"Do You Austrians Have a Better Idea?"

[Kevin_Kennedy]

A lot of people get annoyed with Austrian economists because they tend to be so dogmatic (we prefer the term consistent) and because they cloak their strictly economic claims with self-righteousness (we prefer the term morality). After a good Austrian bashing of the latest call to steal taxpayer money and waste it on something that will make a given problem worse, the stumped critics will often shout, "Oh yeah? Well do you guys have a better idea?"

Now, in truth, someone doesn't have to have a better suggestion in order to point out that a recommended strategy will exacerbate the situation. If an allergic man has been stung by a bee, I don't know what to do except rush him to the hospital and maybe scour the cupboards looking for Benadryl. But I'm pretty sure drawing blood from his leg, in order to inject it into his arm and thus "stimulate his immune system," is a bad idea on numerous accounts — not least of which, is that I'm pretty sure an allergic reaction means your immune system needs to calm down. But the point is, if a bunch of guys hold the man down — he has to be forced to endure the procedure for his own good, don't you know — I feel perfectly qualified in yelling, "Stop!"

"Do You Austrians Have a Better Idea?" - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute

This article goes into some detail about what could be done, from an Austrian perspective, to help us out of this recession.

 

[Ravi]

LOL! The Austrians sat back and let Hitler ream them up the rear, how'd that work out for them?

 

[Paulie]

Great proposals, but liberals would never allow it. EVER.

 

[Paulie]

LOL! The Austrians sat back and let Hitler ream them up the rear, how'd that work out for them?

BRILLIANT response, Rav. Top notch stuff right there

 

[Ravi]

There's really not much reason to respond to a group that calls for blowing up government buildings. These people are idiots.

 

[Truthmatters]

Mises isnt exactly non biased , its a libertarian think tank.

 

[Truthmatters]

Austrian School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[del]

Austrian School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

is there a point lurking here, capt. obvious?

 

[Ravi]

Austrian School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The school was no longer centered in Austria after Hitler came to power, and is now based almost entirely in the United States.

Oh yeah, they ran off because they didn't want to be taxed to fight off Hitler.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

There's really not much reason to respond to a group that calls for blowing up government buildings. These people are idiots.

They're idiots but all you can talk about is a joke said in the article?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Mises isnt exactly non biased , its a libertarian think tank.

Are Keynesians or Friedmanites non-biased in their economic views? Or do they adhere to Keynesian and Friedmanite beliefs?

 

[Skull Pilot]

to a Dimocrat, you are biased if you don't adhere to Keynes.

but then again the Repudlicans are tooting the Keynes horn too aren't they?

 

[editec]

1. Eliminate the personal and corporate income tax. Don't put in a flat tax or a fair tax or a VAT or any other cute name for a very uncute process. To make sure that individuals and corporations realize you are serious, blow up the IRS building. (Have everyone vacate the premises first, of course.) Tell all of the displaced workers that they have 9 months of full pay, plus whatever pension and health-care benefits they had contractually earned to that point. If the workers get new jobs 3 days after being laid off from the IRS, that's fine; they still get their full 9 months' pay. But if they haven't found a new job after 9 months, tough.

Okay...let us assume, for purposes of argument, that we do this. I'm writing as I read, so I guess I p[resume that something that follows will explain how we fund government, assuming that the rest of this plan doesn't suggest that we simply eliminate all that, too.

1. Unfortunately, dismantling the Social Security system will have to wait. (That means some of the IRS personnel would — sigh — have to be retained. But they would move to a different building.) Getting rid of the income tax will knock out much of the federal revenues, and taking out all payroll "contributions" would take us into the realm of "unserious." Note that in 2007, even without the personal and corporate income tax, the federal government still took in more than $1 trillion in receipts.

Who will collect it? We just blew up the IRS.

Okay, let us presume, again for purposes of advancing the discussion, that there will be some mechanism in place to collect SS taxes and distribute them, too.

1. The loss of some $1.5 trillion in annual tax receipts sounds absurd, but the actual figure would be lower, because of "supply-side" effects. That is, the true stimulus to the economy from such an enormous tax cut would cause the revenues from other sources to grow. So long as the federal budget were cut by, say, a trillion dollars, within a few years it would be in the black.

How will we "be in the black" if we've already:

Eliminate(ed) the personal and corporate income tax.

1. [*]Reducing annual federal expenditures by $1 trillion sounds inconceivable, but it actually could be phased in. The government has many assets that it could auction off into private hands, so that in the first year or two, the government could take certain programs and say, "This will have its budget cut by one-third over each of the next three years." The auction receipts would fill the gap until these phased-in reductions had fully occurred. Some of the obvious auction items would be the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (current value of about $35 billion at $50/bbl oil), as well as all of the mineral deposits (both onshore and offshore) technically owned by the federal government. It is difficult to come up with an estimate of how much the latter properties would fetch in an auction, since the proposals right now are for leasing extraction rights. But since the Outer Continental Shelf is estimated to have some 86 billion barrels of oil, presumably the government could receive many hundreds of billions of dollars — and possibly trillions — from an orderly and staggered sale over a few years of the most lucrative (and environmentally noncontroversial) lands.
   Now, where to start cutting?
   [*]

Say what? Is this fucking nuts?

