YouCut, your opinions?

Was life better than? I enjoy living in an age where I get much better healthcare than before.

I think it's just mischevious politics from a party who know they can't implement them even if they wanted to. The polls are especially open to the tyranny of the majority, people will just vote for the things that affect them least. A lot of things cut may only be used by a few but these few may really need them.

 

It was never in it.

 

Any tool that gets response from the population is going to be spun as a good thing by the party advocating it. The problem will arise when the data from this sort of thing is spun as being an accurate representation of what America really wants. I don't really trust most polls to give unskewed data but this doesn't even pretend to be a poll -- the data that will result will be horribly unrepresentative of America as a whole.

 

You mean Greece?

 

Ragusa, this isn't really tying anyone's hands. If a Rep doesn't like it, he or she can vote against the cut, and if they want to propose one of the other cuts on their own, or in concert with something else, they can still do that, too. It doesn't actually take any decision power away from Congress, it just gives them a bit of non-binding input from the public in a slightly more organized and less free form than a thousand phone calls or a million emails. These aren't ballot initiatives or anything, though.

I'm not sure how California did it, but in this case the public's vote doesn't enact any legislation. The representatives are still responsable for their own votes on these cuts.

I agree completely on the debt issue, but who's talking about tax cuts. I think that was just one example that Ragusa brought up about California's process. The House is proposing spending cuts, though, which will reduce the deficit (if any are passed).

Bah, Iraq's at the end of the line. It's only a recent addition. I say start with the government credit cards. I can't find the article now, but apparently a recent review found almost 50% of charges on those cards can't be accounted for, and many of the charges in the review were almost certainly fraudulent: vacations to Hawaii, jewelry, etc. But really, all sections of government need a thorough corruption cleaning, IMO.

Considering this is being done by the Republican House Whip, I don't think they'll play it as representative of America as a whole. I doubt they'll even play it as representative of any particular thing (especially since non-Americans can have email addresses just as easily as Americans can). If they try to pass this off as anything other than some vague advice, they're idiots. Of course, they are politicians....

 

Snook was. Please read the post I was actually responding to in the quote of mine you posted.

End of the line of what?

Addition to what? Foolish and wasteful wars? Yes, I agree.

I'd rather start with the Air Force C130S that were loaded down with American cash and disappeared.

 

I did, but even Snook was talking about a citizen's reaction to a state proposed tax-cut some time ago, and not a current debate (unless California is talking about cutting taxes further?).

Actually, the line is of wasteful government programs of any kind, wars included. Both our current wars are relatively new (~8 years) compared to some of the government waste and corruption that's been going on (decades).

Yeah, but that'd take too long to start with. They disappeard after all. Rather, start with the people and cash that are still around.

 

I took it to mean that he was speaking of the larger notion of voter tax cuts as sending a message of less spending [the principle], a notion which I strongly disagree with because of the size of current debt of government (all levels of government), and not just CA.

I thought that was the voter's message? Here's what I was responding to:

 

What strikes me in this tax cut debate is that tax cuts are apparently always to be considered a great idea, a silver bullet solution to all problems. Unemployment? Tax cut! Waste, fraud and abuse? Tax cut! Government deficit? Tax cut! Increased military spending? Tax cut! War? Tax cut!

The (corporate sponsored) anti tax jihadis aside, do Americans value a functioning government? I suppose so. Government costs money, which it acquires through taxation. Taxation is democratically legitimated. That isn't arbitrary confiscation but it happens on the basis of tax laws that are acts of parliament. There is a case for taxation. What is eerily absent from the entire tax-cut-this and tax-cut-that talk is an acknowledgement of the need for taxation. Taxes are an inconvenient necessity, the price we pay for civilisation.

What I think about YouCut and what the incessant cries for tax cut express is this: The people this resonates with have lost respect for national life that to them appears degenerate and hostile. Nevermind that taxes are democratically legitimated - their opponents don't feel represented.

The economy is tanking, Goldman Sachs has record profit and probably pays very little taxes, but the little man is supposed to pay taxes? Even though he has good reason to look weary into the future in this economic environment? Somebody has to pay, but not them who only keep getting the short end of the stick. To them Congress is uncaring and occupied by power-hungry politicians ... I don't see that as representing the reality. To me it sounds like a defensive reflex originating from a feeling of having been left behind by politics.

