[newzisgud]

The core question is less about the cuts themselves and more about if we the people are getting what we're paying for.

1) It kinda doesn't matter if it was caused by the pandemic or not, what matters is it needs to be fixed. Cherry-picking "since the 1970s" keeps us in difficult times energy-wise which we've attempted to correct for with more spending. If you go further back, our current ratio is what it was during WWII. Do you currently see federal government production as similar to during WWII, or are we not getting value out of what we're spending?

2) Assuming we all agree with those percentages, there's still an obvious 9% to look into. At these levels, that's real money. Also, certain initiatives are way more destructive than the spending would suggest, e.g. just about everything found out about USAID impacts hearts and minds, which impacts further negatively productive efforts outside the federal government.

3) Of course healthcare is on the list. Single-payer systems have their problems, free market systems have their problems, our current hybrid gets the worst of both. So it needs to be addressed, but perhaps not "first" because the answer here is a total rework, whereas there's plenty of other savings available right now as low hanging fruit.

4) Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do. Why should we burden our productive populous with tax on their income, tax on their workplace before they even get paid, inflation due to government spending, etc? If the argument is that tariffs are passed on to the customer, then corporate tax is definitely passed on to the customer and the employee. Additionally, corporations are not currently benefiting from a healthy workforce (look around), or an educated workforce (steady decline since the DoE was established), or a safe environment (go to SF), or a working transportation system in many cases. Again, are we getting what we're paying for?

[sxyuan]

Thank you for responding. I'm glad we agreed in principle on #3. I'm afraid we'll have to disagree on the other points though:

1. The claim that spending / GDP is at WWII levels is simply wrong: please take a look at the link in my original comment.

2. 9% isn't nothing, agreed. It does, however, pay for: scientific and other research (mostly medical, then much smaller slice for general science, then a much much smaller slice for everything else); keeping national parks running smoothly; keeping planes in the air; shutting down financial scams; and other wonderful things like that. Like you said, it comes down to what we get for that spending. I think there's bound to be some waste here and there, but I rather like all these things our tax dollars are paying for. Oh, and funny you mention USAID - I rather like the idea of feeding starving children around the world too, with a triple whammy of moral impact, winning hearts and minds in other countries, and putting money into the pockets of US farmers. Would love to hear properly sourced arguments on why USAID is as terrible as you seem to think it is.

4. You forgot about the shareholders. Corporations mostly get taxed on profits, not revenues, so it's hard to see how consumers are part of the equation. (We're not talking about consumption taxes, which tend to be state level anyway.) And employees pay income tax - the only part that the corporation covers is the employer end of payroll taxes. Wikipedia has a nice breakdown and comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax

(Yay, thanks to whoever saved the parent post so my thumb exercise wasn't entirely wasted.)

[newzisgud]

1) I conflated debt vs GDP with spending vs GDP. Debt levels are at WWII levels. I was wrong here, but directionally accurate. We've been spending way too much.

2) USAID has nothing to do with humanitarian efforts. It is not "aid", it is Agency for International Development. Specifically developing "capabilities" in those foreign countries, with "capabilities" being defined as things our intelligence and defense departments can use for their missions. It's not humanitarian. It's international manipulation, with a heaping side of money laundering. Seriously, it's horrible.

4) Employer end of payroll taxes is a thing. Tax on profit is a tax on the customer. Companies would not exist if they are not profitable; they protect profits harder than they protect anything else. Therefore additional costs, including taxes, are passed on to the customer, even if it's indirectly.

[nobodyandproud]

> Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do. Why should we burden our productive populous with tax on their income, tax on their workplace before they even get paid, inflation due to government spending, etc?

I can answer this one: Corporations come with a veil, to shield risk takers from financial liability and ruin.

That’s normally good, as we want to encourage business.

But the corporate veil was never intended as free pass to break or subvert the law; nor to undermine national interests.

It’s both the corporate veil and the sheer size of some multi-state and multinational companies: It takes considerable resources to police.

A single multinational has the resources to undermine any state, with lawyers to delay; and lobbyists to influence legislators against their constituents interests. This undermines government credibility and rule of law.

Look at the broadband fiber fiasco: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/verizon-wiring-u...

Or the garbage tier right to repair law, written up by the NY lobbyists: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/29/23530733/right-to-repair...

You say corporations are very productive, but these hidden costs are being born by everyone including the consumer.

This why limited-liability businesses are expected to pay more: It takes a lot of money to provide necessary oversight.

[newzisgud]

Most of the problems you call out here would be addressed by actually enforcing anti-trust laws, which is something we need to get way better at on both sides of the political isle.

[nobodyandproud]

And how do you expect enforcement of anti-trust laws to happen without headcount and money?

The Chicago school Republicans were responsible for dismantling and starving the institutions meant to enforce these laws; then every Republican did their part to help install judges hostile to said laws. This has been going on for 40 or more years.

The MAGA conservatives are actively allied with these pro-monopoly conservatives, willfully blind, and instead just blame “the other side”.

I agree bi-partisan work is needed here, but pretending this will happen when one party is actively undermining the effort is bad-faith smoke-and-mirrors.

Unless, of course, we take the dictatorship route and ignore rule-of-law and checks-and-balances… (for the record, which I’m very much opposed to).

[newzisgud]

I'm not aware of any efforts to reduce law enforcement in the DOGE effort or within this administration. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I agree that republicans, probably more than democrats, like to hide behind "free market" to protect their donors from anti-trust, but it's certainly a both-sides problem. I do believe MAGA conservatives are less aligned with traditional republicans / neocons than most believe, as evidenced by the fractures within the GOP over the past three election cycles. But overall I do think you and I are on the same page.

