By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
sc94597 on 28 December 2012
Edit Thread
Aielyn said:
sc94597 said:

Australia and the United States are entirely different countries. You say we should adopt Australia's policies, yet as a country we've obviously been successful historically without the need for an over-sized federal government.

Nobody actually said that the US should "adopt Australia's policies". What I said was that America should be looking at other countries, and finding out what works best, and then adapting that to the US's system as best they can.

Australia is just a good case study, because Australia and the US are very similar in many, many ways.

And by the way, America's greatest successes occurred when your income tax rates were highest, not lowest. Think about that for a little while.

That seems fair enough. 

As for the last sentence, can you provide examples? I would say the U.S reached its peak in development and inventions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when there was a concept of laissez-faire capitalism and Federal taxes were less than 5%. Afterwards, most of the inventions and discoveries came from foreigners who fled Europe during Nazi and Soviet occupations. I think the correlation is likely war with development moreso than spending/taxation (which also correlates with war) and development.