He's ELIMINATED ALL taxes, and all means of collecting taxes that support the government and he truly thinks that selling off the commonly held assets of the government will pay for his reduced government?

What forever?




Somebody needs to do the math on that one for me to see how that's going to work.

1. Eliminate the DEA and the SEC. Since the SEC failed to catch Madoff, despite nine years of warnings, I think its $950 million annual budget is obviously a waste of money. The DEA's $1.9 billion budget in 2007 also strikes me as counterproductive. Beyond the issues of violent gangs and judicial corruption, there is the fact that this is a recession and we need to cut costs. If you're afraid of your kid doing drugs, have a serious talk and then make him watch this movie. And if he's still keen on the idea, I'm not sure the DEA is going to stop him. (By the way, the DEA and SEC employees get the same deal as the laid-off IRS personnel.)

Okay, I get it. You're cutting down the government to whatever you percieve is outlined in the constitution.

1. Cut the Pentagon budget in half. In FY 2008 it was (officially) some $460 billion, so that cut alone would free up $230 billion per year. This isn't an article about foreign policy, so we won't be specific about how the military could achieve such cuts. But if you're worried that the country would suddenly be overrun by Iranian tanks, the following chart should reassure you:

Man!

And I thought the Communists who think that socialism will evolved into a government-less society of happy workers were fucking nuts.

Please note that after this nitwit has us sell off all assets of the commonweal, the government he wants STILL has NO MEANS OF GENERATING REVENUE?

I hope to GOD that this guy isn't the spokemouth for the mIseians.

Because the above truly is fucking nuts, I think.

You guys think these guys are sane economists?

They make Engels look good, for christ's sakes.

 

[midcan5]

Editec, thanks, that made me laugh and one has to wonder do the birdbrains ever think through their own proposals?


"I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who."

Rudyard Kipling

 

[Paulie]

Editec, without income tax, and all the other taxes, there would be no need for the IRS. Taxes would be collected by individual states, businesses, or possibly a new federal agency WAY less bloated than the IRS, with WAY less power.

Take sales tax for instance. Retailers collect the tax and then send it to their respective state treasury. Let's say we adopted the Fair Tax for federal revenues. The IRS wouldn't be necessary anymore because retailers would collect their state sales tax, and now an additional line of tax for the federal flat tax, which is proposed at 23%. The retailer would then send their state tax to their state treasury, and the federal tax to the US treasury. No need for an agency to collect, because businesses are now the sole means of collection.

This is a huge source of revenue when federal taxes are cut, since a lot of that extra money is now spent, generating additional sales tax revenue. That's where the idea of extra revenue being generated out of a tax cut comes from. That's what the Mises article author is saying when he says in a few years we'd be in the black. Those tax cuts would go back into the market and generate additional revenue in other ways, rather than being TAKEN from you before you even get to see it.

 

[Paulie]

Just to clarify though..

Make no mistake, I don't buy for a second that all tax cuts pay for themselves. Some are statistically proven to generate enough alternate revenue that they equal out or even exceed what the original tax would have generated, but more often than not you need a cut in spending to accompany the tax cut, otherwise revenue is going to fall short.

With something like the Fair Tax, I believe elimination of other taxes WOULD pay for themselves. But just eliminating all taxes, replacing them with nothing, and not cutting any spending, is irresponsible to say the least.

I'd much rather us cut enough spending that we wouldn't NEED the Fair Tax, or any current taxes, but I can get behind the idea of the Fair Tax on certain merits if that was the only reasonable and likely option available.

 

[Skull Pilot]

if the Austrian economists bombed the IRS but didn't target people it would be OK. they might even get invited to the next inauguration.

 

[Paulie]

I like how Ravi blasts the author for making a bomb joke, but never once chastized DavidS for his comments about nuking mecca during the Hajj.

 

[mash107]

I love how those in favor of an overbearing government claim that abolishing income taxes would yield complete anarchy. First off, we've existed 125 years without one, and government was intervening in ways it shouldn't have, still. Secondly, the Constitution says all responsibilities not -explicitly- given to the the Federal government shall be reserved only for the State or local governments. Fascism has never worked (Soviet Union, North Korea, etc), but politicians seem to be keen on not reading history.

 

[Ravi]

I like how Ravi blasts the author for making a bomb joke, but never once chastized DavidS for his comments about nuking mecca during the Hajj.