And targeting "regular joes" is a terrible way to make money. The vast majority of govt income comes from the wealthy, in particular because wealth distribution is so unbalanced.

And therein lies the problem. You can hire 10,000 "regular Joe" agents to go after "regular Joe" offenders and make far less than if you could somehow successfully hire 100 genius agents to go after the top 100 suspected cases.

The issue lies in the fact that most people simply are not capable of going toe to toe with some of the best legal tax frameworks money can buy, and so like with all law enforcement the "hard" targets tend to get largely ignored while the soft targets are exploited mercilessly.

That's all I see an IRS hiring program doing - bringing the hammer down on people for rather trivial things, while continuing to ignore the elephant in the room simply due human nature being what it is. They want to show wins, not 6 years on the same 3 billion dollar case.

This is the crux, and I've never seen a good Libertarian defense against this. Someone will always fill the power void.

My question would be: without government intervention, what incentive do mega corporations have to allow unions to continue? What prevents them from making their own rules, which prevent unions? Since these same companies are behind the efforts to dismantle unions, it seems that removing government would just remove the middle man, making it easier for companies to abuse workers, dismantle unions, etc.

So far as I know, pure free-market capitalism always tends towards monopolies or oligarchies absent some level of intervention. It is simply too hard to be a well-informed consumer, and we consumers prioritize our short term convenience over societies (or even just our own) long term benefit.

Look into the concept of regulatory capture. The Dodd-Frank regulations that went into place are a great example of this. They were sold to us plebes as a way to protect us from future banking failures. Except the regulations were basically written by the big banks and forced the small banks out of business. They have actually increased the risk of future crisis by consolidating the industry. Here's an article about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/14/has-dodd-fra...

I'm not a big fan of the laws as we have them, but sure, i'll play along:

> How would Lockheed Martin, GE, Disney, etc. look?

...I'm not sure they'd look substantially different. LM would still only be in competition with a few others because of high barriers to entry. GE...I lack even passing knowledge to speculate. Disney would lose out on a lot of merchandizing money, but once someone in a field like animation or entertainment got ahead, they'd have an easier time attracting both customer AND talent, which provide a feedback loop to their benefit.

> how would Comcast look?

...of my many, MANY complaints about Comcast, I don't know that copyright or patent issues show up. Comcast isn't what they are via govt monopoly (so far as I know, though they have of course abused govt power) but because the cost of entry is so high that there are few competitors. Even when there ARE competitors, they choose not to compete (see recent admission that comcast and time-warner don't even compete pre-merger).

> Look into the concept of regulatory capture

Not qualified to even speculate - let's just say I have some skepticism but don't reject your claims.

All in all, it seems like you are arguing that the govt creates monopolies. I won't argue against that. BUT my claim is that you have MORE monopolies in (certain) unregulated markets. I can very well be wrong...do you have any evidence to that point?

Not to be too cheeky, but do you have any evidence to support your claim that we would have more monopolies without government intervention?

If you look back through U.S. history, how many monopolies has the government actually broken up? Not many. And I don't think anyone can seriously argue that the threat of antitrust action by the government is what has limited the existence of monopolies.

On the flip side, the government has created or protected thousands of monopolies. As the parent mentioned, virtually every city in the U.S. has granted monopolies to local service providers. On a grander scale, U.S. policy has long perpetuated monopolies for the likes of Standard Oil and U.S. Steel by imposing tariffs on foreign goods and raising barriers to entry through licensing and other regulatory hurdles.

It seems self evident to me that for at least the last 200 years U.S. governments in total have done far more to foster monopolies than they have to dismantle them.

I just posted elsewhere in these comments on that, but basically: Hearst, US Steel, Microsoft, plus lots of potential abuse that is prevented. (You're implying that tariffs supported the US Steel monopoly - I won't argue. But it didn't create the monopoly, and it didn't create the market abuse)

> And I don't think anyone can seriously argue that the threat of antitrust action by the government is what has limited the existence of monopolies.

