You can tax wealth only so much, before it leaves the country.

Inflation is a tax on idle cash

How about:

1. Provide only essential government services

2. Enforce the law for everyone--no limited liability, no secret police, no pollution quotas, no wars of aggression

3. If they aren't hurting anyone or the environment, leave productive people and their wealth alone

Sounds good in theory, but the devil is in the details: what's essential, what's aggression, is in the eyes of the beholder. The reality of politics will bring it all back to about what it is now.

A nice idea, but in the end I suspect the tricky part is the definition of "essential government services" and the criteria for determining whether a person or corporation is "hurting anyone or the environment".

Sure, but at least there would be something to try for.

But what are you trying for? The definition of the statement in your mind is clear but it doesn't mean a damn thing.

I think we should aim for the government only providing essential services. But one of those services is making sure everyone has healthcare insurance available to them at a rate that they can afford.

You and I know probably agree on very little about the size of the government, even though we both agree that the government should aim to provide only the minimum essential services.

I know, I'm just saying it would be a whole lot better to have this debate and take whatever comes out of it than the current situation, which is mostly cynical and corrupt sociopaths on both sides who aren't in any way interested in bettering the country.

In other words, I'm just as happy to see someone like Dennis Kucinich do well as I am Ron Paul, even though ideologically I agree more with Paul. I think we should be more concerned with replacing evil people with good people than the particulars of one platform or another. The common grounds (stop the wars, stop corporate welfare) are vastly more important than the differences like health care or welfare for people who actually need help.

Nobody has idle cash. When you put your cash in the bank, it's invested by the bank.

Fantastic job, that is exactly what we need:

1-Stop contributing to society. 2-Start living as parasites from more hard working, efficient people. 3-Eliminate freedom to choose what to do with your salary money, so nobody wants to work, everybody wants to parasite.

Totally brilliant, what could go wrong about that?

Libertarians always seem to assume that if people didn't have to fear starving to death, naked on the street, they wouldn't go to work any more; and that curtailing to any degree the ability of the wealthiest to add to their wealth will stop the most productive members of society from wanting to contribute.

Yet today, countries with better social safety nets have stronger economies, and Warren Buffett has consistently argued for higher effective taxes on the ultra-rich.

I consider myself libertarian, but welfare is the last thing I'd cut. It's true that the notion of welfare strengthening the overall economy is rooted in fallacy (ignoring unseen costs--read Hazlitt or Bastiat), but if we could do things like cut military spending drastically, let banks fail, get real currency, eliminate the income tax, the drug war, etc., it would have such a huge positive impact that very few would even need welfare once things got straightened out, and it would be a much easier pill for people to swallow politically--less destabilizing and divisive. Imo, it's stupid for libertarians to even talk about welfare. Just focus on getting rid of the things that have the biggest impact, and that almost everyone hates anyway, then go from there.

I'm not sure how cutting military spending (meaning laying off engineers designing weapon systems, welders putting together weapons systems, and cutting back on the number in the armed forces), letting banks fail (laying off people), ending the drug war (which means saving money by laying off policemen) will lead to reducing the expenditures on unemployment. Maybe long term it will lead to improvement but short term, cutting government spending equates to cutting jobs.

The money the government spends doesn't just get burnt into thin air. It gets paid out in a bunch of government contracts, those contracts buy products and services provided by private companies. Those private companies employ a lot of people and buy more products from other companies that employ a lot of people.

For better or worse, you need to recognize what happens when you cut government spending (a lot of people get fired, a lot of companies lose contracts) if you want to understand why people oppose cutting it.