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#38
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How can you compare the 100 years of liberalism and 20 years of "Reaganomics" as equivalent? The fact remains that during 1982-1989, receipts of revenue to the U.S. government tripled. That was in spite of lowering the top marginal rate from 70 percent down to 28 percent. People took the money they were sheltering, invested it, made profits which they paid some portion of as taxes. The economy was booming. If we had that performance now, the debt would be retired in a reasonable amount of time. But what else happened? The Democrat-controlled Congress, where all spending must originate, outspent the revenue, again -- the tripled revenue, to still spend us into a deficit. Add up enough deficits, and you get a huge debt like today. Now there were other expenses too -- the Apollo program, the Manhattan Project and all the World War II costs -- they were big tag items too. No one will dispute that politicians of both, or all, political stripes desire more and more power. That's universal around the world. But we were given a limited government with a Constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the fundamental principle that any powers not explicitly written in that constitution are reserved to the people -- us. And you're correct about big business moving jobs overseas, but if they are taxed or regulated too much, isn't that what they would have to do to survive? Why is nothing made here anymore? Wouldn't they see it as better to make goods here, with all other things being equal, because the transportation costs and delays in getting to the biggest marketplace in the world -- again, us, would be minimized. But they had to move those jobs because of taxes, regulations, over-the-top union demands, and the like. And let me be quick to add: unions are necessary also because if corporations were unchecked, that's no good either. Product prices were never the driver on the move overseas, because the price of any commodity is driven by "whatever the market will bear" in the form of consumer spending. But profits are gross revenue minus expenses, and every corporation needs profit to survive. So the workers' wages is just one portion of those expenses -- it's not necessarily the reason they moved the jobs -- government regulations also cost money. And when the tax laws are written to give foreign corporations tax breaks, domestic corporations become foreign ones. Tax them all equally and that goes away. There's no such thing as a perfect solution, but I think we can do better than the situation we have now. Last edited by joeydb : 08-31-2010 at 02:50 PM. |
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