richardhutnik said: The factor in this: When you ask people how they are skillwise or knowledgewise, or how they stand in quality, most people will rate themselves above average: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
Add that factor, with a belief in fairness, or meritocracy, and that people should get what they deserve, and factor in the other things discussed here, and you run into a situation of disconent in a society.
People thinking they're better then average, but seeing there outcome as average, (regardless of whether they're doing better or worse) could indeed lead to perceived unfairness even if there wasn't any.
I suppose the problem is, most people care too much.
Me, i'm happy with what I got, and for a western society it really ain't a lot. Given the choice between getting more money or working less....
I'd take working less more often then not... only reason I wouldn't is need for a retirement fund.
Another thing that likely contributes to people seeing themselves as middle class, even among those that aren't, is that Middle Class is beaten over head as the norm. And culturally, people can buy stuff to make them conform with it. They can go more upscale or buy poorer but look like what is modeled on TV. They just don't se they are much better or worse off than others, if they live in communities with people like them.
I remember running into some Jewish men who were visiting OWS, right before thay camp got closed down a few days later, dressed as either Orthodox or Conservative or Hasidic (sp?) would. After talking with them, I had a chance to ask them about visiting, and about income inequality. He asked me if I knew what the difference was between Jewish community and normal society. After saying what I had said, he said that rich or poor, the Jewish community lives together, so you get to see the differences. What we have in society now, with gated communities, and segmenting of populations, is that everyone thinks they are middle class, even if they aren't. It is like it has been said by some people who went on and made it big, that they grew up poor and didn't know they were poor.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Anyway, that wasn't the reason I wanted to post in response. I just thought I'd do a bit of a comparison with spending here in Australia (Jul 2010 - Jun 2011).
Just to quickly do the conversions, assuming that numbers listed are *all* of the numbers, starting at the top and working clockwise...
Community services and culture: 2.45% Health: 16.08% General government services: 26.26% Industry and workforce: 4.16% Education: 9.33% Defence: 5.94% Infrastructure, transport and energy: 3.55% Social security and welfare: 32.51%
Definitely interesting. We spend more on social security and welfare, we spend FAR less on defence, and we actually care enough to notice how much we spend on education.
The really interesting one, though, is Health. We spend less on health as a proportion of spending than you, despite having a robust public health system. But just to make sure our comparison is fair, I decided to do some conversions. Total government expenses in 2011 in the US was $3.601 trillion, so health and human services got 24% of that, or $864 billion. Per capita, that's US$2754. In Australia, we spent $56.88 billion on health. Per capita, that's AU$2480. Anyway, just an interesting comparison. I'm sure there's some factors I haven't accounted for, like the "human services" part.
Anyway, notice how much (proportionally) we spend on social security, compared with you? Interesting, given that Australia now has a higher GDP, didn't go into recession due to the GFC, and has lower unemployment than America does. Oh, and we tax the rich more (top rate is 45%, and it kicks in earlier than America's top rate) and the poor pay 0% tax. We also have less public debt (30% of GDP vs 100% of GDP). Americans pay $7336 per capita in tax (includes all taxes, including corporate tax, for instance), vs Australians paying $15,258 per capita in tax. We have a lower gini coefficient (meaning less income inequality), a larger per capita labour force, a lower percentage living in poverty, a longer life expectancy - 81.2 vs America's 78.2 - which makes us 6th highest life expectancy in the world, and our country is rated as more democratic (we're 6th with 9.22, vs US in 19th with 8.11, on the democracy index).
As I think I said before in this thread (or maybe it was in the "rich getting richer" thread), maybe America should be looking at Australia as a model. We seem to have it worked out relatively well.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Right. We are talking about the Income tax rate. Social security and medicare are not paid for by Income tax.