I certainly will. I've watched Microsoft dance about (including funding Apple) when they were scared. Before them IBM did the dance. BSD exists because AT&T was prevented from selling UNIX directly. I see Google doing the dance, and Amazon is in the wings. Syngenta was going to merge with Monsanto, but didn't, and not because they suddenly thought it was a bad deal. Bayer and Monsanto are now looking to merge, and they are figuring out what businesses to spin off to avoid being stopped by monopoly concerns. You can go through the big mergers over the past 20 years (at least) and see how they've worked to avoid being hit with govt restrictions.

The govt even allows you to be a monopoly, all through your own market prowess...but prevents (or tries to) you from using that monopoly to spread into related areas. Absent that oversight completely free market capitalism would have ground innovation to a halt because the barriers to entry in most industries would be crippling. Investors wouldn't want to invest in competitors because it'd be a terrible risk rather than a basic risk.

> It seems self evident to me

Indeed, it is self evident to you. Not to everyone.

I'm not quite as familiar with US Steel, but I do know that one of the primary reasons they became so big was because they were fully integrated through the entire production process. A substantial part of that was controlling the mode of transportation for heavy goods, railroad. That history of rail in our country is wrought with examples of government granted monopolies right from the beginning of the trans-continental railroad.

I know virtually nothing about Hearst, but it was a news/media company right? So that should definitely fall under the same category of intellectual property.

Where do you get that idea from? Nearly every monopoly is the product of government bestowed privilege.

Hearst, US Steel, Microsoft, the various abusive powers across history.

I won't deny that the govt DOES provide monopolies. But absent govt intervention, as soon as someone gets ahead, it's easier to get ahead. "Oh, you want to carry my competitors product? Well, good luck staying in business without my products, or the products of anyone else that relies on me, because I will tell them I'll cut them off if they sell to you." or perhaps there's the carrot instead of the stick: "Oh, you want to buy from them? I'll undercut them by 20%. Sure, that's below cost, but they won't stay in business long with no customers, meanwhile I've got a good bankroll. I'll even buy up the wreck of their company afterward at bargain prices, and make up any difference later when I have no competition to restrict my prices."

Nearly every CURRENT monopoly is from the govt...because in most developed nations that's the only way to get a monopoly without getting hit by antitrust. I remember when Apple was in the toilet - Microsoft kept them afloat with a big stock buy. This wasn't done because MS had warm fuzzy feelings, it was done to maintain the appearance of competition. Were MS not afraid of the govt interfering, they'd have let Apply die, they'd have made (more) deals with OEMs that refused to license Windows to them if they installed Netscape, etc.

Or take Google - They are dancing around trying not to offend European regulators and have been for years. Absent any fear of govts, Google would have no reason not to fully tie their products and advertising. Compete with them and suddenly the engine that powers 60% of customer searches will either not have your products or drop them to page 10. Searches for reviews of your products will somehow highlight the negative reviews. Nearly impossible to prove any wrongdoing if it (1) isn't "wrong" in the legal sense and (2) there is no authority to dig up information.

I don't believe a mythical "informed consumer" will see behavior like that (first - how would they see it? It'd be they said/they said) and punish the abuser. Watch how boycotts against Amazon for their one-click patent fared, or against Blizzard for their treatment of bnetd. (hint: insignificant...and I say that as someone that did both) Or heck, look at how hospitals can successfully hide their prices and have a huge range. The average consumer values convenience far more than fairness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_and_Right:_A_Journal_of_L...

"Our title, Left and Right, reflects our concerns in several ways. It reveals our editorial concern with the ideological; and it also highlights our conviction that the present-day categories of left and right have become misleading and obsolete, and that the doctrine of liberty contains elements corresponding with both contemporary left and right. This means in no sense that we are middle-of-the-roaders, eclectically trying to combine, or step between, both poles; but rather that a consistent view of liberty includes concepts that have also become part of the rhetoric or program of right and of left. Hence a creative approach to liberty must transcend the confines of contemporary political shibboleths."

