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mugrim posted:This is kind of a gross over simplification. FICA is it's own tax so Social Security and Medicare are their own expenditures, and many self employed people (The vast majority of those who I have to deal with on a professional basis) who pay federal taxes do NOT pay FICA. You're absolutely correct on this since there is a pretty huge difference between "mandatory" spending and "discretionary" spending, with the discretionary spending being paid for by only federal income tax, and of that 57% of the budget is military spending. Personally, it should be law that military spending can never exceed 50% of the discretionary budget so if they want more money they have to raise taxes, especially in times of war. That being said most people don't even realize that there are technically two different budgets (mandatory & discretionary), let alone what needs to be paid for and why it's important to pay for those things, and the fact that corporate media holds a massive influence over what people feel are important, which is why there was a 42 point increase among republicans between 2007 & 2012 when it came to listing the national debt as the most important issue. So no, people shouldn't have a say over where their taxes go outside of maybe putting limits on items in the discretionary budget because only 8.4-20.9% of Americans actually know how the government spends it's money anyway.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:58
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No, we've got enough issues with the elected reps of people fighting over where money goes. The majority of the population shouldn't have any say for where their money goes. They're either too dumb, or just down right malevolent. To be honest, we'd probably be better off if the majority of the population didn't have any say for anything.
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Jul 12, 2014 22:40
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A Winner is Jew posted:You're absolutely correct on this since there is a pretty huge difference between "mandatory" spending and "discretionary" spending, with the discretionary spending being paid for by only federal income tax, and of that 57% of the budget is military spending. Personally, it should be law that military spending can never exceed 50% of the discretionary budget so if they want more money they have to raise taxes, especially in times of war. It also gets weird because of how hard we work to hide our military budget. Often depending on where you're looking "Veterans Affairs" will be considered a completely different expenditure than general military spending which is pretty clearly obfuscation by most people's accounts. The same way DOE pays for the nukes also hides their cost a bit. What's sad is that our massive military/PMC industry often hides what our unemployment would be if we scaled down to what the rest of the world feels comfortable with.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:08
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mugrim posted:It also gets weird because of how hard we work to hide our military budget. Often depending on where you're looking "Veterans Affairs" will be considered a completely different expenditure than general military spending which is pretty clearly obfuscation by most people's accounts. The same way DOE pays for the nukes also hides their cost a bit. Eh, I don't know about that since if we shifted DOD funds into literally anything else (besides tax cuts obviously) it would put less of a burden on the poor and middle class via expanding through government programs from their current dismal state which would be a net improvement across the board. And really now, it's not like all those aerospace engineers couldn't be reassigned to things like projects for NASA or something since that's basically a huge purpose of that agency.
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Jul 13, 2014 05:22
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:No, we've got enough issues with the elected reps of people fighting over where money goes. The majority of the population shouldn't have any say for where their money goes. They're either too dumb, or just down right malevolent. I agree, lets start by making me dictator.
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Jul 13, 2014 06:04
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OP are you familiar with voluntaryanism?
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Jul 13, 2014 06:07
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I dunno, you guys think people would gut social programs and stuff, but given that people's polled estimation of program budgets, and of what those budgets should ideally be "cut" to, BOTH drastically overshoot the actual current number, you could get a bunch of people thinking they're slashing programs while actually raising their budgets by factors of 10.
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Jul 13, 2014 10:35
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Slaan posted:A lot of military spending already boosts the economy. A huge chunk of that money every year is spent on acquisitions, logistics, base infrastructure, housing, research, etc. So its money going straight back into the economy. This would be true if the money was spent digging a ditch and filling it back in again. So it's very bad analysis in the context of macroeconomic value. Only in certain short term contexts can we actually just look at dollars spent. In the long term, economic value depends on the value of things actually produced by the spending. A tank that gets built but never used and then scrapped literally has an economic value of 0. This is why military spending doesn't stack up well economically against a whole bunch of other things that actually produce useful things for the economy (education, infrastructure etc) [Though in reality judging military spending is a bit more complicated. The military has preventative value, acts as a sort of insurance policy where it's understood that spending may have 0 value unless there is actually a conflict, and military technology has beneficial side effects] A Winner is Jew posted:Serously, read this and reconsider this idea completely The fact that people are clueless about the federal budget is the one reason I think this idea is almost an interesting thought exercise. If we let people play with maybe 2% (not 25%) of the federal budget themselves, they might come away with a better understanding of what money is actually spend on, and perhaps a greater feeling of participation. Though probably not.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:25
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asdf32 posted:This would be true if the money was spent digging a ditch and filling it back in again. So it's very bad analysis in the context of macroeconomic value. p. much what I was going to say. With the kind of money the military gets, we could do some SERIOUS world class improvements in poo poo like education and for infrastructure it would be a good long term investment. asdf32 posted:[Though in reality judging military spending is a bit more complicated. The military has preventative value, acts as a sort of insurance policy where it's understood that spending may have 0 value unless there is actually a conflict, and military technology has beneficial side effects] Nukes are by far our greatest preventative value, and they're not in the military budget, they're under DOE. We're way too far away from any drop that would seriously endanger our country for that argument to matter. Part of the issue with a reduction would be that it would invariably mean retiring equipment and also pissing off congressmen who have said equipment being produced in their district. It would also mean slowing down recruitment a lot, though it could make worse our over reliance on PMC's.
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Jul 13, 2014 20:38
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This is fairly relevant
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Jul 13, 2014 20:41
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mugrim posted:Nukes are by far our greatest preventative value, and they're not in the military budget, they're under DOE. I agree with you when it comes to things like the marines, army, & air force, but by being the only remaining super power we inherited role of world police of the oceans from Britain and there is an ungodly amount of commerce that is only possible because of how much policing of the sea the US navy does. Realistically, the only two major sea lanes that are even an issue when it comes to safety and security for commerce anymore are the Gulf of Adan and the Strait of Malacca, and there has been a huge crackdown in recent years in the Gulf of Adan. 10 loving super carriers though is way too god drat many. At most I would say 6 is good which means 3 for each coast, 1 on patrol, 1 in port ready to deploy, and 1 undergoing repairs/upgrades.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:30
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:To be honest, we'd probably be better off if the majority of the population didn't have any say for anything.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:53
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