What Are Taxes For? Common Myths

[bripat9643]

Indigestible text brick OP.

Taxes are to pay for the legitimate functions of government. Period. End of sentence.

When used for anything else, they become the playthings of collectivist social engineers and autocratic tyrants.

Given my encounters with the OP, he fancies himself a benevolent dictator.

I will take my chances with being free.

Agree

Legitimate functions like the General Welfare of our country. Using taxes to do what needs doing

That's not a legitimate function.

 

[rightwinger]

It appears you don't understand your own post. How do you define the term "general welfare"?

The same way our courts do

The General "Well being" of the country. Do what needs to be done.

Whatever you do, don't answer the question. Just keep dancing.

Asked and answered my friend

 

[rightwinger]

Indigestible text brick OP.

Taxes are to pay for the legitimate functions of government. Period. End of sentence.

When used for anything else, they become the playthings of collectivist social engineers and autocratic tyrants.

Given my encounters with the OP, he fancies himself a benevolent dictator.

I will take my chances with being free.

Agree

Legitimate functions like the General Welfare of our country. Using taxes to do what needs doing

That's not a legitimate function.

Which court backs you up?

 

[bripat9643]

General Welfare as has been established for the last 200 years

We have not had liberal courts for the last 200 years

We want our Government to do what needs doing. If they don't, we vote them out

It appears you don't understand your own post. How do you define the term "general welfare"?

The same way our courts do

The General "Well being" of the country. Do what needs to be done.

That's a weasel twice removed. What needs to be done by government?

 

[bripat9643]

Indigestible text brick OP.

Taxes are to pay for the legitimate functions of government. Period. End of sentence.

When used for anything else, they become the playthings of collectivist social engineers and autocratic tyrants.

Given my encounters with the OP, he fancies himself a benevolent dictator.

I will take my chances with being free.

The legitimate functions are?

I wouldn't use the term legitimate but the basic functions of the federal government is military, emergency services, infrastructure and whatever is need to operate it. The states should handle most everything else. People can then have a much more direct impact on what goes on.

I disagree. Emergency services and infrastructure are not legitimate government functions - whether state or federal.

 

[rightwinger]

It appears you don't understand your own post. How do you define the term "general welfare"?

The same way our courts do

The General "Well being" of the country. Do what needs to be done.

That's a weasel twice removed. What needs to be done by government?

Now you are starting to learn finger boy

What needs to be done is decided by our constitutionally elected representatives. If we are not happy with what they are doing in our interests, we vote them out

Our constitution is quite a document isn't it?

 

[rightwinger]

The legitimate functions are?

I wouldn't use the term legitimate but the basic functions of the federal government is military, emergency services, infrastructure and whatever is need to operate it. The states should handle most everything else. People can then have a much more direct impact on what goes on.

I disagree. Emergency services and infrastructure are not legitimate government functions - whether state or federal.

Of course they are....always have been

 

[bripat9643]

Agree

Legitimate functions like the General Welfare of our country. Using taxes to do what needs doing

That's not a legitimate function.

Which court backs you up?

The Constitution and logic back me up. All you've said is that government gets to decide what its legitimate functions are.

Wrong.

 

[bripat9643]

I wouldn't use the term legitimate but the basic functions of the federal government is military, emergency services, infrastructure and whatever is need to operate it. The states should handle most everything else. People can then have a much more direct impact on what goes on.

I disagree. Emergency services and infrastructure are not legitimate government functions - whether state or federal.

Of course they are....always have been

Noe they aren't, and they never have been. The federal government never provided emergency assistance until well after WW II. The federal government also built very little infrastructure until the age of Roosevelt. There is no justification for the federal government to provide any infrastructure whatsoever.

 

[bripat9643]

The same way our courts do

The General "Well being" of the country. Do what needs to be done.

That's a weasel twice removed. What needs to be done by government?

Now you are starting to learn finger boy

What needs to be done is decided by our constitutionally elected representatives. If we are not happy with what they are doing in our interests, we vote them out

Our constitution is quite a document isn't it?

In other words, the government does whatever it wants to do.

Wrong. That's the behavior of a run-away police state, not a constitutional republic. The Constitution does not authorize the government to do 90% of what it does.

 

[bripat9643]

The same way our courts do

The General "Well being" of the country. Do what needs to be done.

Whatever you do, don't answer the question. Just keep dancing.

Asked and answered my friend

Your answer is: whatever the government wants to do.

 

[rightwinger]

Whatever you do, don't answer the question. Just keep dancing.

Asked and answered my friend

Your answer is: whatever the government wants to do.

The answer young fingerboy is they do what We the people want them to do

 

[rightwinger]

That's not a legitimate function.

Which court backs you up?

The Constitution and logic back me up. All you've said is that government gets to decide what its legitimate functions are.

Wrong.

Afraid no one supports your bizarre interpretation of the Constitution. The courts sure don't

I said....We the people get to decide

Works great doesn't it.

 

[percysunshine]

Which court backs you up?