Because tax cuts don't solve or fix governance problems, proposals like YouCut don't present a real agenda. This is about resentment against those in power, irrespective of whether they are responsible for having caused the mess America is in now or whether they just had the misfortune to inherit an impossible situation. IMO the Tea Parties are also all about that resentment.

 

Politicians run on a platform of tax cuts and then have to make good on them. Obama promised middle-class tax cuts and we got them. It was one of the first things he did. Bush was even better at cutting taxes: it was one of the first things he did in office and then we got rebates as well. These cuts really do help the economy. Unfortunately, netiher president cut spending, and in fact, spent like crazy, which is proof that tax cuts don't mean less spending, but generally more spending (at least in the last 10 years).

For the government to spend less, really spend less, would mean changes in actual policy. For instance, just as an example, if we legallized some drugs, that would mean a cut in the police, courts, jails, etc, and save local government millions of dollars a year. But do you think that will happen? Social Security is another one; but are people really going to vote themselves less retirement cash? No way. Government contracts: Do you think the generals and corporate fat cats are going to take a hit? Don't you want our military to have the "latest and greatest" technology and equipment? Don't you want the best for our troops? Before you jump right up and yell a resounding "YES," as a professional sales man, that's the oldest line out there. Read: Don't you want the best for your kids? Isn't your girl friend worth that really nice ring, the one with the bigger diamond? It almost always works. Almost as well as "What will your neighbors think when they see you driving this car?" You don't think stuff works? Less spending -- not in this country. It's full of people whose own spending habits include impressing people they don't even know. You think the government is any smarter? You are right, BTA.

 

We have politicians running and winning elections on promises to raise taxes.

When my best friend got his first proper job and started earning some real money he was appalled that he got a tax refund on the first money he earned and he thought he should pay more tax. Different cultures I guess.

 

I doubt that a family that's barely managing to get their ends meet in Sweden is any more happy about a tax raise than the average American. Of course if you have surplus income which you save or don't really do anything with, tax hikes are easier to accept when they don't directly affect your standard of living.

Cutting taxes is in my opinion a bit of psychological trick, at least cutting direct taxes. It's used to stimulate domestic consumption or quite simply to get votes. When the government raises taxes they usually do so indirectly preferring to use taxation forms that directly hit the prices instead of the wages, or alternatively forcing the municipalities to raise their local taxes.

In any case the idea that tax cuts are a method of forcing the government to cut their spending is false since then the government will simply spend with debt, but I don't think anyone here really claimed otherwise.

 

Morg,
iirc in the US the states are not allowed to go into debt. That means that reduced tax revenue (for example as a result of tax cuts) results in the legal necessity to cut spending (i.e they need to lay off people in order to not violate the law). That, of course, destroys institutional knowledge and expertise as experts and experienced staff wander off and go to a place that offers better pay or stable employment. It may also greatly reduce the ability to perform its assigned duties (say when a city is forced to lay off cops in large numbers, or teachers, clerks, firemen etc.). Great example: Ashtabula County, Ohio: As they had to lay off more than half of their cops, the local judge urges the population ... to buy guns.

Also, the average poor family in Sweden does benefit from Sweden's social safety net. That means, they are probably better off than a comparably poor family in the US.

 

Sorry, Ragusa, but that's not true. That's the whole problem with California right now: they're in too much debt.

As for taxes, I think the problem a lot American families have with taxes isn't that they don't have enough money to pay them (after all, the less you have, the much less you pay), but rather that they'd rather spend money on the "really important" things. Like a big-screen TV, or a new sound system. Personally, I support raising taxes a bit (provided that it's coupled with spending cuts).

 

(a) That they do have debt does not mean they are allowed to.
(b) I wrote 'iirc', for a reason, and
(c) I didn't formulate precisely. What I did have in mind was the phrase 'many states are prohibited from deficit borrowing'. I did indeed get California only half right: California is not prohibited from running a counter-cyclical deficit, just from borrowing money across years without voter approval.

My actual previous point (i.e. everything past that first sentence) still stands.

 

Teacher layoffs appear to be a distinct possibility this year. I saw on the news last night that California has cancelled the summer school program this year (there simply isn't enough money to pay the teachers). Federal officials state that without aid being provided, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 teachers will be laid off or furloughed in the fall, with California being the hardest hit. The NEA announced the number at an estimated 160,000 teachers naitonwide.

 

Ah, that explains it, Ragusa. Sorry if that came off too harsh, I just knew that California (and I think several other states) are in deep debt at the moment.