Those who talk about "US-style right-wing libertarianism" should realize that this is a too simplistic label as Rothbard tried to say decades ago. For example:

• not only has the libertarian party always supported gay marriage but the first presidential candidate was an openly gay man

• libertarians are opposed to the war on drugs

• libertarians opposed the Viet Nam war

• libertarians generally favor regulated legalized prostitution

etc etc etc

Whatever "right wing" is supposed to mean, I doubt it means these positions.

> Whatever "right wing" is supposed to mean, I doubt it means these positions.

"Right wing" in this context is about economic positions, views on property etc. Right-wing libertarianism generally draw from the Austrian school, and people like von Mises and occasionally Ayn Rand etc.

Compare to left-wing libertarians who generally are anarchists or Marxists when it comes to economic views and views on property rights.

The entire point is that these two camps align with the traditional left and right on economic issues, but are aligned with each other on a lot of social issues and on anti-authoritarianism.

I thought I was pretty clear: "Those who talk about "US-style right-wing libertarianism" should realize that this is a too simplistic label as Rothbard tried to say decades ago."

>..."Right wing" in this context is about economic positions, views on property etc.

Again, I doubt the vast majority of the groups you would call "right wing" would share the economic views of the average libertarian. (They also don't share the social views of the average libertarian.) That label isn't helpful if it doesn't explain their views - as Rothbard wrote so long ago: "...This means in no sense that we are middle-of-the-roaders, eclectically trying to combine, or step between, both poles; but rather that a consistent view of liberty includes concepts that have also become part of the rhetoric or program of right and of left. Hence a creative approach to liberty must transcend the confines of contemporary political shibboleths."

>...The entire point is that these two camps align with the traditional left and right on economic issues, but are aligned with each other on a lot of social issues and on anti-authoritarianism.

The point is that using a one dimensional model for political thought is too simplistic and it is simply misleading.

It is a too simplistic label for libertarianism as a whole. It is a perfectly viable lable when you want to talk about "US-style right-wing libertarianism" - most people instantly understand roughly what that refers to, so the label serves its purpose.

> Again, I doubt the vast majority of the groups you would call "right wing" would share the economic views of the average libertarian.

Huh? The point is exactly that libertarian groups are found far out on both sides of the spectrum, so what in the world is an "average libertarian"?

> That label isn't helpful if it doesn't explain their views

But it does.

> as Rothbard wrote so long ago: "...This means in no sense that we are middle-of-the-roaders, eclectically trying to combine, or step between, both poles; but rather that a consistent view of liberty includes concepts that have also become part of the rhetoric or program of right and of left. Hence a creative approach to liberty must transcend the confines of contemporary political shibboleths."

And this was exactly the point I made by bringing up Rothbard in the first place: There was an attempt to unify these views of the left and right.

But that still does not mean there is not a firmly right-wing and firmly left-wing libertarianism both when considering primarily economic views and when considering where people self-identify.

> The point is that using a one dimensional model for political thought is too simplistic and it is simply misleading.

So we largely agree then, but this doesn't change any of what I wrote earlier.

Obviously not. People have a rough understanding of "right wing" - with the election of Trump they think about Breitbart and various "economic nationalism" groups and various authoritarians who want to limit social freedoms like the right to terminate a pregnancy, put something in their body, etc etc. Those groups obviously have nothing to do with libertarianism. Politicians love to label opponents to poison the well: "tax and spend liberal", "reactionary", "far right", etc - such labeling of other people is not useful if you actually want to understand the other person's views.

>...Huh? The point is exactly that libertarian groups are found far out on both sides of the spectrum, so what in the world is an "average libertarian"?

Again, you are using a one dimensional view of political thought when you say "on both sides of the spectrum". Also some of the libertarian positions such as the removal of victimless crimes haven't been fully embraced by the voters but that doesn't mean they are "far out". We no longer have a draft, most people are now more leery of the war on drugs and gay marriage is allowed, so progress is slowly made.

>...And this was exactly the point I made by bringing up Rothbard in the first place: There was an attempt to unify these views of the left and right.

And again - if the people who label, reject that label as being misleading, it isn't a good label (unless your goal is simply to marginalize them.)

>> The point is that using a one dimensional model for political thought is too simplistic and it is simply misleading.

