Taxes, Benefits, and Reality…

Liberals like to excuse our excessive taxes and say that it provides important services.  Now, common sense, experience and even a modicum of intelligence tells us that this is a load of bunk.  But, for argument’s sake let’s actually take a look at the claim.

Here’s a good representation of their silly arguments.

Since I like all the things taxes bring us I shouldn’t complain.

Of course here is the problem.  When people are talking about taxes they’re usually talking about federal taxes, not state, county or city. And to lump all of these together would be silly as they are not the same thing, not controlled by the same legislatures, and you have a choice of states to live in if you don’t like the taxes in your state.   (And don’t give me that you can move to a different country, it’s not true, the United States is the only nation on Earth that taxes the income of expatriates who are still citizens but not living in the nation—You can never escape U.S. federal taxes if you want to remain a U.S. citizen).

So the first thing we need to do on this list to make it more honest to take out the issues which should be purely state issues.  Yes some of these things that should be state issues are currently federal issues, but the federal government interference in them only breeds inefficiency, corruption and waste—thus they should only be state issues, and even if the state needs to raise their tax rates to compensate for the lack of federal spending it will be less than the what the federal government is taking from you.

On the list the things that states or local governments should be responsible for are schools (which can privatized), roads (which can privatized), firefighters, police officers, hospitals (which can privatized), Paramedics (which can privatized), HAZMAT Teams, Child protection, safe products (capitalism does a better job of ensuring this than government), Flood defense, Universities (which can privatized),  museums (which can privatized), science (which can privatized), public parks, medical research (which can privatized), national forests (which can be privatized), care for the elderly and disabled.

So really that’s a lot that states, local government and the private sector can easily provide for less cost, more efficiency , less corruption, and lower taxes.  Not much left on this.

Okay so what is left?  So let’s deal with clean air and clean water.  Now I will admit that government does have a responsibility in this. Milton Friedman himself would point out that water and air often suffer from the tragedy of the commons and to keep them clean you need some regulation and enforcement.  But of the 10 Billion the EPA took in 2012 let’s be honest here most did not go to clean water and air. Most went to enforcing rules against clean coal thus not only doing nothing to help the air but also increasing the cost of energy.  And they also spend money, lots of money, on suing people over endangered species.  For instance they sued farmers in California to deny the farmers water because it would save an endangered fish.  So they ruined a farming industry, raised the prices of your food, on your tax dollars, all to save an animal that violated the first rule of evolution: adapt or die.     And they’ve done this more than once in California alone. The fact is that most species are not endangered because of humans, they’re endangered because in the history of Earth 99.999999% of all species have died—it’s what nature does, it gets rid of things that can’t adapt.  Don’t like it, tough, that’s nature and you can’t praise nature while refusing to allow its natural processes to go on.   (Also, as with the Buffalo, it’s pretty much only when the private sector gets involved that you actually save endangered species).  I have no problem with reasonable clean air, water, and other pollution controls (although our modern EPA seems to freak out about even healthy levels of some chemicals) but those wouldn’t cost a fifth of what the EPA’s budget is.

Then of course we come to the safe food and safe drug part.  Yes because the yearly recalls and scares of salmonella or this or that in food shows the government is doing such a bang up job. For a second let’s stop to remember that the FDA was created only because of a lying sack of crap book written by a pathologically lying progressive who published a book saying that all of our food was unsafe to eat.  I’m so glad that was the reason for creating a huge federal bureaucracy.  But for sake of argument let’s say that like air and food you need some regulation here (you don’t actually since companies concerned about their reputations have their own internal checks on this and you wouldn’t see an increase in contamination if the FDA went defunct).  The FDA and most of its resources don’t go into looking at the safety of food or drugs, the majority of the FDA’s resources go into the efficacy of drugs. All those drugs trials they conduct aren’t primarily about the safety of drugs they’re about how well the drug works.  Now, whether a drug works or not, shouldn’t that be up to your doctor?  Or how about all the research the FDA shuts down on cancer research, for instance stopping experimental trials with willing volunteers who have terminal cancer because the drugs MIGHT kill them (because the FDA really doesn’t understand the term ‘terminal cancer).  Do you know how much research that has retarded?  Probably decades worth.  Do you know how much their endless trials for their arbitrary standards of efficacy raise the price of your drugs?  Massive amounts.  So not only do they take your money, but they cost you more on drugs in the process.  Now if we reduced the FDA to merely the safety of drugs that would slash their budget by a massive amount, you would still be as safe, medical science would leap forward, and you would probably have a better quality of life in the long run.  Boy I’m glad I’m paying taxes to prevent all of those things.

Now let’s turn to diplomacy with other nations and criminal justice.  Fair enough these are responsibilities of the federal government. Of course, even without cutting the pork, the Departments of State and Justice are just under 1.8% of the federal budget.

So really what’s left.

Ah the military and the Department of Justice.  Military spending is about 20% of the budget and Justice not even 1%.

