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A comment on The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover. Parent comment

Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by mc32 on Monday February 03, 2025 @03:51PM (#42922925)
What was the national debt to GDP ratio before income taxes were instituted? It wasn't even 10% between 1890 and 1910 --that's without the income tax.
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by ambicapter on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:01PM (#42923043)
Are you saying income taxes lead to an increase in the national debt?
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by mc32 on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:02PM (#42923062)
You know how people borrow on future income?
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by Aloisius on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:05PM (#42923114)
We were doing that before income taxes.

Hell, we were borrowing before we had states.

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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by miltonlost on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:19PM (#42923316)
And life SUCKED then. Absolutely no labor rights, food filled with sawdust, income inequality, bank runs constantly, no retirement.

The national debt increased because we increased the amount of the federal government does, it the income tax.

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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by greatpatton on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:37PM (#42923549)
No healthcare, no public research to today's extent, no military etc. etc. Yes when your government is doing nothing normally it doesn't cost that much.
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by tanseydavid on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @07:17PM (#43031320)
When was there no military? When was the US government literally doing nothing?
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by wyager on Monday February 03, 2025 @04:58PM (#42923821)
> And life SUCKED then

More than 100% of the net improvement is from tech and medical R&D, not the bloated military-welfare apparatus.

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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by kristjansson on Monday February 03, 2025 @06:23PM (#42924835)
What created the conditions for that R&D to take place in relative security, and to be realize its return in a global marketplace?
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Re:The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Gov... by jepj57 on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @09:21PM (#42942789)
And Silicon Valley was originally majority weapons/ tech r&d for the military.

Bletchly Park? Military.

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