Re:The Rise and Fall of RedBook
by soylentcola on Friday March 06, 2015 @11:09AM
(#9157735)
I think the main issue there is that all of those "positives" you support cost a lot of money to do well...more than would even be saved by knocking off 3/4 of the military budget.
No matter how you cut it, "taxes fund civilization". All of those things you want the nation to fund collectively (and I agree that many things are vastly more efficient to fund collectively) require taxing and then spending said tax revenues.
I'm not disagreeing or trying to be pedantic. I actually agree that there are adjustments that ought to be made to the overall national budget including less expenditure on military infrastructure and elective military campaigns. But I think the whole "but not tax and spend" thing is a cliche at this point because everyone has different priorities and opinions on what counts as "important" and what constitutes wasteful "tax and spend".
No matter how you cut it, "taxes fund civilization". All of those things you want the nation to fund collectively (and I agree that many things are vastly more efficient to fund collectively) require taxing and then spending said tax revenues.
I'm not disagreeing or trying to be pedantic. I actually agree that there are adjustments that ought to be made to the overall national budget including less expenditure on military infrastructure and elective military campaigns. But I think the whole "but not tax and spend" thing is a cliche at this point because everyone has different priorities and opinions on what counts as "important" and what constitutes wasteful "tax and spend".