Are Taxes Justified?

Roads cost shit tons to build. Where are you going to get that much capital? And when I say that much, I mean THAT MUCH. So people are going to have to pay to get access. What if they can't? They starve to death? What if they decide to not let blacks onto them? Genocide on a massive level.

 

Assume they will do what is in their best economic interest. People will pay because they will make money by working for the companies - the same way they do today, it will just be another job. And either way, not letting them on the road does not mean they have to kill them.

 

People hardly do what is in the best economic interest. Most of the time they'll put their ideological beliefs before their explicit economic interest, and the majority of people don't know what is economically best for them. I mean the US had a period of lassiez faire capitalism that was during the post-reconstruction pre-world war I era. If you go back and study the effects on labor and the general population then you'd probably be pretty sure that people don't do what is best economically. Read up on the attack at Homestead Mill by the Pinkertons, or read The Jungle by Sinclaire.

 

You assume that they can pay. What if they can't? They starve to death.

 

And today, if someone can't pay, they get $140 a month welfare or whatever it is in the States, in Canada as long as you actually have a job that makes less than $10,00 per year you get $140. So either way, you need to be employed to get state benefits such as these. But without taxes, there would theoretically be more money to go around, hence more employment opportunities, more would be employed. It sounds like you are assuming everyone can afford to pay for their needs now, even with the state subsidizing some. But in the absence of taxes, employment could go up, reducing overall poverty.

 

Taxes are only justifiable if the taxpayers actually see a return on the amount of money they pay in. In the United States, this never happens. All our money disappears into the government's clutches.

 

I'm assuming nothing. Assuming removing the government will add jobs is not a valid assumption. The government employees many, many, many, many people. The government also redistributes wealth which is beneficial for employment.

 

The same way every business obtains capital for large ventures, or as a joint venture by a city. Essentially any way except "give me your fucking money for my project."

That genocide argument is ridiculous, governments have committed more genocide than any individual or business could hope to accomplish alone.

 

A growing problem in the US is income inequality, and taxes are a way to redistribute some of that wealth to those on the bottom. I think we need it to some degree. Also, businesses and individuals use public goods to make money. Delivery vehicles destroy roads quicker than the regular old family SUV.

 

Taxes are justified because they are used for things that you(the taxpayer) needs/uses such as police/health care/welfare, etc. Imo, you should be able to choose what you want to pay for, so for example, say you want the most of what the government gives but your job gives loads of heal care benefits, why should you have to pay taxes that go to health care? The only problem I see is situations like this: There once was a thing I read that said that small town couldn't afford a fire department, so they had a nearby town set up a fire department in their own town, but the people had to pay for fire insurance. Most of the people did it, except a small handful, one day there was a fire, and the owner of the house who didn't have the fire didn't pay the insurance, so the fire crew came, and let his house burn, and made sure the fire didn't spread to others.

 

I'm not sure with no personal experience about the USA, however I've been to Japan and seen the extent of their capitalistic and failing economy, and comparing it to the relatively socialist left-centre level of taxation and public services in Australia (for now, at least) personally I believe that a certain level of taxation is fully justified.

I understand the capitalist argument: it's your money, so why should you be forced to pay for other people? However, in a fair and overall prosperous nation EVERY citizen has a degree of social obligation. Such an obligation is usually fulfilled via taxation or the like as a means of providing funding to public services.

I don't claim to be an expert in macro-economics, but it occurs to me that nations in which the privatised, capitalist agenda is implemented, there is a lot more of a class divide, there is less access to services like medicine and education as a lot of people can't afford it, there is less general wellbeing as it is usually reserved for people who have copious amounts of money.

There is a place for conservatism AND socialism, and that's essentially what left-centre political agenda is about; maintaining both public services as well as free enterprise. A country is NOT a business no matter how much many people want it to be, it is a place where PEOPLE live, and ultimately the PEOPLE have a responsibility to each other.

TL;DR: if my taxes are being used for virtuous reasons that help others, contribute to public services or in general to build the nation as a whole, I honestly want to pay taxes. No-one needs a fucktonne of cash to live or be happy. Frankly, pursuing a career in engineering I'll be looking at a higher-than-average wage, and frankly, I'd be willing to give most of it to good causes if I can secure my life and therefore the ability to make such a thing sustainable.

 

Says Joe Hockey, yes. Other sources reasonably suggest that the entire "crisis" is nothing but a manufactured farce. Who to listen to...

