| > You say it is proven, but actually the study linked to by the article you mentioned from The Atlantic does not claim that. My apologies. You're right, and I overstated. The article does, in fact, claim there may be a relationship between distribution and top tax rates, not that this relationship is proven. > The government also decided that the system would be this particular not very capitalist system, where it pays contractors for anything at all. That is what it ought to be criticized for. You're saying the government ought to be criticized for paying contractors anything at all? If so, why? What alternative (more? less?) capitalist system would it be free of criticism for, under which (presumably?) contractors are not paid anything at all? > There is at least one other option: not having the government choose any bid at all, cheapest or not. And there is an even better option: not having a government in the first place. Within the context of my comment there, the "no other option" was specifically anchored in a requirement to choose the lowest bid in a bidding process. Not choosing a bid was intentionally left out as it is not relevant for determining, in the context of paying a private company for work performed, particularly if the bid/invoice for that work is at what an average person might consider to be exorbitant rates, which party bears responsibility for "waste". I'll leave it to you to explain how not having a government in the first place is an even better option, as that'd be interesting to hear a thorough argument for. > It has been made by dnomad: "There is very convincing evidence that higher taxes and greater government spending do lead to long term economic growth." Sure. dnomad and I don't appear to be in any strong disagreement here about what available evidence shows. I was being careful here to say there is no causal proof, though there is a preponderance of evidence that seems to suggest a possible relationship--be that a result of greater government spending spurring growth, or be that a strong suggestion that higher taxes does not hurt growth (as many who clamor for cutting taxes love to claim to score political points). > The study does not claim that it shows this, and if it did it would be wrong as it presents no evidence that this is the case. The article most certainly does. They state plainly: "But it does suggest that there is a lot more to an economy than taxes, and that slashing taxes is not a guaranteed way to accelerate economic growth." |