Originally Posted by spence
You could also argue that in our present situation tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper. Yes, this does assume a level of responsibility we've not seen from either party.
You might argue that if you believe that the more powerful the state is the more power the individual has. Since I don't believe that, I wouldn't argue that tax raises, or anything else which would give the central gvt. in our present situation even more power or control over our lives than it already has, would increase individual strength. Nor do I believe that the state making itself "stronger" at the expense of the individual equates with the "bottom" building a stronger state. Unless, of course, the state is, ultimately, the people who make their individual lives more prosperous. When the state and the people are one, then the bottom is the top, and their elected representatives are their servants, the bottom, who will be constrained by the limits that the people have enumerated in their constitution, And the people, who you refer to as the bottom, can then make a stronger state because the people will direct by their actions how they, the state, will thrive. But when the state and the people are not one, and the state is the top, and the people are the bottom who are not directly represented by responsive servants, but are dictated to by unelected bureaucrats appointed with plenary, unrepresentative power by those servants, that is tyranny and does not make the true state, the people, stronger. It strengthens only the stolen state, that power separated from the people, a select few experts who allow rights and priveleges to a people that once had inalienable rights, and directs the "vector" of a people who once determined their own.
And there is no level of responsibility that those in this top down state, separate from the people who are relegated to the bottom, that applies, except the responsibility to do as they choose. When the people are ruled rather than rule, it is the people who must be responsible to the government, not vice versa. To expect undefined responsibility from those you have allowed to rule you is your last and hopeless wish. If you want responsibility, rule yourself. We would have that under Constitutional governance.
Assuming that in this case "Progressive" = Republicans and Democrats?
Of course. I've said so several times. That's why I said progressive, not Democrat or Republican.
There is no war dividend when you're running a deficit.
There are no dividends when you run a deficit. It is more dificult to fund a war when you run a deficit. If you continually run deficits, as we mostly have for 80 years or so, it is difficult to run anything.
I'd also argue that government revenues ultimately have more to do with larger (increasingly global) economic trends rather than incentives like low taxation or deregulation.
Low taxation and less regulation would put us in a competitive position in the global market, and would lessen the need to funnel stuff offshore.
Our taxes are at historic lows and wealth continues to concentrate at the top and be funneled offshore. Trusting industry has given our housing market a 10+ year wound...
How can anyone seriously argue that yet lower taxes and even less regulation is going to change the vector positively for the American people?
-spence
|