And I don't see the argument that social security is paid for via income tax, except for interest on the bonds purchesed which is a tiny portion of the total Social Security spending. Social security is funded by the payroll tax, and up until recently (deficit the last few years) the surplus went to purchase bonds and that money was used to fund other things. That way I could see the argument the payroll tax ends up funding discretionary spending, but not the other way around.
thranx said: Are you not argueing that some poeple should pay more than others, ie the rich should have taxes raised? The government should stick to what the private secotr can not reasonbly supply, which would be a police/fire force, a judicail system, and an army to protect the people. Everything else should be left to private secotr that has incentives to increase productivity. Instead of the government where the incentive is to get the most money for your department. It would be a different story if the US government was capable of spening tax payer money well. But they don't, its wasted all over tha place so its best they don't have it. I am allways reasonable. Just because you dont agree with my veiwpoint does not make it unreasonable. Taking peoples money is the same as forcing them to do things, it removes their ability to make choices with their money. If the reasoning for doing so is for the btterment of the country, they why not take it a step further. Where do you draw the line?
I'd written a decent response, here, but stupid Opera decided to interpret a mouse movement as a "back" command, so I lost it. So this'll be a somewhat abridged version of what I was going to say.
First of all, are you honestly saying that support for taxing rich people more is akin to LABOUR CAMPS is a reasonable comparison? Really? Seriously?
Second of all, the reason why we tax the rich more is because they have more. The communist way of putting it is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Of course, good government is a healthy balance between capitalism and communism (although conservatives rarely recognise this fact), so the rich get to keep a lot of their money. And that's how it should be.
But the fact is, nobody got rich without the help of society. Elizabeth Warren said it so well...
You made a lot of money with hard work? Good for you. But the only reason you had that chance is because of those who came before you and paid the money necessary to establish the infrastructure, the educational system, the health system, the welfare system, the police and the fire service, the army, etc. So you get to keep most of your money. But you pay a reasonable proportion of your money to support those who come after you.
It's just like how, when you're growing up, your parents pay for all sorts of things for you, trying to give you the best upbringing they can. They don't do it to get paid back. Their expectation is that, when you have kids of your own, you will try to do even better than they did. Society works on this basis, and if you remove it, the system falls apart. Economic growth has come on the backs of things done by government. This isn't to say that government hasn't done very bad things - they most certainly have. But the net effect has been positive, and without government activities, the economy would be stagnant.
Mind you, I'm not saying that the American tax system isn't highly flawed anyway. You tax total world profits of companies, rather than local American profits, which drives companies to base themselves in other countries, where they only tax local profits. You tax the poor (and even if the net tax is zero due to tax offsets, etc, it's just more bureaucracy that isn't necessary) - in Australia, those earning less than $6000 a year pay 0% tax. You charge a "social security tax" - in Australia, we have a system called "Superannuation", which is comparable to America's concept of "private accounts"... and then we have a backup pension system for those who would otherwise fall through the cracks.
And I'm not saying that Government hasn't been highly wasteful. Do you know what the solution for that is? Force government to be more careful with how it spends its money. Wholesale cutting of important and essential expenditures just to "make government smaller" is not unlike cutting off your arm because you're overweight - sure, you'll weigh less, but that doesn't make it a good idea.
And no, "restrict to police/fire, army, and a judicial system" is not sensible. That's very much like saying that the only part of the body that really matters is the head and the right arm - cut everything else off. The private system cannot provide education to all students - the poor cannot afford to pay for education, and education is necessary to give them what they need to be capable of lifting themselves out of poverty. The private system cannot provide health coverage to all people - again, the poor cannot afford it, and have a look at how America's health system treats those with "pre-existing conditions". The private system cannot provide and maintain a road system and public transport system that ensures that everyone is able to move around the country reasonably. The private system does not, for instance, maintain appropriate water and power services to poor areas.
America should look to Australia for an idea of how to make it work well (although some right-wing governments have been actively trying to screw with it). Here in Australia, we have a strong public health system, backed up by a private health system. We have a strong public education system, backed up by a private education system. We tax the rich more than America does, and the poor pay 0% tax. And Australia is the only western nation that didn't go into recession when the GFC hit. Australia routinely outperforms America in terms of nominal per capita GDP (according to the IMF, for instance, Australia has the sixth highest nominal GDP per capita, at US$65,477, compared with the US in 14th, at US$48,387).