>So we largely agree then, but this doesn't change any of what I wrote earlier.

Well it is good we agree on something, but you continue to use this one dimensional model throughout.

Really? I don't you've made that case at all. My experience is far from that. Maybe that's the case in the US, but in Europe at least the right still encompass a wide range of ideologies that are mostly far more nuanced than that.

> Again, you are using a one dimensional view of political thought when you say "on both sides of the spectrum".

Read again. There is a one-dimensional spectrum that people like assign political movements to, and the main point I've been making in this thread has been exactly that the formation of US style right-wing libertarianism explicitly was an exercise in recognising that this was insufficient, and that while right-libertarians to a large extent are aligned with the "traditional right" in terms of economic views, they rarely are when it comes to social views, and there there is potential for alliances with libertarians on the left.

> And again - if the people who label, reject that label as being misleading, it isn't a good label (unless your goal is simply to marginalize them.)

I don't know what you are trying to say here. I am a left-libertarian. I do use that label, and I don't reject it. I've spoken to many right-libertarians, and they all self-identified as right-wing and libertarians, and don't reject it. I've spoken to many left-libertarians, and they've all self-identified as left wing and seen themselves as clearly separate from the right. I've never met someone who called themselves libertarian who didn't have a very clear idea of whether or not they considered themselves left- or right.

There is a very clear distinction, generally: Those who favour strong private property rights tends to clearly define themselves as right-wing and favour the Austrian school when in comes to economy. Many of them are extremely hostile to socialism, while most left libertarians considers themselves socialist, Marxist and/or anarchist.

As such the left and right labels here are not hypothetical.

Also because of who people consider viable alliance partners or alternatives to vote for. I would opt for (non-libertarian) social democrats over right-libertarians, for example, and would opt for (non-libertarian) classical liberals over right-libertarians too, because while I agree more with right-libertarians on social issues, I see their economic views as disastrous and immoral and in starker opposition to liberty than social-democratic policies even though the latter involve more government regulation, because of which areas they want to regulate and how.

As such the left/right axis is still deeply relevant, though it's important for libertarians to realise that in specific areas, the most likely ally might be on the other side of the spectrum.

> Well it is good we agree on something, but you continue to use this one dimensional model throughout.

Because it is still relevant, given that it is what people are familiar with and define themselves by, no matter how flawed it is.

In 25 years of discussing this with people, you're the first person to get hung up in this use of left vs. right.

This might be an American vs European difference. I have known plenty of libertarians and I can't think of any of them that would classify themselves as "right wing". As an example any of the libertarian positions I listed in my first response would be anathema to any group that is considered to be "right wing".

>…I would opt for (non-libertarian) social democrats over right-libertarians, for example, and would opt for (non-libertarian) classical liberals over right-libertarians too,

Again, maybe an American difference, but I would have to say that many libertarians I know would consider themselves to be classic liberals. For example, here is a quote from a professor at NYU:

"...I consider myself both a libertarian and a classical liberal. … So there are important differences among liberals and libertarians but I view these are differences along a spectrum. Some are principled (“Never, ever, initiate the use of force”) and some are empirical (“Many public goods can be provided privately”) and some are hard to classify (“The NSA should not collect masses of meta data”). Some people will want to take these differences and harden them into different political philosophies with different names and so forth. But I suggest that libertarians and classical liberals have too much in common for any divorce."

https://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/libertarianism...

>> Well it is good we agree on something, but you continue to use this one dimensional model throughout. >Because it is still relevant, given that it is what people are familiar with and define themselves by, no matter how flawed it is.

Since no one can even describe the variable that underlies the left-right line, it is a pretty useless model and in American political campaigns, "right wing" and "left wing" is now simply used as a pejorative to paint someone as an extremist (there are plenty of extremists out there, but not everyone who doesn't register with the 2 major parties is one).

Libertarianism and Marxism are two sides of the same coin: theoretical utopias, if we can just get everyone to agree to play nice!

Well, in the real world where humans compete for resources to survive, people don't play nice. That's a hard biological fact, and no amount of indoctrination or force is going to be able to remove those hard-coded instincts for self-preservation, so it's best to adopt a system that is at least somewhat compatible with it.

