11 Replies to “Fuzzy math?”

1. The Monster says:

   April 19, 2011 at 9:22 am

   If government employees’ paychecks were tax-free income, and their nominal pay reduced by whatever their tax liability would otherwise be, it would actually be a more honest accounting of the situation.

2. DarthLevin says:

   April 19, 2011 at 9:22 am

   How extremely unhelpful.

   Tiny Tim Geithner says that casting doubt on whether the U.S. can extort enough, er um I mean PAY, to meet its obligations would be catastrophic. I say, start casting and catastrophising (looking at you, S&P).

3. JHoward says:

   April 19, 2011 at 9:36 am

   So in effect, the actual wealth the government is extracting from the private economy is being paid by perhaps one-quarter to one-third of American households…

   Actually, the feds take in only 60 cents of every dollar they spend. So in effect, the actual monies the government is spending over and above the paltry revenues generated from the private economy are being paid by accounting tricks and by the fiat monetary system. And that have accumulated two hundred fifty trillion dollars in red ink when you include all unpaid federal obligations and the individual States.

   “We are well and truly boned” no longer seems adequate.

4. cranky-d says:

   April 19, 2011 at 9:54 am

   The fact that government employees are paying taxes with tax money has bothered me for a long time. I think The Monster’s idea is a good one and should be done soonest. Of course, it won’t happen because it would make reality that much more obvious, and a government on a path to full statism cannot afford to wake the rubes up before we get there.

5. McGehee says:

   April 19, 2011 at 9:55 am

   So in effect, the actual monies the government is spending over and above the paltry revenues generated from the private economy are being paid by accounting tricks and by the fiat monetary system.

   I think of it as fiscal time travel: they’re spending the wages of people yet unborn.

   Hey, there’s the way to get Democrats to oppose abortion!

6. JHoward says:

   April 19, 2011 at 10:01 am

   One of these days the right is going to get behind notions like the personal income tax being a very bad idea and printing presses being a very bad idea. Or corporate taxes being a good idea in the age of rampant, special interest-fomented crony capitalism.

   One of these days.

7. Bob Reed says:

   April 19, 2011 at 10:08 am

   A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

   Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, amazingly prescient for an 18th century Scotsman, eh?

   So sum his wisdom and the stats, to yield the depressing result that we might be on the verge of crossing the Rubicon, so to speak…

   I personally still believe there’s real hope for our national redemption, but somethings got to give pretty soon. And one necessary element will be the unsuccessful re-election campaign of the class-warrior-in-chief.

   Unless anyone here is down with Baracky “l’etat c’est moi!” MoaBama the first, and his queen Michelle Mobamette…

8. Seth says:

   April 19, 2011 at 10:09 am

   It has also long bothered me that government employees pay taxes, with taxes. There seems something gimicky and circular about that. Kind of like dividing by zero, the result doesn’t quite make sense.

   The one good thing about government employees paying taxes is that they have some skin in the game in regards to the tax rate – divorce them from the tax rate and they have NO real incentive to give a damn what the rate is.

   With all that said, what bothers me more is that we have significant numbers in our nation that effectively don’t pay taxes at all. That seems unsustainable, as it is a growing number.

9. JHoward says:

   April 19, 2011 at 10:45 am

   Here‘s one for you, Bob…

10. Bob Reed says:

    April 19, 2011 at 11:00 am

    I saw that JHoward. It is pretty much right on and something everyone should read. Admitteldly though, it’d be hard to get such local community groups together where I live in “true-blue” NYC. If something terrible goes down here I have to pretty much rely on being able to make my way down south to some of my relatives spreads.

    But the writers of that guest post are talking about much of what we do here at PW.

11. Celtic Dragon says:

    April 19, 2011 at 6:50 pm

    So they LightMolester and his geniuses are trying to create an economic perpetual motion machine, where everyone either works or gets taken care of by the government, and then pays the taxes out of that money to pay themselves.

    WE’LL ALL BE RICH!!!!!11!!!!1!

    Or not…

Comments are closed.