It's the government's job to make society better for everyone. If you don't feel that government is doing its job, you don't try to demolish it, you try to *fix* it.
By the way, I'm betting that you're the kind of person who goes "government bureaucracy means that government is less efficient than private companies" - the thing is, it's not true. Medicare/Medicaid is far more economical than any private health insurer. Private educational institutions typically have to charge far more in fees than public ones receive from the government in order to get comparable outcomes.
Let me put it another way. Government-run services and infrastructure have the advantage of preventing duplication (assuming that they are run correctly, of course). Consider the pharmaceutical industry. Ten different drug companies will be funding ten different private research institutes (or their own internal research teams) to develop various drugs. The first one to come up with a new drug to, say, treat alzheimers, gets a patent, and charges exorbitant fees. Why are they exorbitant? Because in effect, they don't just have to charge to compensate for the money that *they* spent developing the drug, but also what the *other* companies spent. Why? Because on other drugs that they were researching, it was one of the other companies that managed to get there first and patent it, and the company has to charge enough to profit despite those losses.
Government, on the other hand, is centralised. If government funds the research, as happens here in Australia a lot, the ten institutes collaborate, and create the new drug faster, and with less duplication of effort. And what's more, the balance of research is far more reasonable. Less time is spent developing a new cure for impotence, and more is spent trying to find a cure for that rare but devastating virus that won't be profitable, but will be much appreciated by those unlucky enough to get it. A good example is Leukaemia.
As I said, this is how government is meant to work. If it's not doing as it is meant to, then fix it. Don't depend on Republicans or Democrats - both sides are more interested in maintaining the status quo, because the problems energise both sides, thereby enabling them to maintain their grip on the system. Any partisan party will face the same problem, which is why the Green party and the Libertarians aren't any better.
It's just like everything else - moderation is key. Note that moderation doesn't mean centrist. Sometimes one side will have a better solution, and sometimes the other side will. When republicans rail against pork barrelling, I agree with them. The "pork barrel" problem in America is atrocious, and is no doubt a major drain on government finances. Subsidies for huge corporations are another example (although elected Republicans don't actually mention these, because those huge corporations are major donors - hence the problem).
Wow long post. I may not have time to reads it all.
I have not made much money. I grew up poor and work hard and make what i need. I should be able to buy a house soon, but I would say I am baely middle class. No problem for me as I am happy with what I have and that is what matters to me.
I am not against taxing the rich because I feel like I will be rich. I doubt I will be. I dont want to tax the rich and give to others because in America it is not done well. It encourages bad behavior and since we started doing it our problem has gotten worse. Yes the police, and infrastucture help get me to where i am, but the schools and hospital really didn't play a rle. Education in Southern California is a joke. They teach to the lowest common denominator. Had I never went to school I would be exactly where i am now. One of the reasons I dont want the government choosing how to spend money. They suck at it. Maybe in Austraila the government is better at it. But not in the US. Take a look at public schools in ca vs private. You will find that most private schools spend less per student and get better results.
The poor are not taxed. They pay no income tax if you make less than 10,000 (around ther any ways). SocialSecurity is something everyon has to pay but you are supposed to get back. I think it would be better to take that away and force people to pay into their own retirement funds( is that how it is in austraila? But even than I would people have to make that choice to look after their future istead of the government doing so.
The private sector could teach every student. Why could they not? What woudl stop it? Poor people still have a recourse. They could ask a charity for assistance, or a church. But I will give you I do think that every child should have the oppurtunity to go to school until about 15-18. College on the other hand should be privatly funded. The current american health system is not a private nor a public one. Its a gaiant mess that is why we have so many problem. Its private in that you buy health insurance, but it so regualted that they took all of the capitalism out of it. Health providers dont really have to compete against each other.
I think the government is less efficent at doing things because they have no motive to be more efficent. Why should they try fdo more with less if there is no compition to do so. Instead what hapens is various departments try to get the most funding and than must use what they ahve. The compition I see in private secotors would not allow this. You can really see this in the school system. If the government showed it was able to spend money well without waste i would be more willing to give it my money, but as it my money is far better spoent going to a church or a charity or directly to a poor person i see on the street.