[kelnos]

> Corporations do not pay corporate tax, their customers and employees do

Corporations pay tax on their profits not, revenue. Employees have already been paid and customers have already bought before these taxes are levied. (The first bit is of course more complicated; for example, salaries paid for R&D don't always count as a deductible business expense.)

The market price is the market price. If corporations could raise prices further (even without new taxes) without losing customers, they would. If corporations end up being taxed more, raising prices in order to "pass on" those taxes will just cause them to lose customers, and end up with lower revenue (and likely profit too), perhaps even more than if they just sucked it up, paid their taxes, and left prices alone.

> If the argument is that tariffs are passed on to the customer, then corporate tax is definitely passed on to the customer and the employee

No, because they're not the same thing. Taxes, as I said, are applied only to profits. Tariffs are essentially in increase in COGS. They more or less require corporations to increase prices, with the expectation that sales will decrease. (They can also choose not to raise prices, and live with lower profits, if they have the margin to do so.) And this is the actual point of tariffs: to get people to buy less of that particular good, and presumably buy more of a similar locally-produced good. (The problem, of course, is when the locally-produced good already has a higher price, so everyone either has to pay more, or do without.)

[newzisgud]

>The market price is the market price. If corporations could raise prices further (even without new taxes) without losing customers, they would. If corporations end up being taxed more, raising prices in order to "pass on" those taxes will just cause them to lose customers, and end up with lower revenue (and likely profit too), perhaps even more than if they just sucked it up, paid their taxes, and left prices alone.

I agree with part of this. Corporations will raise prices to make more profit whenever there is opportunity to. They exist to make profit, so they will do anything to do that. I also agree that in theory, a small tax increase on one corporation may make them want to take a profit hit versus a customer size hit. However-

- if all the corporations are all paying the same taxes (which hopefully is how it works), they are all able to raise the market price to cover it. They won't have competition - with lower expenses - to lose customer to. The only lost customer will be the one who simply can no longer afford their product.

- Second, as mentioned in other branches, corporations will do anything to protect and increase profit, including finding loopholes, paying the c-suite insane salaries, accounting for asset purchases and depreciations in ways to reduce the on-paper profit, etc. The more the company does this, the more the corporate tax burden becomes a normal cost of goods expense, which is passed on to the customer and the employees (in the form of worse compensation).

[newzisgud]

Corporations protect their profits above all else. They will lie, cheat, steal, and change their revenue models to protect profits. Customers pay the taxes, just indirectly.

[fzeroracer]

Customers and employees are not burdened by corporate taxes and this can be shown by a simple equivalence. Savings and profits are not passed onto customers OR employees, they're pocketed by wealthy investors and the c-suite.

[newzisgud]

Who 'pockets' the profits is not relevant. Fact is corporations exist to generate profit, and they will do anything to protect those profits - including using any loophole, accounting process, business model, or pricing strategy to protect said profits.

A simple/common form of this subversion is giving the c-suite ungodly salaries such that there are no profits, on the books at least, to be taxed. In that case, and basically all others, the customer is paying the corporate tax because the corporation has shifted all burdens (including tax) away from the protected profit.

[fzeroracer]

Who pockets the profit is absolutely relevant because you are arguing that companies externalize all costs and pass them onto the consumer/employee.

In a world you imagine where there are 0 taxes on corporations, how do you punish said corporation for malicious behavior or actions? Because by similar logic, any monetary punishment is useless and results in them simply passing it down. Do you punish the people working there? Who do you choose to punish, especially if the people responsible are gone and dead?

[newzisgud]

If profit is always protected, it really doesn't matter where it ends up going - the fact that profit is protected means that it is an expense passed to the consumer (and employees in the form of low compensation). If anything, like costs, safety, regulation, or even taxes threaten profit, the corporation will re-arrange itself to protect the profit - and everyone else pays for that.

I never imagined a world where there were 0 taxes on corporations. I just said that corporate tax is effectively an individual tax because it never comes out of profit.

You then argue that monetary punishments must behave the same way. They do. Any cost to the company, even when it is monetary or some court judgement, is passed on to the consumer (or the worker, in the form of lower compensation). When was the last time you heard of a monetary fee or judgement causing a company to shut down?

Every company in existence pays corporate insurance specifically to pay out if they have a judgement against them. That insurance premium does not come out of profit. It's a cost, that's passed on to the customer, exactly like any other cost. Profit is always protected.

[triceratops]

> tax on their workplace before they even get paid

After. Corporate taxes are paid on income, not revenue. Income is what's left after paying employees.

Corporations get more productive by having fewer employees or paying them less. That's not a bad thing, it's what's supposed to happen in a competitive market with technological progress. But it also means tax revenue will shrink unless taxes on workers increase. I don't see how that's better.

[terribleperson]

Are you sure customers pay corporate taxes? Corporate taxes are on profits. I keep hearing corporate taxes are passed on, but I genuinely cannot figure out a mechanism for them to be directly passed on.

[newzisgud]

Corporations exist to generate profit, they have no other reason for being, and they will do anything to protect those profits - including using any loophole, accounting process, business model, or pricing strategy to protect said profits.

A simple/common form of this subversion is giving the c-suite ungodly salaries such that there are no profits, on the books at least, to be taxed. In that case, and basically all others, the customer is paying the corporate tax because the corporation has shifted all burdens (including tax) away from the protected profit.