taxes question

[Citizen James]

Choose.

[John Dibble]

How responsible spending is will ultimately decide how much we pay in taxes.

[Citizen James]

How responsible spending is will ultimately decide how much we pay in taxes.

In a way. So perhaps I should clairfy.

Would you rather:

A - pay lower taxes but have most of the revenues spent on projects you consider wasteful, with little going to useful projects.

B - pay higher taxes but have most of the revenues spent on projects you consider useful and are well managed with proper oversight?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Option 2 - but we need to limit spending.

[David S]

How responsible spending is will ultimately decide how much we pay in taxes.

In a way. So perhaps I should clairfy.

Would you rather:

A - pay lower taxes but have most of the revenues spent on projects you consider wasteful, with little going to useful projects.

B - pay higher taxes but have most of the revenues spent on projects you consider useful and are well managed with proper oversight?

Its hard to pick either A or B but I guess I'd pick A on the assumption that if we reduced the tax rate to 0% then it would eliminate all waste and fraud.

But the situation we actually have today is high taxes and waste, for example;
A war that we didn't need to be in.
Bridge to nowhere.
Social benefits for illegal immigrants.
$18 billion in pork projects.
Medicare/medicaid fraud - being billed for wheelchairs that the allegded recipient never ordered or received, among other things.

[Ban my account ffs!]

We pay pretty high taxes here.  Most people here don't bitch about that, except a select group of conservatives, who will always bitch about taxes and always have.

The debate here tends to be whether or not the money is well spent.  Generally, it is.  We have a very efficient state government.

[J. J.]

A-I realize that my priorities are not everyone's priorities.   The vast majority may not consider it wasteful.

[KEmperor]

B kind of goes hand in hand with A, at least for me.  If the government was only spending money on the programs I feel they should be, we wouldn't have high taxes anyway.

[MaC]

If we lower tax rates, then that lowers the amount of potential for wasteful spending.

[KEmperor]

If we lower tax rates, then that lowers the amount of potential for wasteful spending.

Not the way they like to simply deficit spend.

[MaC]

If we lower tax rates, then that lowers the amount of potential for wasteful spending.

Not the way they like to simply deficit spend.

I'm against deficit spending unless they have beforehand a sound way of paying it back.  Of course I thought the nature of this question to be more of what the ideal would be.

[SPC]

B kind of goes hand in hand with A, at least for me.  If the government was only spending money on the programs I feel they should be, we wouldn't have high taxes anyway.

Amen.

[Verily]

If we lower tax rates, then that lowers the amount of potential for wasteful spending.

Not the way they like to simply deficit spend.

I'm against deficit spending unless they have beforehand a sound way of paying it back.  Of course I thought the nature of this question to be more of what the ideal would be.

The two situations are meant to be exclusive, I think. Thus:

A) Taxes are lower, but government efficiency remains the same. Less money is collected, but an equivalent percent of it goes towards ineffective projects.

B) Government is 100% efficient, but taxes remain the same. All of the money collected in taxes is spent effectively.

In any case, I really don't understand your logic that lowering taxes will improve government effectiveness. Politicians prefer ineffective spending to effective spending because it bolsters their reelection chances to build an eight-lane highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks (just a hypothetical example, of course). Give them less money to spend and they'll take it out of the budgets of the useful government programs, not pork. This, of course, is why the whole concept of tax cuts is misguided.

The former situation is far more realistic, but clearly the latter situation is better.

[AkSaber]

How responsible spending is will ultimately decide how much we pay in taxes.

Agreed.

Also agreed.