Government spending is just a jobs program for mediocrities who can't compete on the global labor stage and so insulate themselves into work which can't be offshored or subject to domestic competition and then use their bargaining (and voting) power to obtain above market compensation (all-in, including pensions and post-retirement health benefits). If your income comes from working for the government (or transfer payments), you should not be able to vote or your vote should count less. That way, only those who are actually net payers for government services would vote. That would determine the true value for money that taxpayers get from these allegedly great benefits the government provides.
Have you heard of "specious argument"? That's like saying a drug addict or dealer is contributing to the economy as long as he doesn't get busted. And BTW - since oil/gas price shocks are pretty frequent, that would mean the crap sold as AAA would inevitably crash anyway, wouldn't it? "Dude, it wasn't the fraudulent loans bundled and sold across the world that caused a World-Wide recession/depression. It was because you stopped driving so much."
+1. Here's what an accountant wrote about the mythological "golden age of high tax rates": "the dishonesty or perhaps ignorance in the tax debate that is going on today is the complete misrepresentation of the pre-TRA86 higher marginal rates in the old '53 code. Sure the marginal rates were insane, but the underlying tax code was rife with loopholes that a good tax planner (I was one) could exploit to get a persons effective tax rate as low or lower then it is today. Those loopholes are no longer part of the tax code which is a good thing as they encouraged investors to invest in projects that had no economic viability other then the income sheltering effect they created. What else is ignored in the conversation is the fact that there was a massive amount of tax fraud at all income levels under the old code. It was so bad and so common that most people took pride in telling others how they cheated on their taxes. When I was practicing it was quite common for us to pick up clients that had owned businesses that had grown into large enterprises that cheated extensively on their income taxes sometimes for decades. Usually the only reason this ever got exposed was due to the owners wanting to sell or go public. Today it would be very hard to get away with significant tax fraud for very long and the current code does not offer very many ways to legally shelter income, so a marginal tax rate of 70% would probably produce an effective tax rate on the top 5% of at least 45-50% which would be more than double what the effective rate was under the old tax code. Thus, if we were to go back to those insane marginal tax rates, we would be crossing into a level of taxation never seen in this country." Also, no matter the rate, the gov't has only been able to collect around 18% of GDP. At that point, people will do everything they can to evade and have little incentive to be productive.
If they raise taxes that much everyone who can get out of the country is going to get the hell out and escape to Singapore or somewhere. Even if you can't get your money out... If you are highly skilled/talented in some way you will be able to find a semi decent country to let you in.
It's not like your drug dealer analogy at all. And oil price shocks of the magnitude experienced in 2008 are actually not common at all. One could argue that, in inflation-adjusted terms, it was the 2nd-worst oil shock in modern history. When you take into account household debt levels in 2008 vs. the early 70s and what that implies for fixed household costs, it may have even been the worst. And it wasn't because people were not driving, it was because demand is inelastic in the short-term, which means that people had to keep on driving.
Range rider Seems to me that I recall the U.S. owns you for 10 years after you renounce citizenship. Haven't really studied it since I don't plan to do so.
Let me explain what is really going on: This is a massive power grab by liberal lefties aka "Democrats". These people have no real world experience and all they do is yell racism, class warfare and circle jerk with unions. These elite few realized a long time ago the more people you get on the guberment dole and play class warfare and yell racism when you can't win an argument, the more votes you can buy/scare. The sad thing is that the majority of democratic voters have no clue the BS they are being fed. Anyways, the real problem is that the smart people work in the private sector and the "community activists" work in the public sector, but for some reason people believe that guberment is good and these people are "qualified" to tax you and spend your money. LOL!!! Democrats are not only an embarrassment to the USA, they are an embarrassment to human kind. They all act like snickering 8th graders who never grew up. They need the dumbest of the dumb for votes and they NEVER want to see their voter base succeed, because they have to keep selling the same of crap of class warfare, "we will take care of you" and sprinkle in racism to keep getting those votes in order to keep the elite few at the top in total control!