Comment by prottog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by prottog | Hacker News Reader

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According to your first source, "cutting the top tax rate does not lead to economic growth" but it does not lead to economic stagnation or shrinkage either; "cutting the top tax rate does not lead to income growth" but does not lead to income decrease either; "cutting the top tax rate does not lead to wage growth" but does not lead to wage decrease either; "cutting the top tax rate does not lead to job creation" but does not lead to job destruction either. That is to say, cutting the top tax rate has no correlation with any of those four items.

So if taking more or less taxes from the rich results in no meaningful difference in ordinary American lives, shouldn't the government then default to taking less? The other way would be just wasteful. And if your argument is that no, in fact the additional tax revenue from the rich is helpful because it funds various redistributive social programs, then my counterargument is that what those programs seem to be most effective at is incentivizing creating an unemployable underclass at the taxpayer's expense[0] while enriching politically connected players.

[0]: See Thomas Sowell's extensive body of research on the general welfare of black Americans before and after the Great Society programs of the 60s.

So clearly you don't see the usefulness of government being able to spend money on programs that do make a difference, even going as far as to label it wasteful. I'd argue that letting people keep money that makes no significant difference in their life, other than sitting as a number on a bank account, is wasteful. If people can use money to better society, so can government, difference being government can spend money selflessly.

Government spending, in certain cases, can and is wasteful. To claim that all is, is clearly false.

I'd be wary of quoting Thomas Sowell, he's basically the guy to victim blame minorities into saying that being poor is their fault.

> government can spend money selflessly

"Selflessly" insofar as everyone involved has no incentives, internal or external, that direct their behavior one way or another; which is to say, not selflessly at all.

The government isn't a machine that takes action for the good of the citizens with no feeling. It's a messy organization composed of people who are all looking out for their salaries, what makes their boss look good or their rivals look bad, whether they win the next election, and maybe sometimes the stated mission of the organization or the good of the citizens. And moreover, it does all that with the might of the law, the monopoly on violence.

If it's a similar amount of money for a similar level of outcome, I'd much rather the people use the money to better society and not government, for those reasons.

> Thomas Sowell, he's basically the guy to victim blame minorities into saying that being poor is their fault

What a demeaning way to describe a human being with an incredible personal story and his life's work. And it's wrong, too: if you simplify into a sentence or two what he says about minorities (and his body of work extends far beyond that), it's that well-meaning government policies often incentivize minorities into entering cycles of poverty, and that minorities should depend on themselves first and foremost and not the government to improve their lot.

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