I don't knw if you have lvied in the US. But if you haven't it may be hard to compare to Austraila. I have never lived in Austraila so its hard for me to compare. But within the us we have very different states, and California is one that tends to tax the rich more and have ore socail services, and it is in bad shape. Compared to other states that have less socail programs and less taxes.
Also Society does not equal government. While i did get to where I am with help, most of that helkp came from other people, from the church, from sports programs, and from neighbors. None wich needed government involvement. And school was the biggest let down for me, my most used government resource. But that is just anectoda.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Anyway, that wasn't the reason I wanted to post in response. I just thought I'd do a bit of a comparison with spending here in Australia (Jul 2010 - Jun 2011).
Just to quickly do the conversions, assuming that numbers listed are *all* of the numbers, starting at the top and working clockwise...
Community services and culture: 2.45% Health: 16.08% General government services: 26.26% Industry and workforce: 4.16% Education: 9.33% Defence: 5.94% Infrastructure, transport and energy: 3.55% Social security and welfare: 32.51%
Definitely interesting. We spend more on social security and welfare, we spend FAR less on defence, and we actually care enough to notice how much we spend on education.
The really interesting one, though, is Health. We spend less on health as a proportion of spending than you, despite having a robust public health system. But just to make sure our comparison is fair, I decided to do some conversions. Total government expenses in 2011 in the US was $3.601 trillion, so health and human services got 24% of that, or $864 billion. Per capita, that's US$2754. In Australia, we spent $56.88 billion on health. Per capita, that's AU$2480. Anyway, just an interesting comparison. I'm sure there's some factors I haven't accounted for, like the "human services" part.
Anyway, notice how much (proportionally) we spend on social security, compared with you? Interesting, given that Australia now has a higher GDP, didn't go into recession due to the GFC, and has lower unemployment than America does. Oh, and we tax the rich more (top rate is 45%, and it kicks in earlier than America's top rate) and the poor pay 0% tax. We also have less public debt (30% of GDP vs 100% of GDP). Americans pay $7336 per capita in tax (includes all taxes, including corporate tax, for instance), vs Australians paying $15,258 per capita in tax. We have a lower gini coefficient (meaning less income inequality), a larger per capita labour force, a lower percentage living in poverty, a longer life expectancy - 81.2 vs America's 78.2 - which makes us 6th highest life expectancy in the world, and our country is rated as more democratic (we're 6th with 9.22, vs US in 19th with 8.11, on the democracy index).
As I think I said before in this thread (or maybe it was in the "rich getting richer" thread), maybe America should be looking at Australia as a model. We seem to have it worked out relatively well.
Wait, how does that work... your counting the income that came in and just applying it all directlty as "military" while cutting away all the excess in other spending as not military. How the heck does that make sense.
Either way... I do like the Australian model quite a bit. Australia mostly seems to only spend money it has.
The thing is... you don't seem to quite get WHY Australia succeeded where the US failed.
You spend more on social security and tax the rich higher... well so does every Europeon state that failed during the global crissis and are at worse place then the US Is now!
Everything you highlighted as to why you think Australia did better is also true in the failing europeon countries.
By the way... while your gini coefficent is lower... it's worth noting... it's grown more percentage wise due to Australias growth. (Using the incomplete less then optimal household gini coefficent, but It's all the data i can find on Australia.)
Yet you guys never had a huge crash and this was despite your higher rich people taxes and lack of mega rich. Thought steep rises were supposed to cause that.
Why did Australia avoid the 2008 recession? Well, for one. Your housing never burst...
partical due to the Australian central bank RAISING interest rates to cut off cheap capital.
Your debt level was low,
You have been increasingly more tied to Asia in trade with China as your second biggest export partner.
And plenty of more reasons. The article where I got the chart from is pretty informative.
As for Health... not really. There isn't much your overlooking. Human Services is just mostly meant to reflect the fact that they care about people as well as keeping the people healthy.
