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What do you think? Should a government let its income determine the amount of its expenditures or should a governments expenditures determine the amount of income that it needs.
I see this as one of the most important ideological dividing lines between capitalist and socialist, left and right, Democrat and Republican (somewhat), and community based governments v.s. individual based governments.
Please justify your opinions and don't go on random rants unless you have a logical argument for doing so.
Should the governments budget be Income or Expenditure based? What do you think?
Please justify your opinions and don't go on random rants unless you have a logical argument for doing so.
Like most irresponsible 8 year olds... a governments spending should be based on the cash they actually have.
I'll set aside the discussion of where and how an irresponsible 8 year old (or Congress) got that cash...
but will allow that they are the least competent choice to be put in charge of acquiring more.
Neither. It should be based on what is best for the times. During a depression, such as the one from 2008-2012, the government should run a deficit to pump money into the economy. But during periods of prosperity, if we ever get one, it should have a surplus. Parroting Keynes, guilty.
Should there be a government? Though it sounds blasphemous.
Most intelligent adults can govern themselves quite well. And govern their immediate surrounding.
Of course, this utopia is possible only globally. Otherwise, any government is nothing more but a mean of oppression by those in real power.
Apologies for hijack.
Should there be a government? Though it sounds blasphemous.
Most intelligent adults can govern themselves quite well (in small groups).
The older/wiser heads in the communities of the past created governments and laws
for the same basic reasons that they needed to create gods and religions.
Should there be a government? Though it sounds blasphemous.
Most intelligent adults can govern themselves quite well. And govern their immediate surrounding.
Of course, this utopia is possible only globally. Otherwise, any government is nothing more but a mean of oppression by those in real power.
Apologies for hijack.
To make by income work you would basically have to tell everyone who gets a check from the government that what you receive from us won't be known until we cut you the check and its going to be kind of late since we first have to count every source of money and expense and then figure out what goes where so we have a perfect balance.
So if you were say a concrete contractor and were working on a new road, you better have enough to pay all your workers and your suppliers first and then hope what we give you is enough to cover what you paid out. Repeat this exercise at all levels for a myriad of jobs and you can see it doesn't quite work well.
The obsession with a balanced budget is unrealistic. Its a great thought, but it just doesn't happen. What is wrong with the whole debate is how so many forget when times are good you must generate a surplus and pay down some debt drawn when times were not so good and set a little aside for future rough patches.
Income based. That is because after the governamnt gets too high in income as per cenatge of GDP ;it strats to effect growth and that effects the amount they collect in the end. Governmant controlling too much GDP stagnates growth as we see in europe.
I often wonder what would happen if we all decided how much in taxes we wanted to pay in a year, and then the government (local, state, federal) creates a budget from that. I imagine it would be a pretty low budget.
If it was income based, Medicare would be discontinued. Medicare spends more than it takes in. It would be better fiscally, but the senior citizens are a powerful voting group that no politician, gop or dem, wants to lose.
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