[BrenBarn]

> Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious.

I'd say almost the reverse. What we need most in terms of "tax reform" is to move away from thinking about taxes as solely a means of funding government operations, and towards thinking about taxes as a way of directly redistributing wealth. That is, the revenues of a wealth tax could simply be given to the non-wealthy as direct payments (possibly in the form of refundable tax credits). Unavoidably there will be some overhead, but there doesn't need to be anything for the money to be "spent on"; it can just be straight-up given to different people than those who paid it.

[thunky]

Totally agree but its not the reverse of what I said, you're still talking about changing how the government spends money.

[BrenBarn]

I would say the way to think about it is that the revenue from this tax is never the government's money. They are just administering the transfer of it from some individuals to others.

[thunky]

We're splitting hairs but imo if the government takes money from bob and gives it to joe they own the money on between those two steps. The taxing -> spending plumbing is exactly the same as it is now.

And if you disagree with that look at social security which is supposed to be your money but clearly it is not.