rueh writes:
Well in my opinion the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was a huge mismanagement of funding by the government. While parts of the bill included provisions that helped America begin to recover from a growing recession. Other parts were laden with non vital spending. Some examples include $650 million for digital TV coupons, $25 million for new ATV trails, $83 billion for the earned income credit for non-taxpayers, $54 billion for the Economic Development Administration, $1 billion to subsidize Amtrak.
...to get it to pass in congress.....
This is just a small list of items considered non essential.
Other than you, who is considering them non-essential? The congressperson installing that item on the ARRA certainly thinks it's essential. Let's look at the 2 big enchiladas in your laundry list: Earned Income Credit and - what's this? - the Economic Development Administration!
The EIC puts more money in hands of the poor to spend on goods & services & this helps to get the economy moving. And when you are trying to fix the economy what department in our government should be given the job of finding answers - the Economic Development Administration seems like a very logical place. What other part of government should be bolstered in this recession?
As a personal example I have seen the DOD spend millions building guard shacks, and baseball fields when they knew ahead of time that they were planned to be demolished directly after construction in order to be rebuilt elsewhere. Some just a few feet away from where they were originally built.
Now here I have no disagreement - but you know why they do this, right? If they don't spend the money awarded in this fiscal year, then the amount they get in the next fiscal year is reduced by what they didn't spend. It's stupid that it works this way - I agree.
Well then I would point you to the post office versus companies such as fed-ex or ups. It would seem that the government is awful in its inefficiencies
Well, let's get junkmail out of the US Post Office. Your 44 cent stamp (soon 45 cent) is subsidizing junk mailers - think of it! You are paying junk mailers to send junk mail to your house! Junk mail is done by private companies who wangled a sweet deal out congress years ago ("Hey, I know - we'll get the average citizen to pay for it. Let me make a bribe to my congressman running for re-election...")
Also, the US Post Office has to deliver to every mailbox, whether it's at the bottom of the Grand Canyon or half way up Mount McKinley. Fed-Ex & UPS would go out of business trying to do what the Post Office does.
Richie Rich, realizing that 350 million dollars isn't nearly enough upon which to survive, decides to "pass the cost of these taxes to the consumer" so he raises the prices on his bread.
Paulie Poor doesn't want to pay more for the same bread, so he goes and buys the bread the competitor makes.
You forgot to include that Richie Rich's competitor is also rich himself and therefore effected by the same tax hike as Richie Rich, so therefore passes this tax hike into the cost of goods and services just as Richie Rich did. So the consumer is left with both companies charging more for the same service. If you have such a problem with Richie Rich I would advocate that you use a local market, which is what I do.
Yes! USE THE LOCAL MARKET ANYWAY! (remember the OP)...
What we have here is a beautiful way to correct for the inequity of the economy if scale. Richie Rich can produce a loaf of bread on the shelf at a lower cost than your Mom & Pop bakery because of the economy of scale. Economy of scale makes the rich get richer by passing civilization costs out of their responsibility and onto the citizenry at large. Richie Rich's company drives 1000's of semi trucks carrying all these loaves of bread over the highways we pay for at the pump. Richie Rich doesn't pay as much for the wear and tear to the roads & bridges because of deals he & his buddies before him got out of congress to write off on his business expense sheet at tax time. Those trucks cause more wear & tear than your sedan. Furthermore, diesel fuel stinks around the whole country but he doesn't have to smell it. We do. Our quality of life is degraded because of him.
Now this could be bad for Paulie Poor, because the price went up, perhaps up enough to make him shop from his local Mom & Pop bakery. But he's already on food stamps & they will give him the difference & life goes on. He's ok - he would never get a chance to meet Richie Rich face to face, but now he's making friends with neighbors like Mom & Pop. This is an accountability step up of a better kind!
What about Mikey Middle? Maybe for him the reduced potholes & diesel stink is worth the Mom & Pop price. Maybe the IRS will increase the Standard Deduction again to compensate. And again he gets the advantages of meeting Mom & Pop personally with the perks of new friendships.
I don't think that we should be taxing [the rich] more just because you have a problem with others having more than you.
That is a problem when 90% of the rest of us are suffering. I also have a problem with them
using & abusing more of the same world I have to live in. You might want say "well, nobody said life was fair" - and it certainly isn't. But I'd like to think that, as an intelligent species who finds strength in having a good moral character, we should try to make it as fair as feasible.
Buy local!
- xongsmith, 5.7d
™ Version 4.2