The US government just sucks at negotiating prices, because they tend to instead use it to win over lobbying groups... and have HUGE government beuracracy.
For example. Our main Medical assosiation was AGAINST the Obama healthcare reforms... until Obama agreed to stop cutbacks in what medicare and medicaid pay docotors for procedures.
Expectations for care are much different... the US tends to be "overtreated" and written perscriptions for everything.
Not to mention cultural factors which, while Australia isn't great at, the US is worse... like obesity.
Oh and the real kicker... cost to be a doctor. In the US, that's 4 years of undergraduate, 4 years of medical school, followed by AT LEAST 3 years of interning.
So you start being a doctor at like.... 30. With like 100,000-200,000 worth of student loans owed to the government who you can't deafult to.
Also, we don't count education in our spending, because while we do have a department of education... most of are education spending and funding is done directly by the state governments.
Something worth noting in all that.. our state governments do way more "non defense" spending then everywhere else.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Right. We are talking about the Income tax rate. Social security and medicare are not paid for by Income tax.
And I don't see the argument that social security is paid for via income tax, except for interest on the bonds purchesed which is a tiny portion of the total Social Security spending. Social security is funded by the payroll tax, and up until recently (deficit the last few years) the surplus went to purchase bonds and that money was used to fund other things. That way I could see the argument the payroll tax ends up funding discretionary spending, but not the other way around.
EDIT: Something to illustrate the point
Except social security benefits are mostly paid for from matured social security bonds... which is paid by payroll taxes.
Though, lets take this another way then.
By your logic... payroll and Medicare taxes should be regressive.... and BRUTALLY so.
Since the rich aren't really getting much if any benefit from Medicare or Social Security... and if anything are likely losing money on the deal.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Right. We are talking about the Income tax rate. Social security and medicare are not paid for by Income tax.
And I don't see the argument that social security is paid for via income tax, except for interest on the bonds purchesed which is a tiny portion of the total Social Security spending. Social security is funded by the payroll tax, and up until recently (deficit the last few years) the surplus went to purchase bonds and that money was used to fund other things. That way I could see the argument the payroll tax ends up funding discretionary spending, but not the other way around.
EDIT: Something to illustrate the point
Except social security benefits are mostly paid for from matured social security bonds... which is paid by payroll taxes.
Though, lets take this another way then.
By your logic... payroll and Medicare taxes should be regressive.... and BRUTALLY so.
Since the rich aren't really getting much if any benefit from Medicare or Social Security... and if anything are likely losing money on the deal.
Nah, I was just trying to make the point that what is "fair" is wildly subjective.
IF youa dded up Department of Defence, VA AND OTHER and coutned it all as that.... (Which it obviously isn't) You still aren't there.
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses.
Right. We are talking about the Income tax rate. Social security and medicare are not paid for by Income tax.
And I don't see the argument that social security is paid for via income tax, except for interest on the bonds purchesed which is a tiny portion of the total Social Security spending. Social security is funded by the payroll tax, and up until recently (deficit the last few years) the surplus went to purchase bonds and that money was used to fund other things. That way I could see the argument the payroll tax ends up funding discretionary spending, but not the other way around.
EDIT: Something to illustrate the point
Except social security benefits are mostly paid for from matured social security bonds... which is paid by payroll taxes.
Though, lets take this another way then.
By your logic... payroll and Medicare taxes should be regressive.... and BRUTALLY so.
Since the rich aren't really getting much if any benefit from Medicare or Social Security... and if anything are likely losing money on the deal.
Nah, I was just trying to make the point that what is "fair" is wildly subjective.
And I'm just pointing out that Social Security, while it has it's own tax. Really that tax is just a deception and it's just tied directly with the rest of the government.
The seperate tax is really only used so they can decide who they want to pay it to and cut people out who they feel didn't work enough. (Even though those people if anything should need social security more!)
Wow long post. I may not have time to reads it all.
I have not made much money. I grew up poor and work hard and make what i need. I should be able to buy a house soon, but I would say I am baely middle class. No problem for me as I am happy with what I have and that is what matters to me.
