<p>What are the ramifications in just keeping future growth at 6.2% instead of 6.1%? If a 0.1% reduction is good, why not hold the growth rate to just inflation rate of ~3.0%? But since we have a trememdous debt problem, why not hold the line at 0% increase?</p>
<p>Since in our situation, we are only marginally affected, How about elimination? </p>
<p>I would like now to thank, Mr. A. Greenspan, and his gang, for providing us, weighted average of ~3.2% on PLUS and Stafford loans for the next 25 years! </p>
<p>Sounds like something FS would say;), but who can tell?</p>
<p>Liberal and conservative, unlike Democrat & Republican, have to do more with a disposition than an ideology. Either of the two can lead to positive results in a utilitarian fashion, and perhaps both could simultaneously at any historical point. But more often than not, there is, somewhere, an impulse to conserve or to expend in all of us (who think and act).</p>
<p>I like life, and my own life and I am therefore inclined to preserve it much in the challenging and joyful state that it is in. Moreover, I have a fondness for the wondrous achievements of others, both those living and those who have passed. I do not intend to reinvent or replace the wheel and I am skeptical of those who claim they can. I enjoy the wisdom of the past and am critical of those in the past and present who violated and demeaned that wisdom, such as it is. I see things in the long term…forward and backward: Those who preceded me and those who will follow.</p>
<p>I hope that someday, someone will look back and realize I am still somehow part of their “present” even though left some time ago in the past, and thus remain part of the whole drama and joy of it all that never stops. I certainly feel this for those, who like myself, lived through their wonderful lives and are now gone.</p>
<p>I’m not much inclined toward disposability or revolution. I am conservative in outlook it is neither a label nor a classification; it is, for me, simply living.</p>
<p>Without weighing into the multitude of pi$$ing matches being carried on simultaneously in this thread, a few basic observations:<br>
If you have a national tax rate of 0%, you have anarchy. Doesn’t work well.
If you have a national tax rate of 100%, you have totalitarianism. Doesn’t work well.
If you have a government which provides services to the general public - protection, infrastructure, education, etc. - it costs money. So you have to have taxes. Where that rate falls between 0% and 100% is a function of how many services the government provides. Note: all of those services could be provided by the private sector - it’s just that experience has shown that the private sector doesn’t do some things as well as government - armies, for example.
There is an ideal balance of public and private control and funding of the bundle of services which are provided to the citizenry - the area of disagreement lies in just where that ideal balance lies.<br>
General observation: as the government share of services rises in comparison to the private share (i.e., more taxes), the poor and middle class tend to benefit. The more the balance goes the other way (less taxes) the more the wealthy tend to benefit. When the wealthy benefit to excess society becomes stratified and polarized, which tends not to be a good thing. If excessive restraint on the accumulation of wealth is in place society tends to become static and unmotivated, which tends not to be a good thing. So again the key is hitting the right balance.
For the past twenty years (at least) in this country, the rich have been taking home a bigger and bigger piece of the pie, while the share the poor (defined as the bottom 50%) get has shrunk. Also, government support of services to the middle class has declined (e.g., public college tuition hikes) while government support of services which assist the wealthy in becoming more wealthy has not declined. (e.g. Agribusiness subsidies, military operations in oil producing areas of the world.)
The fact that a political party is trying to push the private/public balance one way or the other is usually obscured by anecdotal arguments (like we’ve seen in this thread) about things like the “deserving” poor vs. the “undeserving” poor; as well as totally extraneous social issues like abortion, homosexuality, religion, hypocrisy, and the like.<br>
If you want to be serious in a discussion like this, try sticking to the basic issue: will our nation really be a better place if government undertakes a larger share of the job of providing social services? A smaller share? The same size but different jobs? Who will benefit, who will suffer? And forget about trying to divine the moral “worth” of each person who benefits or suffers - there will be the usual assortment of both kinds, either way.
My personal opinion? The denser the population, and the more technologically complex the society, the larger the ideal share of the GDP the government has to occupy. New York City requires a higher tax rate than North Dakota. Our nation is becoming more densely populated, and more technologically advanced, but the right wing continues to try to privatize everything for the profit of the already wealthy (privitizing the weather service?), cut taxes (even in the face of budget deficits) and cut the role of the public sector. I think that’s a mistake. I think we’ve veered too far to the “aid the rich and ignore the poor” end of the spectrum for social and economic health.
And I’m not poor…</p>