That can take a while to fully internalize, which explains why so many young idealists adopt Libertarian and/or Marxist positions for a few years before they end up moving on.

That depends a lot on your definition of "wealthy" and "regular joes".

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

According to that, the top 1% contributes about 37% of income taxes. On the other hand, the bottom 50% contributes only 2.78%.

I guess a lot of people would consider the 1% to be wealthy, but most of the 1% are actually just doctors. I'm guessing that the real wealthy, those whose income is derived from capital rather than their labour, don't contribute much to federal tax income because of the low capital gains tax rate in the US.

http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40...

While it's not necessarily popular in libertarian circles today, the negative income tax (which is closely related to UBI but not identical) has a long history among libertarian thought leaders. Milton Friedman was a proponent of these policies.

The US already has the Earned Income Tax Credit, so the basic idea of a negative income tax is already in place though highly constrained. I think expanding/modifying that program would be a path of least resistance rather than pushing for independent UBI legislation.

We definitely don't need more tax enforcers, or more taxes... better spending, and simpler tax structures are needed much more.

That woul take a serious chunk out of the budget though.

Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing costs absent the sort of regulation that would itself make UBI politically untenable (i.e. because it would not benefit the wealthy.)

I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere. They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.

It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies.

Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely.

But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing.

One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving your "life" from a government stooge is something of an embarrassment to men who've survived cold winters and starvation and dehydration. We like to be "equal" or "respectful" to a gift giver by having the possibility of giving back an equivalent gift.

So in a sense, you have to teach the homeless person abilities which, eventually, allow him/her to reciprocate a gift. Even if the gift was from the government.

Leaving aside any evaluation of the quality of modern drugs...

You raise my one concern about UBI. I'm fairly liberal, and particularly with the rise in automation, I see something like UBI becoming necessary. Unlike some conservatives, I have no real concern about people "mooching" or getting money they don't "deserve". Some WILL mooch, IMNSHO, but not most. And if it generates a society where people CAN succeed if they put forth the effort, I'm generally okay with those that are choosing to be lazy being lazy - just get them safely out of the way of everyone that isn't lazy and make sure they have every opportunity to improve their situation should they try to.

BUT - two of the big arguments in favor of UBI are:

* that it could be cheaper than the social programs of today

* that giving people cash can be the most effective investment (I think it was here that I saw discussion that a program to give the poor of developing nations chickens was successful at a small scale, but couldn't grow because at some point too many people have chickens for the eggs to have much resale value).

My concern is that some people - I expect few, but enough - will spend money and NOT cover their basic needs (food/shelter). If you shrug and let them suffer/die, you aren't who I want to be. If we run all the social programs in ADDITION to UBI you've made it cost more. If you try to regulate how people spend their UBI, you're hurting everyone's ability to innovate their way to greater wealth. If you try to only regulate those that are decided to not be able to spend wisely...that sounds dangerous, having those in power determine what is and who are "wise".

So while I remain very interested in UBI, I'm watching the current and planned-for experiments with great interest to see what problems arise, which problems don't arise, and to see how any problems are handled.

That said, theorycrafting isn't numbers.

Today the US population is roughly 350 million, and we spend 927 billion on social programs between state and federal. That works out to $2800 and change spent per person. (assuming my numbers are correct) That's, as you say, not nearly enough.

Okay, perhaps we can say some large portion of that population is children that would cost less. also families can benefit from shared housing. So let's switch to a theoretical family of four model. For ease of calculations, let's assume large families and small families balance out: $11,200 per (theoretical) family of 4...which isn't the individual poverty line.

So....yeah, you seem to be totally correct. Which makes me wonder what numbers those libertarians in favor of UBI are using?

Actually, how I would implement it is as a refundable tax credit in place of the basic deduction. In other words, if you have no income you receive your full UBI. However, you are taxed on your first dollar of income (rather than getting a tax free threshold as you do today). There is still an incentive to work as you still get to keep 75% (or whatever) of every dollar you earn on top of the basic income, but at some point the amount of tax paid exceeds the amount of UBI received, and you become a net tax payer.