I am not against taxing the rich because I feel like I will be rich. I doubt I will be. I dont want to tax the rich and give to others because in America it is not done well. It encourages bad behavior and since we started doing it our problem has gotten worse. Yes the police, and infrastucture help get me to where i am, but the schools and hospital really didn't play a rle. Education in Southern California is a joke. They teach to the lowest common denominator. Had I never went to school I would be exactly where i am now. One of the reasons I dont want the government choosing how to spend money. They suck at it. Maybe in Austraila the government is better at it. But not in the US. Take a look at public schools in ca vs private. You will find that most private schools spend less per student and get better results.
The poor are not taxed. They pay no income tax if you make less than 10,000 (around ther any ways). SocialSecurity is something everyon has to pay but you are supposed to get back. I think it would be better to take that away and force people to pay into their own retirement funds( is that how it is in austraila? But even than I would people have to make that choice to look after their future istead of the government doing so.
The private sector could teach every student. Why could they not? What woudl stop it? Poor people still have a recourse. They could ask a charity for assistance, or a church. But I will give you I do think that every child should have the oppurtunity to go to school until about 15-18. College on the other hand should be privatly funded. The current american health system is not a private nor a public one. Its a gaiant mess that is why we have so many problem. Its private in that you buy health insurance, but it so regualted that they took all of the capitalism out of it. Health providers dont really have to compete against each other.
I think the government is less efficent at doing things because they have no motive to be more efficent. Why should they try fdo more with less if there is no compition to do so. Instead what hapens is various departments try to get the most funding and than must use what they ahve. The compition I see in private secotors would not allow this. You can really see this in the school system. If the government showed it was able to spend money well without waste i would be more willing to give it my money, but as it my money is far better spoent going to a church or a charity or directly to a poor person i see on the street.
I don't knw if you have lvied in the US. But if you haven't it may be hard to compare to Austraila. I have never lived in Austraila so its hard for me to compare. But within the us we have very different states, and California is one that tends to tax the rich more and have ore socail services, and it is in bad shape. Compared to other states that have less socail programs and less taxes.
Also Society does not equal government. While i did get to where I am with help, most of that helkp came from other people, from the church, from sports programs, and from neighbors. None wich needed government involvement. And school was the biggest let down for me, my most used government resource. But that is just anectoda.
Thank you for your thought out response.
When I said "You made a lot of money with hard work? Good for you", I was paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren, and using it in a hypothetical sense. As in, it was a rhetorical use of "you", not referring to you, thranx.
As I noted before, if government is doing a bad job with the money it collects, the solution is to fix government, not to destroy it. You're a democracy - the people should throw out the old, decrepit parties that you have right now, and put in place some parties that actually have some capability. It might also take some adjustments to your constitution - remember, Australia is a much younger country than America, we got to see the elements of the American system that worked and didn't work before we made our constitution.
My point regarding income tax for the poor is that you tax them to begin with. Why tax them, only to give the money back to them? That's just added bureaucracy. In Australia, you just don't pay income tax if you don't earn enough to reach the tax-free threshold. And regarding Australia's equivalent of social security, I did address that a bit, but I'll explain a little better. It is legally mandated that a certain proportion of any person's wage goes into a "superannuation account" - an account held by a private bank that promises a reasonable rate of growth, but you can't access until you reach retirement age (with certain special exceptions). You may then pay extra into it, if you so desire. Note that the money that goes into superannuation does not get taxed prior to going into that account - it is only taxed when you draw it out, once you reach retirement age. The idea is that people with superannuation accounts shouldn't need government support in the form of an aged pension, and thus superannuation reduces cost to the government, and does so without the problem that America faces (your social security taxes pay for current retirees, and America's social security fund is running out of money because of an aging population).
Forcing the poor to depend on the charity of others to have any chance of survival or improvement of their lot in life is coldhearted and disgusting. Society, through the government, works to raise the lot of EVERYONE in the country. And doing so generally actually makes the country a better place. Compare Australia and America, once again. And no, the private sector could NOT teach every student, because not all students can afford to pay for education, and the private sector is mandated to make money. And no, churches aren't a solution, either. It might interest you to learn that Australia has only one private university (we don't separate out "colleges") - the rest are all public universities.
