Asking important questions..........

 

How Much Has the U.S. Government Borrowed to Pay Back What It Owes Itself?

-deficits matter if you plan on living past 2033

Slopulism....................

 

In general, this tax idea fits into the increasing trend toward “slopulism” in Democratic policymaking — the idea that a modern government can be funded solely on the backs of the super-rich, while the merely-rich get big tax cuts.

-Noah Smith, as he looks at California's "one time" billionaire tax

the odd idea.................

 

     Now, I am faced with another illusion.  It is no longer a question of particular privileges, but of transforming privilege into a common right.  The entire nation has conceived the odd idea that it could increase production indefinitely by handing it over to the State in the form of taxes in order for the State to give it back a portion in the form of work, profit, and pay.  The state is being requested to ensure the well-being of every citizen; and a long and sorry procession, in which every sector of the workforce is represented, from the severe banker to the humble laundress, is parading before the organizer in chief in order to ask for financial assistance.

-Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms and "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen" (March 1848)

As Jim Rohn once said...............

 

Taxation:  It's the care and feeding of the goose that lays the golden eggs. . . . Some might say the goose eats too much, but we could all lose a little weight and let one appetite not accuse another.

When subsidies stop........................

 

The tone is what an editor breaking the news about Santa Claus to forty-year-olds would shoot for. 

On eating the rich.....................

  Effective anti-poverty strategies should focus on fostering self-sufficiency rather than perpetuating dependency.

-from the Mises Institute

via

a fair question........................

 

   more fun here

One more thing he got right......................

 

The failure of Western governments to achieve their proclaimed objectives has produced a widespread reaction against big government. . . . The reaction may prove short-lived and be followed, after a brief interval, by a resumption of the trend toward ever bigger government.  The widespread enthusiasm for reducing government taxes and other impositions is not matched by a comparable enthusiasm for eliminating government programs—except programs that benefit other people.

-Milton & Rose Friedman, Free To Choose

Blaming the voters...............

 

Congress won’t tackle the debt unless Americans force the issue.

tipping point.....................

 In knowledge work, when you agree to a new commitment, be it a minor task or a large project, it brings with it a certain amount of ongoing administrative overhead: back and forth email threads need to gather information, for example, or meetings scheduled to synchronize your collaborators.  This overhead tax activates as soon as you take on a new responsibility. . . . As your workload increases, however, the overhead tax you're paying will eventually pass a tipping point, beyond which logistical efforts will devour so much of your schedule that you cannot complete old tasks fast enough to keep up with the new.

-Cal Newport, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

taxing the mega-rich...................

 ...................to stop "transformational philanthropy"?

It doesn’t matter if you agree with Mr. Bankman-Fried about how to make the world better, whether you support his veganism, his global-warming alarmism or his priorities for spending his ill-gotten gains. History teaches us that the greatest crimes are committed by those who believe they are mankind’s benefactors.

Taking some of the fun..........

............................out of doing our taxes:

 SOME 90% OF TAXPAYERS claim the standard deduction on their tax return. Thanks to 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, today’s standard deduction is larger than the itemized deductions of most taxpayers, including those who previously itemized.

A very good question.......................

 ............if the underlying assumptions are correct.  While truly not having a clue, I'm going to hypothesize that governmental re-regulation plays a considerable role. 

    via

Competition................

       One area where all American steelmakers could maintain absolute, almost religious agreement was on the topic of British steel.  British steelmakers were more efficient, and as a result, their rails were cheaper even than Carnegie's.  As with the iron industry before, the Americans' collective strategy was equally simple: tariffs.  Congress complied.  The tariff on a ton of imported British steel started at $28 per ton.  Given that Carnegie's first-ever order was fulfilled at $68 per ton, the British would have had to sell steel at $40 per ton, with overseas shipping included, to pay the tariff and match the price in the market.  In an era without a personal income tax or corporate income taxes, the federal government relied on duties and tariff generated income for a significant portion of its revenue . . .

      Even Carnegie, with all his competitive, Darwinian pride, granted that tariff protection "has played a great part in the development of manufacturing in the United States." . . . But laissez-faire capitalism it was not.  The invisible hand of Adam Smith's free market was accompanied by the guiding hand of government policy.

-Bhu Srinivasan, Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

Warren Buffett talks taxation............

 During the decade ending in 2021, the United States Treasury received about $32.3 trillion in taxes while it spent $43.9 trillion. 

Though economists, politicians and many of the public have opinions about the consequences of that huge imbalance, Charlie and I plead ignorance and firmly believe that near-term economic and market forecasts are worse than useless. Our job is to manage Berkshire’s operations and finances in a manner that will achieve an acceptable result over time and that will preserve the company’s unmatched staying power when financial panics or severe worldwide recessions occur. Berkshire also offers some modest protection from runaway inflation, but this attribute is far from perfect. Huge and entrenched fiscal deficits have consequences. 

The $32 trillion of revenue was garnered by the Treasury through individual income taxes (48%), social security and related receipts (34 1⁄2%), corporate income tax payments (8 1⁄2%) and a wide variety of lesser levies. Berkshire’s contribution via the corporate income tax was $32 billion during the decade, almost exactly a tenth of 1% of all money that the Treasury collected. 

And that means – brace yourself – had there been roughly 1,000 taxpayers in the U.S. matching Berkshire’s payments, no other businesses nor any of the country’s 131 million households would have needed to pay any taxes to the federal government. Not a dime.

-via his report to the shareholders

If only he had been elected...........

 There is one policy I regret not having promoted, however; for no one else seems to have taken it up. This is to make the tax system, at every level, entirely voluntary.

-back story and more fun here

This is sort of interesting...................

 

via

This explains a lot.................

 Going to war accelerated the move from indirect to direct rule.  Almost any nation that makes war finds that it cannot pay for the effort from its accumulated reserves and current revenues.  Almost all warmaking states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat—including men—from reluctant citizens who have other uses for their resources.

-Charles Tilly

Maximize........................

      For thousands of years, the primary goal of any ruler was to maximize his own wealth.  The divine right of kings yielded only under the greatest of duress, as occurred at Runnymede in 1215.  Premodern Europe was a maelstrom of constant warfare among small states—"nation" is too good a word to describe all but the largest.  Estimates vary, but in the medieval period, as many as a thousand sovereign principalities were scattered across the continent.  The clever prince or duke learned that if he taxed laborers and merchants too heavily, they were liable to take their business a few miles up the road, where levies lay lighter on the purse.

     Slowly, rulers began to identify their own well-being with that of their subjects and learned not to pluck too many feathers from the goose.  States that neither taxed their subjects too heavily nor seized their property too often found themselves with fuller treasuries and larger armies than states that did.  Nations that could not refrain from plundering their own subjects grew weaker, and, in many cases, disappeared.  Gradually, through this Darwinian process, states with enlightened taxation, rule of law, and secure property rights prospered and prevailed over their less advanced neighbors, and Europe became a good place to get rich.

-William J. Bernstein, The Birth of Plenty: How The Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created

Hate it when that happens................

 more fun here