"Is written by a conservative blogger. You'll forgive me for not giving it any credibility."and when I asked him to recommend another better source he said...
"A source that doesn't cherry pick their data, actually explains where he got it and the criteria used to compile it? All things which your "source" has refused to do when asked by those commenting on his website. I say this knowing full well that you probably have absolutely no interest in reading anything that doesn't validate your ideology,...hence the comical term "liberal media bias.""And I can't disagree that using a source that openly acknowledges that some values are guesstimates does seem questionable. So I went and found this site called Winning Progressive that linked to this Total Cost chart. (I am thinking a site named Winning Progressive may be Left leaning enough even for Jason...)
Fortunately the US Spending and the Winning Progressive charts are very similar, so I plan to keep using the US Total charts. Does anyone have a better source to measure the magnitude of "gov't control" with in our economy? I was thinking of the "tax free" day history, however that seems "national" centric.
So I finish writing this and decide to read the NY Times Blog Post that Winning Progressives linked to for the image... And guess who the NY Times is referencing as a source???
No wonder the images looked similar... Well if US Total Gov't Spend History is good enough for the NY Times. I am sticking with it until you help me find a better source. Thoughts?
12 comments:
The NY Times piece has the following interesting quote.
"What’s driving the growth in government spending? And it has a relatively straightforward answer: first and foremost, spending on health care through Medicare and Medicaid, and other major social insurance and entitlement programs."
The claim is that the traditional functions are actually growing "about right". Which would mean that bureaucracies are fine... It is the "new extra functions" are problematic... (ie world's largest insurance company)
I thought this was interesting since Jerry was commenting on the "unnecessary" increasing cost of doing business in America on the previous post.
I don't see providing more people medical care (medicaid) as problematic. One of the goals of Obamacare is slowing down the growth in the cost cost of medical care in general. Also, some of the medicare increase is due to an increasing number of seniors, not much we can do about that.
I don't think paying for someone else's healthcare with money taken from me and people like me is something the "government" should be doing. Of course that is where Liberals and Conservatives see things differently.
Liberals seem to think people are owed a lot of things just because they reside in this country. And to make it worse, that entitlement is apparently owed no matter what personal choices / actions they make/take or do not make/take.
At least medicare is more equitably funded for now. Though that will come to an end sooner than later whan the revenues and trust fund withdrawls can not keep up with disbursements.
Here is some interesting math.
Total Spend: ~$6,000,000,000,000
divided by
Population: ~313,900,000
Equals: $19,114 per citizen
So for my family of 5, if taxes were evenly split like dues... Apparently our portion would be $95,572 per year !!!
I bring this up because I started to wonder how a person's beliefs vary depending on where their tax burden is relative to this number.
I mean if someone is only paying $5,000 in total taxes per year, what will they believe is fair compared to the person who is paying $2,000,000,000 in taxes.
The first is only paying about 1/4 of their "bill". Whereas the person paying $2,000,000,000 is picking up their tab and that of ~103 other citizens.
In my book of fairness it is much more concerning that someone has enough income to pay $2,000,000,000 in taxes, while others are unable to meet their basic needs such as health care.
This week I have been reading yet another book on religion, which has some comments on ethics which are hard for me to summarize. My example of one of its ideas is what if those who believe in reincarnation are right, but the circumstances of a person's next birth are totally random. Maybe people would be more concerned about the least well off in the world, as there is a good chance they might join them in their next life and only a very slight chance of being born to great privilege.
Maybe more of us would work harder towards a more equitable world.
"unable to meet their basic needs"
Should that be "unable" or "unwilling"?
Every child born in America is given the opportunity to attend school for free. Every adult in America has the opportunity to work hard, save, invest, etc.
The most needy even have access to different programs to help them. Programs that the lucky folks can not use...
Now I am not saying it is easy but "unable" seems like an over statement.
I was reading another book this morning, Compelling People, that is about the character traits of strength vs. warmth. You clearly value strength while I am firmly in the warmth camp. We seem to have fundamentally different world views.
How can you be so sure that if you were born into poverty that you would have the same level of motivation with which you were raised in your current life?
I don't know that I would or would not . I respect that genetics, environment and a willingness to question myself all have an impact. (thus G2A)
The question is should we take wealth from the highly motivated/lucky and give it to the minimally motivated/unlucky?
What behavior is this policy promoting and enabling? Is this good for our country and it's continued success?
I was thinking of this on my way to Hyland today.
According to your view, it seems American Liberals should be more supportive of giving more US money and military support to those in other countries?
Our American poor are incredibly successful/lucky by global standards. I mean they get to vote, have access to free education, women have rights, jobs are available, they are relatively safe, etc, etc, etc.
Yet the Liberals seem more interested in helping the world's unmotivated middle class, (ie America's poor) than helping the truly needy humans of the world.
Everything is relative...
Maybe what we need is a stronger United Nations with the authority to impose taxes on wealthy and relatively wealthy global citizens to better alleviate the worst poverty in developing countries. I'd vote for a liberal representative to the UN.
(Maybe you or J could post video of your heads exploding at my suggestion of a new level of global govt. and more new taxes.)
I feel the pressure building in my head as I read this... Ouch...
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