Poll: Government Spending Philosophy

[Spexxvet]

* Cutting spending includes losing services and programs that you rely on and support and benefit you. It's not just cutting welfare to the lazy criminal, system-playing, drug-addicted minorities. It means you get shitty roads, less law enforcement, seniors eating cat food and dying through lack of healthcare, veterans losing benefits, etc.

[glatt]

The deficit is getting smaller every day because the economy is improving. Check out the debt clock to see it shrinking.

So another option is for the government to do things that help the economy grow so that tax revenues increase without increasing the tax rate.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by glatt

The deficit is getting smaller every day because the economy is improving. Check out the debt clock to see it shrinking.

So another option is for the government to do things that help the economy grow so that tax revenues increase without increasing the tax rate.

That's long term, though, isn't it? If you cut taxes to entice business to come into your state, you have to do something until those increased taxes hit the bank. One or more of these options still has to occur, right?

What brought this on is that on Monday Pennsylvania borrowed $1.5 Billion. At the same time the Corbett administration is running campaign ads about how his opponent will raise taxes.

[Undertoad]

Keynesian economics, if the economy is shrinking then government should (probably) increase spending to alter the equation of moving money, and then, government should (probably) cut spending when the economy is growing.

Similarly there are conditions under which increasing the tax rate leads to no additional taxes being collected.

[Undertoad]

Oh it's state government you're thinking about?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Oh it's state government you're thinking about?

They still have to do something.

[Undertoad]

A race car driver is about to crash. Should the driver

A) speed up
B) slow down
C) turn*


* Turning with no other action means the driver will eventually hit the wall or spin out in the grass.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

A race car driver is about to crash. Should the driver

A) speed up
B) slow down
C) turn*


* Turning with no other action means the driver will eventually hit the wall or spin out in the grass.

I think that's a poor analogy. There is nothing the driver needs to do while turning. While waiting for additional tax revenue to come in, a state must continue to pay bills, so must borrow, raise taxes, or cut spending.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Keynesian economics, if the economy is shrinking then government should (probably) increase spending to alter the equation of moving money, and then, government should (probably) cut spending when the economy is growing.

That is the obvious solution when assuming economies are open loop. But reality is closed loop. What did Clinton do to later cause economic prosperity? He raised taxes.

Simplistic thoughts assume A results in B. We see this especially in electronics. When A caused B causes C causes D causes E causes A, then nothing is obvious anymore. A decrease in C causes an increase in A resulting in completely different reactions from A to B. A major difference always exists in open loop and closed loop solutions.

In economics, sometimes increasing taxes or spending can make things better or worse.

The massive late 1970s economics malaise created by 1968 Nixon and Vietnam was solved by massive interest rate hikes and a resulting removal of money from the economy. Unfortunately nobody had the balls to do that until Carter and Volker did it.

The massive 2007 economics malise created by George Jr's Mission Accomplished, et al was solved by massive monetary infusions resulting in money that had virtually disappeared.

Each economic malise is unique. Until details of a recession are known, then best is to inject more or less money. Nobody can say more without extensive details.

Bernanke saved our ass. He said he would not repeat mistakes of 1929 when government did so much harm by installing fiscal constraint. Sometimes injecting more money (ie 1970s) can make things worse. But Bernanke did the right thing so that 40% of jobs were not lost. He injected more money saving our economy. The devil is in those details.

Same applies to taxes. Sometimes tax cuts are good. Other times a tax increase is better.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

* Cutting spending includes losing services and programs that you rely on and support and benefit you. It's not just cutting welfare to the lazy criminal, system-playing, drug-addicted minorities.

This is true, BUT when I see the Army Corps of Engineers award a contract to paint the 1400 foot Sagamore bridge over the Cape Cod Canal for $12,390,000.00, it gives me pause. Yes Virginia, that's millions.

[Happy Monkey]

The project includes abrasive blast cleaning of the entire steel superstructure of the Sagamore Bridge to bare metal. The 1,408-foot-long bridge will then be re-painted with a new high performance paint system. The existing paint system on the bridge contains lead primer; therefore all work will be performed in accordance with applicable environmental regulations and health and safety standards, including containment, emissions monitoring, collection, and proper disposal of all contaminated debris. Workers are currently installing access platforms and the containment system on the bridge.

Doing it right is expensive. I don't have any context to compare bridge painting costs, but stripping paint, with lead abatement, is a labor-intensive and expensive process.

[glatt]

I wonder about this "new high performance paint system."

Every time a new construction material comes along, it's sold as zero maintenance, and lasts forever. And 20 years later we find out that it was all a lie, and we have to replace it with the next construction material.

Color me skeptical.

[Griff]

Like vinyl is final...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

* Cutting spending includes losing services and programs that you rely on and support and benefit you. It's not just cutting welfare to the lazy criminal, system-playing, drug-addicted minorities. It means you get shitty roads, less law enforcement, seniors eating cat food and dying through lack of healthcare, veterans losing benefits, etc.

No. But then too, I am too smart to believe things Spexx believes in -- like that the Government is even supposed to be any part of the services industry. It is simply not designed to do it, and hence fails at it. You reduce the problems posed by government by reducing the governmental sphere, which is of course necessary if you want to actually have a pension you can enjoy.

The State is a weapon. It is as much my weapon as it is Spexx's, or BigV's, or Classicman's. Its functions are a weapon's; don't expect it to succeed doing anything else -- that's the beginning and the end of it. There's a reason they call it "enforcing" the law. I can figure that much out.

Trying to use Government and the political way for doing anything other than being a weapon is like trying to drive nails with an elephant gun. Sure, you might get that nail driven... but the hammer is the better tool.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

That is the obvious solution when assuming economies are open loop. But reality is closed loop.

That's what the Club of Rome thought, and Dr. Paul Ehrlich as well. Their modeling was consequently wholly inadequate, particularly in regard to India, which they predicted would be a depopulated desert solely due to population pressure followed by a population crash basically from economics. You could reread The Population Bomb to check their assertions.

But the economy and the population seem both to be not closed, but open. Neither is zero-sum. Assuming an economy is zero-sum, which looks to be the rest of your argument, is what causes socialism and all the concomitant syndromes and flawed thought flowing from it. It's pretty bad when flawed thought's effects are lethal to the tune of 167.5 million souls dead untimely or by violence, isn't it?

Now if you reject socialist and zero-summed ideas, you do much better, yours do much better, and it naturally follows therefore that everyone does much better. Nothing seems to stop the creating of real wealth -- so there's damned little point to devoting general society-wide effort to organizing scarcity. You do need the breadth of vision and lack of obsessions to see that, though. You can get there by reading if you are'nt obsessed.