EDIT: The point is that by working the numbers, you can have everyone wind up in roughly the same financial position as today except without the overhead of the various social programs.

I might be persuaded to do that, if it meant that pretty much all social programs go away, and that a lot of laws, agencies, regulation, subsidies and even military spending were cut. With a target of cutting the federal budget by 70%. If course it feels like I have that much coming out of my paycheck already.

1) Even if the marginal tax rate is fairly high, your average income earner will be getting that $18000 back in UBI which makes the effective rate in your scenario more like 5%.

2) The majority of tax revenue comes from the highest earners. A quick google gave me this (from https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...):

The top 1 percent (1.3 million filers) paid a greater share of income taxes (37.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent (124.5 million filers) combined (30.2 percent).

In other words, I don't believe your math is a reasonable approximation of how the budget would work out. If everyone pays the same effective rate as today (including welfare and other social program recipients who can be treated as having a negative effective rate), nothing changes. Also, there is no need to presume a flat tax rate; the U.S. does not have a flat tax rate, now.

EDIT: Also the average household size in the U.S. is 2.53 people, not 4. A naive calculation would suggest that a household of 4 should therefore expect a mean income around $83K.

No, of course, I would not propose that. There are many ways to handle it that effectively amount to the same thing. The UBI could be paid out monthly or fortnightly or whatever seemed good with the tax situation otherwise being the same. Your employer would have to withhold a bit more tax to compensate, but the end result would be the same.

The point is not to argue specific implementation details; it is to offer another way of thinking about it.

We have an entire bureaucracy centered around benefits and making sure if folks have cheated their benefits. I'm sure we'll need some of the bureaucracy still, but it'll mostly be issues receiving their pay instead of having to screen everyone. Fraud will be more limited in scope because there will be fewer ways to commit this sort of fraud (identity theft, not reporting death, and folks inadvertently recieving double payments most commonly).

We'll still need some social programs. UBI simply won't be enough for some folks unless someplace has cheap, affordable healthcare. Otherwise, folks with expensive health needs still need some support. Yes, this will cost some money, but other folks will simply be able to retire and live off the UBI with no intervention. I'm pretty sure this will be cheaper than the current system. This likely goes down or away completely if everyone has healthcare they can afford.

We'll no longer need to maintain things like the SNAP system (food stamps) because this will simply be included in the UBI. You'll no longer have a seperate card to pay for whatever portion of your groceries are included. We can use existing infrastructure for the UBI payments like we already do for other cash benefits.

We could likely have more staighfoward payroll taxes and less paperwork to fill out with those, both on the government side and the employer side. I'm guessing there are other things I haven't looked over. I think overall we'll have fewer employed in this. Now, there will be the cost of the actual money plus distributing it to everyone in the country. This might make up for the savings above, I don't know as I've not done the math.

The point is this: If we can see these sorts of outcomes happening with UBI, then we can realistically estimate the costs and savings of the two systems. It'd take some work and research, sure, but I think it can be done.And for it to come out cheaper.

I keep thinking as well that switching to a VAT/tariff/excise system that included money transfers would be beneficial... Even allow (re)patriation of funds without taxes, while funds leaving the country are taxed.

He pencils it out to something pretty close to 1:1, maybe something like 15% nominal spend increase, but with (theoretically) much greater utility for all concerned.

How about establishing a trust in that person's name where they can't touch the money but it will pay for needed services? Someone like that sounds like they would need professional help...

There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that makes our welfare systems so awful right now as well.

The terrible fear that if we give people money... they might spend it on stuff we don't think they should.

So, maybe don't believe all test results.

But you have a lot more confidence in their ability to be sneaky than I do. The average person is not very good at lying without getting caught. The average person that lacks any initiative or follow through is worse.

I think a more likely scenario is companies will pop up who cater to providing the needs of UBI dependents. Think about it, if UBI is enough to cover home and food then you could package these together. Welcome to extended stay from hell.

