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A comment on Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and work remotely. Parent comment

Re:Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move t... by jimmy1 on Thursday May 31, 2018 @11:45AM (#17197163)
> notoriously high-tax state Some societies think that it is wise to spend on some things such as education (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/02/the-...). Others think that lowering taxes at whatever cost is better. The former fits with my thinking, which is why I like it here.

It's a little more nuanced than that, and not necessarily an either/or as you have described it. More than likely in my experience, the people who think lowering taxes is good think so because they view the government as an inefficient, third-party spender and believe the money could be better spent more wisely elsewhere. While Vermont does rank high in K-12 (4th), it is ranked 36th in higher education. Vermont is also the 2nd least populated state in the country, so it remains to be seen how scale will impact the education system there.

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Re:Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move t... by s73v3r_ on Thursday May 31, 2018 @01:00PM (#17197957)
"More than likely in my experience, the people who think lowering taxes is good think so because they view the government as an inefficient, third-party spender and believe the money could be better spent more wisely elsewhere."

People say that, but then they privatize functions of government, and if they're lucky, they end up with the same level of service. And then now there's a middleman involved who needs to get profit, meaning wages and service get cut.

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Re:Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move t... by perl4ever on Thursday May 31, 2018 @10:53PM (#17202236)
I ran across an interesting book on that topic, which describes pitfalls of privatization in a balanced way:

You Don't Always Get What You Pay For The Economics of Privatization by Elliott D. Sclar

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=8014010029039...

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Re:Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move t... by 0xfeba on Thursday May 31, 2018 @12:37PM (#17197715)
> More than likely in my experience, the people who think lowering taxes is good think so because they view the government as an inefficient [...] spender

The government is made up of people. In my experience, it isn't the funding amount that correlates with inefficiencies, it's the distance from accountability that does.

So one can reduce the taxes all one likes, a 30% wasteful department is still going to waste 30%. I'd rather target the inefficiencies themselves.

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