And let’s be honest here, a lot of their spending is bunk.  Like pork projects to build engines the military doesn’t want.  Or pork spending to build ships the Navy doesn’t want.  Or wasting money on using environmentally friendly fuel for the Navy that wastes money and is actually more harmful to the environment than conventional fuel.

Or with Justice, there was of course the problems of buying weapons for Mexican Drug Cartels.

These are very needed functions of government, but there is pork here.  And you could probably shave at least 10% from each of their budgets.

In fact, if you really look at the budget and look at the things that the federal government should only be concerned about then the budget wouldn’t even be half of what it is now* and cutting taxes by half would not only stimulate the economy but bring in enough revenue to begin paying into the principal of the debt.

So really what you’re left with when you look at costs that are only the federal government’s responsibility and can stand a few cuts (major or minor) is

Nothing.  You’re left with nothing.  A little bit of reason and all you’re left with is a whiny liberal who doesn’t know what is important, how things work, or that things can be done better than they are now.

But maybe I’m being unfair, maybe it’s just the person who put this stupid picture together that doesn’t know shit about shit. A possibility for sure. So let’s look at another liberal rant about taxes, services and the economy.

Okay so let’s go through his list. Public hospital, public schools, public loans, tax breaks, inheritance.

Okay and let’s take these one at a time.

Public Hospitals. This is a widely misunderstood term.  Almost are hospitals are public in that they are open to the public. However of the 5,724 hospitals in the US, only 1,045 are owned and operated by government (state or local).  The rest are as follows: 2,903 are non-profit (usually owned by religious organizations such as the Catholic Church or the Seventh Day Adventists) and the rest are for profit hospitals.  So in reality there is a less than 1 in 5 chance he went to a tax payer funded hospital.  Further it’s also a fun fact that stays in government hospitals costs more than in private hospitals, so if he was born in a government run hospital they were fleeced. And quite frankly if government got out of the healthcare business medicine all around costs would go down (good place to put link for why cost of healthcare is what it is).  But this is not the only place where we’ll find that government provided goods not only take your money but offer inferior products.

Then of course we go to public school. Now we all know that public schools are shit.  We all know that homeschooling, charters, and private schools offer better results on the whole than their public counterparts for less money.  (And those people who home school or send their children to private school are still getting the bill for public school). So I wouldn’t be bragging about the public school system.  They took your parents money and gave them an inferior education for you pal.

Then of course he wants to talk about his federal loans.  Ignoring the fact that those federal loans are the very reason that college costs so much.  If government had never gotten in the school loan business it is likely that college costs would be a fraction of what they are.  So, my dear idiot liberal, don’t act like that was such a blessing either.

And then we get to the tax deduction.  Those tax deductions are part of a large part of the government’s plan to get people to buy houses, because the government feels it needs to encourage people to get houses.  And I think we know what this led to, don’t we?  It led to people getting houses they couldn’t afford on government backed loans which led to the whole housing market collapsing.  The better question would be, why should I, a person who rents because he does not have the down payment necessary for a low interest rate yet be taxed at a higher rate than a person who makes a stupid decision to get a loan they can’t afford.   That’s what deductions often do, they subsidize idiotic choices.  This is why intelligent people want us to go to a flat rate with ZERO tax deduction for anyone for any reason, or just go to a national sales tax because while a high tax rate is stupid and idiotic, tax deductions allow the government to control people’s choices…but if it was an intelligent move you should do it with or without the deduction, and if  it’s not intelligent then you shouldn’t do it no matter what the deduction is.  All deductions do is encourage behavior that retards the growth of the economy, encourages dumb moves, and overall costs people more for everything.

And finally inheritance.  Guess what, I will scream bloody murder at the thought of an inheritance tax…do you know why?  Because if I choose to leave my property to anyone I have already paid income tax, paid capital gains tax (which already had corporate tax paid), paid sales tax, and possibly paid property tax on anything I leave to my heir.  By the time property has passed from parent to child it has already been taxed several times!  And the government coming in to take another bite on property they didn’t earn, they didn’t work for, they didn’t do anything for isn’t just unfair it’s idiotic and unethical.  And it is based on the liberal assumption that you only have things due to the government not by your own effort.

So really it’s not that tax payers are also getting something for nothing, what they’re getting is robbed and they’re paying the robber to rob them again.  Oh, what a deal!  Can’t imagine why I would want less of that.   So yeah I will bitch about the people who get welfare, they haven’t worked for it, they are only benefitting from the labors of the robbed—whereas the actual taxpayer is getting hit by the taxes and by the destructive force on the economy those taxes are being used for.

So liberals praise taxes all you want, but understand they hurt more than they help, they provide almost nothing as well as the private sector can, and unless we do complain about them they will not be used efficiently or effectively.

*Obviously this will take time.  About 54% of the budget is entitlements of one form or another that should be destroyed…however you would have to be an idiot to destroy them in one fell swoop.  They need to be drawn down over time to nothing (the shortest you could even theoretically do this to prevent massive economic disasters would be 15 years…but you could start today and make major headway in just stopping growth and raising the bar for who can apply).