The Constitution and logic back me up. All you've said is that government gets to decide what its legitimate functions are.

Wrong.

Afraid no one supports your bizarre interpretation of the Constotution. The courts sure don't

I said....We the people get to decide

Works great doesn't it.

We the people elected Obama...twice.

.

 

[rightwinger]

The Constitution and logic back me up. All you've said is that government gets to decide what its legitimate functions are.

Wrong.

Afraid no one supports your bizarre interpretation of the Constotution. The courts sure don't

I said....We the people get to decide

Works great doesn't it.

We the people elected Obama...twice.

.

Democracy in action

 

[Kimura]

Indigestible text brick OP.

Taxes are to pay for the legitimate functions of government. Period. End of sentence.

When used for anything else, they become the playthings of collectivist social engineers and autocratic tyrants.

Given my encounters with the OP, he fancies himself a benevolent dictator.

I will take my chances with being free.

Operationally, under a fiat monetary system, they don't "pay" for government. They regulate aggregate demand and ensure all debts, prices and assets are denominated in US dollars.

 

[Kimura]

You pump out more balony than any other poster in this forum. Yeah, the government could finance all it's expenditures by printing money, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't eventually come out of the pockets of U.S citizens. If the government did so, the result would be inflation, which is nothing more than a hidden tax on every bank account and financial instrument in the country.

Taxes are used as mechanism to control inflation. The US government spends ("prints $$$") by crediting private bank accounts. We then issue bonds as a secondary mechanism to drain any excess reserves from the banking system. Think of taxes a unprinting $$$$.

In terms of inflation, the creation of $$$$ doesn't result in inflation. This is monetarist hogwash. A continuous rise in the price level is a manifestation of demand exceeding the capacity of the economy to expand through increased production. This can only happen if government spending also exceeds the desire of the non-government sector to save near or close to full employment. There's also supply shocks but that's a different story.

It's as simple as that. Every government throughout history has aimed at gaining control of money for one reason: to loot the assets of its citizens. That's precisely the reason that a gold back currency is superior to a fiat currency. The former forces the government to pass taxes and obtain the consent of its citizenry to finance it's expenditures. Of course, politicians hate that. Hence their love of fiat money.

Your post dances around this reality in an attempt to fool people into believing that there's something desirable about a fiat currency.

Government doesn't need to "gain control of money". The government is the monopoly issuer of the currency, so it doesn't need to loot anyone, since it can purchase any amount of real goods and services denominated in dollars.

Fiat currency is orders of magnitude superior to a convertible currency. Under a gold standard, we had depressions and banking panics every decade. How is that superior? Lastly, once Nixon closed the gold window, it gave us broader policy tool box, but people still behave as if we're on a convertible f/x.

 

[OnePercenter]

That's not a legitimate function.

Which court backs you up?

The Constitution and logic back me up. All you've said is that government gets to decide what its legitimate functions are.

Wrong.

What's logical about using a business plan written 200+ years ago.

 

[OnePercenter]

This is part of a series, following on from the last installment that asked “Do We Need Taxes?”.

...Note that while many would see these taxes as a means to “pay for” government spending, Rumsl vehemently denies that view in the title to his other piece, “Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete”. Government does not need the gasoline tax to “pay for” highways. That tax is designed to make those who will use highways think twice about their support for building them. Government does not need the revenue from a cigarette tax, but rather wants to raise the cost to those who will commit the “sin” of smoking.



- See more at: EconoMonitor : Great Leap Forward » WHAT ARE TAXES FOR? THE MMT APPROACH

Rumsl was an idiot. Equating using highways to conduct productive work, with sitting on a couch smoking a cigarette, as being one and the same taxable economic activity is absurd.

Another journey into progressive moronism.

How about drinking a beer as a taxable economic activity?

 

[OnePercenter]

This is part of a series, following on from the last installment that asked “Do We Need Taxes?”.

...Note that while many would see these taxes as a means to “pay for” government spending, Rumsl vehemently denies that view in the title to his other piece, “Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete”. Government does not need the gasoline tax to “pay for” highways. That tax is designed to make those who will use highways think twice about their support for building them. Government does not need the revenue from a cigarette tax, but rather wants to raise the cost to those who will commit the “sin” of smoking.



- See more at: EconoMonitor : Great Leap Forward » WHAT ARE TAXES FOR? THE MMT APPROACH

Rumsl was an idiot. Equating using highways to conduct productive work, with sitting on a couch smoking a cigarette, as being one and the same taxable economic activity is absurd.

Another journey into progressive moronism.

.

Libturds are always promoting the idea that being a tick on the ass of society is somehow a productive activity that benefits the taxpayers. In addition, Kimura is trying to hornsswoggle us into believing that a fiat currency, that allows a government to suck off any amount of our savings and paychecks it wants simply by running the printing presses, is somehow superior to a gold backed currency that requires the government to pass taxes to get its hands on our money.

Feudal times were the best of times! (sarcasm)