Lets be real, UBI might protect you from going homeless but that ain't the same as having mobility and choice. With more people participating in the market for housing its going to get tight for awhile and you could end up with more sprawl.

Provided there are no location/COL adjustments.

Isn't that proven to be a mostly false notion? Lower taxes tend to bring in more revenue and create more employment.

Two responses:

1) A bit of an irrelevant point, since we're not talking about RAISING taxes, we're talking about collecting taxes that are due under current rules. (You can argue that's an effective tax increase, but I doubt people/companies that aren't following the rules are a good basis for policy - with lower taxes they'll still cheat)

2) But if we do consider your point...I don't know that your point has been shown at all. Sure, if you're on the far side of the Laffer curve, which is 50-70% tax rate (depending on whose numbers you trust), but we're at 20-38% tax rate in the US (and that's marginal rate, not overall rate). I'd also look to the efforts of politicians like Brownback in Kansas, where a massive tax cut led to...a tanking of the local economy. I don't recall of hearing of a single supply-side success in post-WWII America, but I'll admit to non-perfect knowledge.

Also, as a liberal, I support taxes because I support many govt programs. Taxes themselves are NOT exciting - if we could really raise more govt revenue by cutting taxes, I'd be all for it, but I've not seen any reliable evidence for that (again, unless you're on the other side of the Laffer curve) and I've seen at least limited evidence against it.

Whether that's too high or too low is a separate discussion. But saying we're at 38% just isn't true.

> Whether that's too high or too low is a separate discussion

Sounds fine: while exploring the numbers here (because frankly, I'm curious - tax rates are NOT a strength of mine) I'll not engage in that debate

> Add in 3.8% Medicare

Just to clarify that's the TOP rate, and that includes the employer share (which is arguably fair to include)

> top marginal rates at the state / city level approaching 15% for some locations

I'm less inclined to talk about the local taxes of extreme locations when discussing US taxes - Those would just induce people to move if too high (particularly since we're talking about people making over $400,000/year) and their new location could still be US.

So that would bring top marginal rates to 44.2%, and effective rates somewhere around 28-29% (assuming I didn't screw it up)

There is likely some minimum level of local taxes to apply there, (as well as a "reasonable minimum" to apply so we exclude rare extremely low results just like I rejected the extremely high ones) but I have no idea how to find that (1%? 3%?)

The primary impact has been massive reduction in the ability of the state government to provide services, including education. That is too long-term to be immediately measurable.

Second - Despite being willing to admit I don't know, I HAVE heard it, so I'm definitely open to having what I've heard proven/disproven (to the degree we can with so many variables).

As far as I can tell from my quick searches:

* Kansas private-sector job growth post-tax plan is low. (both regionally and nationally) * The Govt budget has definitely been hit * Kansas unemployment rate is actually BETTER than the national rate...but it seems like it always has been, for the last 25 years at least. (There's a recent spike since May, but even a skeptic of the Brownback plan such as myself is unwilling to attribute the spike to the tax rate without more data) * Kansas GDP growth rate is lower than the regional average and has been since the tax plan was enacted (this may be a red herring, couldn't see what it did before the tax plan, nor how the state GDP compares to it's theoretical potential which would impact tax rate)

So: Based on this I can't conclude the Kansas economy has "tanked" as I originally said...but I also don't see anything indicating an improvement due to the plan either. If cutting tax rates leads to more investment and growth, where should we be seeing that?

This is a very practical difference. For the sake of easy math, let's assume that the maximum-revenue point on the curve is a 50% tax rate. It then follows that for every % you charge someone over 50%, tax revenue decreases. Which means that at this rate, every additional X% of tax is actually decreasing total economic output by 2X%! And assuming that we're on a smooth curve, that means that every X% you DECREASE your tax from the Laffer point is creating 2X% of economic value. Now, based on how fairly the created value is distributed and how efficiently you believe the government can spend its tax revenue you may have a different opinion on how much value you're comfortable destroying to increase tax revenue, but I'd submit that 2X is quite a high number.

I believe we need much-higher-than-0 taxes, but "we're still below the Laffer point" is a poor argument for raising them.

Got some examples where this actually worked?