating out so much, and start digging out of the hole he dug?

And the $400+ billion the U.S. government paid in interest last year(mostly to foreigners) on the money it borrowed in the past instead of rasing through taxes?

Even Joe Sixpack realizes that if he runs off to Vegas and blows his mortgage money on a good time...there will be a cost.

When he sobers up, that is.

Will, one thing you should keep in mind is that many economists have done estimates of the deadweight loss from tax increases. Feldstein's estimates tend to be much, much larger than those that other economists like Arnold Harberger have come up with,

Hang on, what? If Joe Sixpack doesn't care about maximising government revenue, then why bother telling great big lies about it? I don't get it.

if those very expensive dollar bills are spent on highly valuable public goods folks can’t coordinate to provide privately.

Well, we ought to make sure it's a fair comparison. If we wished to replace a government program with a system of voluntary contributions, it is unclear to what extent the latter would affect incentives to work. If I make a hard promise to give 10% of my salary away to noble causes, does that affect my marginal propensity to work? I expect it does.

The primary differences here are:

1) When people make contributions themselves, they may feel more happy and/or empowered about it; thus, a promise to divert 10% of cash flow to charity may affect marginal propensity to work less than giving it to government does.

2) Related but separate: people who donate their own money are guaranteed to be giving out to different causes in precisely the proportion they want to, which indicates that the marginal buck of extra money has more value to them.

However:
3) Free-rider problems can come up a lot. Consider that many people probably care about how the worst-off in society are doing, but an individual's marginal contribution doesn't affect that well-being very much. Individuals may be content to sit back and let other people donate to improve the society around them.


It's not clear that government needs to be the institution to fix this: consider that individuals could enter into binding contracts with large numbers of other individuals (I'll donate only if all of you do too!) to try to fix the free-rider problem. However, such contracts are a legal promise to divert cash flow, so they will affect propensity to work.