Government has MASSIVE motivation to be more efficient. But more than that, they have no motivation to be profitable. What this means is that more of the money can go directly to where it's needed, rather than trying to maximise profits. Consider Medicare vs private health insurance. What's more, government is accountable to the voters (or rather, it's supposed to be). If government allows its programs to become anything but efficient, the people are supposed to kick them out for failing to do their job. But of course, in America, the electoral system is so screwed up that the Democrats and Republicans, both of whom have no actual problem with government waste, so long as it benefits THEM, have a duopoly on politics. When it is discovered that something government-owned or government-run in Australia is being run badly, the government gets a major thrashing over it. On the other hand, private companies are only accountable to shareholders, who care much more about profits than anything else.
I haven't lived in the US, but I have many ways of learning about it, including friends who do live over there. And in Australia, we're taught about places other than Australia (whereas a lot of Americans would have trouble even locating Australia on a world map). California isn't in a bad state because of liberal policies. It's in a bad state because of mismanagement. This is supposed to result in a change of government at the very next election. Schwarzenegger was elected, drove up debt... and was then elected again. California's problem was continuous borrowing of money to pay for things and spending badly. The fault for California being in such a bad state lies at the feet of the voters, not on liberal policies.
And of course society doesn't equal government. But government's purpose is the government of society, hence the name. It is the central pillar on which society is founded. And as described so well by Americans, it is supposed to be "by the people, for the people". But then, America has optional voting (in Australia, it's mandatory), which results in "get out the vote" (read: moneyhatting) being more important than actually convincing the majority that you're the right candidate. America has first-past-the-post voting (in Australia, we use the preferential system), resulting in a two party system that is nothing more than a duopoly. America has the electoral college system, which means that you get "swing states", and the other states don't matter as much, when it comes to presidents. In so many ways, America's system is screwed up. But the solution isn't shrinking government, it's fixing government.
To summarise the whole point of this, I'll repeat it again - the problem with America isn't that government is big. It's that it's screwed up, it's broken. You need to fix government, not just shrink it. Much of your current system is now well over 200 years old, and is based in outdated thinking. Even Australia's system is getting outdated, screwed up by the 24 hour news cycle... America's system is groaning under the weight of it all. The problem in America has an idiotic devotion to the constitution as it currently stands, as though people in 1776 could understand such concepts as the internet, television, or even POLICE (which didn't exist at the time that the constitution was written).
Here's my take on it. I don't care how rich you are, no one should ever willingly pay more. They should fight tooth and nail to keep as much as they can. With THAT said, the rich do not pay their fair share. Looking at raw numbers on paper, someone like Mitt Romney pays more than I do if we're both paying roughly 15% (I believe most of his 'income' is taxed at 16%) but in the real world, I pay more. That 15% I lose out on is a significant chunk. I look at my check and dream about all those taxes taken out and I'd be doing ten kinds of awesome if I could keep it all. My lifestyle would benefit with lower taxes. You think Mitt Romney is hurting, or would be hurt, if he would pay 3% more? Please.
Again, never trust the tax man. Just because Obama is in favor of returing the tax rates to Clinton era rates, doesn't mean they'll stop there. So fight, fight, fight. Don't just hand over your cash even if you have more than God. On the other side of that coin, don't tell me paying more is 'punishing success' when the gap between rich and poor has grown considerably over the past few decades (And had another nice boost thanks to the Bush era tax cuts, still in effect.)
Going back to Mitt Romney, I believe most of his money is made from the market which is taxed differently than someone making their fortune through salary. Again, I believe most of his money is taxed at 16%. Love it or hate it, our system rises and falls based on market fluctuations. And we need investments. Doesn't matter how many times 401k's and personal finances are wiped out due to Wall Street greed, there will never be any significant change to our current market. Deal with it. So I'm in favor of lower taxes imposed on trades. Though I'm not sure such a low amount is fair. But who am I to punish 'success' ...