You and I seem to have very different ideas of what slavery is. I don't really agree with your metaphor, though, especially considering you very likely use public services yourself. Slavery is not something that contributes to a utilitarian sense of wellbeing. Public services, on the other hand, are.

Many people with your opinion have never had to live below the poverty line, so it's easy to fall in to such a bias without ever actually being able to empathise with a staggering amount of people who actually NEED these services to get their lives on track. A nation is not a business, and people are not numbers. Hell, I need government assistance to finish my university education; I'm simply not in the position to finish it with my own money, and I am not willing to subscribe myself to high interest debt. I am however willing to, even potentially having worked my way to the top, pay taxes and pay back that government assistance. Give and take, not just take.

 

Yes. It is. Here in my country, almost everything is taxed. Can you consider it a robbery? I doubt. These are unconsciously delivered back to us by government services. A good percent of each countries' budget comes from tax. Imagine removing that. What do you think would happen?

 

That isn't a circular argument. Have you ever tried to repave a driveway (through a private company)? The cost for a small one can easily go into the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention that a road or a highway must go deeper because of the increased traffic and must have repairs much more often. A road is expensive because it is expensive to build, not because of the government.

Companies are unstable and rise and fall very quickly. A lifelong guarantee from a company that goes bankrupt means nothing. Nations such as the United States, on the other hand, last for many many years and so does their guarantee. Think treasury bonds vs stock - one is much more risky than the other.

That is because the last mile is only used by the people that live there (which is a relatively small amount) because nobody else lives there or needs to go through a cul-de-sac. A highway or a main road, on the other hand, has a ton of users -- many more than would make it feasible to go around and ask "are you going to use this road? Do you want to pay $X to be able to use it?"

The government does have laws that require supermarkets to not discriminate based on race...

Alternatively, the people living there wouldn't pay shit because hey, if it worked for them the first time, it works for them the second time. Furthermore, other people would see that they don't really need the insurance and not pay themselves. Not only that, the gambler's fallacy does exist and people are going to fallaciously think that "Oh if it already was going to burn down once, no way it can happen to me again".

I agree completely with Swan:

 

If the government is inefficient, that is a problem in it of itself. But there is a reason it is more expensive. If your 5 meter bridge on private land breaks, what happens? Well... nothing, you need a new bridge. If it breaks on public land, then it potentially disrupts hundreds of thousands of people. The bridge needs to be built so that it will not break. (Not saying that yours will, but the importance that one is well done is much greater than the other).

And of course public land is more expensive - there are regulations that must be met in order to benefit everybody, and these regulations have an overhead cost that must somehow be paid. Nobody wants a sewer plant next to a farm or a toxic waste treatment plant next to a school. On private land, you can potentially have little enough land that managing this is not a concern, but on a large scale, somebody needs to take care of this, and it incurs an overhead. (Perhaps the overhead could be smaller, but something must exist).

Well, the several fiat currencies that people actually trust (Euro, USD, AUS, etc the currencies of the big and powerful countries) have either just recently been established or been around for a while. I don't think that the statistic accurately portrays the stability of a US government bond. (As an example, suppose I had a choice of ten stock options - a 100% guarantee of 50% profits, and 9 stocks with a 10% guarantee of 60% profits (and zero otherwise). You could say that "on average" someone buying a stock from here for 1 unit would get a 0.294 expected value, but that doesn't accurate represent the options).

As for slavery, I'll just refer to Swan's post earlier. I wouldn't really call it slavery for his reasons, but also because slavery sorta requires that somebody be profiting for all of the "hard work" that you do, and there doesn't seem to be anybody in this case.

The internet was a government-funded project. This analogy is like saying (because roads are much more expensive to install than some cables - much of the internet's worth is in the research required to create it) "Look - the government built some roads and found how to do it well, and now corporations have built off of the government's network, even replacing some of the government's roads, so therefore the corporations could have done all of this by themselves".

Not in the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause
If you really want to, you can say they smell bad and kick them out for that, but your basis for kicking them out cannot be their race.

No, I never say that government is evil. Sure, there are some things that I disagree with and that I think could be done better, but as a whole, the government is a beneficial institution.

The story is significant because the west had a better standard of living than the soviet woman thought -- but what is the "better alternative" for us?

 

Sorry may have miss worded my statement, but what I'm saying is, the guy who's house was on fire, didn't pay the insurance, so they let his house burn. I disagree with what you said on the insurance company getting a lifelong customer, because as soon they put his fire out, why should anyone else in the town pay the insurance when they are still going to put out the fire.