Trickle down economics

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JanSobieskiIII said:
I think that’s where we need to address the issue. Have a flat tax, but offer write offs/deductions based on income level. Let people that make less than X amount of dollars write off 100% of child care, health care, education, etc. expenses.

The guy that makes between X and Y can write off child care, and education, and up to 50% of health care

The guy that makes over Y amount of dollars can write off child care.

Or whatever, you get the gist.
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If you ever run, you get my vote! 👍
 
Ok. The OP asked if there was any other kind of economics in a free market society, beside trickle down. Is there?
 
JamesATyler said:
Ok. The OP asked if there was any other kind of economics in a free market society, beside trickle down. Is there?
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Don’t worry about institutionally awarding the millionaires with trickle-down schemes.

They’re millionaires. They’ll be fine.

The more i read about it, the more I like the Catholic market models related to subsidiary of the late 19th century. Kinda laissez faire, kinda socialist in that there is an implicit limit on how much property you can own.
 
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JanSobieskiIII said:
Can find a point of agreement on what percentage of someone’s income/net worth the government is owed and how much that person/company is allowed to keep? I think that’s a key starting point.

I think we could all agree the government is not entitled to 100%

So should they get to take 75%, and leave them 25%?

50%?

How much of what someone earns/produces is “theirs” vs what’s owed the government?
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You’re talking about “the government” as if it is some “them” out there. I think that is our issue. When we don’t feel as if the government is collecting taxes in order to carry out what we see as needs or wise choices as a society just as surely as we have to pay for anything else we want to see achieved according to our wishes in the private sphere, of course we are going to resent giving money to pay for it.

If we see our taxes as simply paying for law enforcement, courts, a military, regulatory workers, services such as weather forecasting, recording copyrights, a certain amount of indigent care such as is necessary for civil peace and proper for a society with the means to prevent undue suffering, deaths or permanent disability due to poverty, then taxes are one of those unfortunate bills that we would rather not pay but see we must pay.

“Trickle down economics” is a different thing. As Will Rogers pointed out when he coined the phrase, wealth simply does not trickle down. If the poor are lucky, some of it passes momentarily through their hands before it is sucked up by those who have the means to get it. If society does not ensure that the poor are treated fairly, then the rich will take advantage of them, getting more work from them for less money than it is worth because they can. They have always been able to do this, and unless others with power similar to theirs, they will do it today.

Standing up for the poor is the duty of the righteous:
Open your mouth in behalf of the mute, and for the rights of the destitute; Open your mouth, judge justly, defend the needy and the poor! (Prov. 31:8-9)
 
How do these “rich” people get the poors money?

By selling things the poor want, and are willing to trade their money for. It’s not some grand theft conspiracy.

And while government may be necessary, it is at best a necessary evil. It is not a force for good, it needs to be distrusted and watched carefully and never given any more leash than it needs.

ETA: Again, the crux of my argument you quoted is, how much of someone else’s property are we allowed to seize before it’s immoral theft?

How many people are needed to vote on whether to take someone’s property before it’s taxation and not theft?

If 3 of us are in a room and 2 to 1 vote to take your wallet is that theft or taxation?

If it’s a 100 to 1?

A million to one?

What’s the magic number.
 
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There are constitutional government functions and “extra-government” functions.

Some government functions are less constitutional than others.

Check Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution.
 
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I taught economics at the college level and have been a long time amatuer student of it. But having a background in economics and/or finance doesn’t make anyone omniscient about the economy. I attended a speech by liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith and he quipped, “Economists predict the future, not because they know what will happen, but because they are asked.” Most economists’ opinions are shaped by their beliefs and biases like everyone else. If economists really understood the economy, they personally would all be rich. Saying otherwise is like saying every teacher of literature is necessarily a great writer or that every theologian is going to Heaven. Economists explain the economy in hindsight, just like those two fields explain their areas.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about trickle down theory. You can debate whether it works or not, but the intent is about opportunity, not outcomes. There is a segment of the poor who will stay poor no matter what. You can give them handouts and they will still stay poor. You can give them opportunity and they will not take advantage of it.

There is another segment who are not wanting handouts, but rather are looking for opportunities. If the people with money have the same amount of money they always have had, they will spend what they are spending and the opportunities remain the same. If they get more money, they spend/invest more money and that creates opportunity. Ultimately the success of a capitalist economy is based on consumer and investor confidence and the resulting increased desire to spend and invest.

It is a misconception to link trickle down to charity or taxes. That is saying trickle down is about handouts and it’s not. I’m an independent management consultant and solid middle class. My business does better when the stock market is going up and the owners and leaders of big companies are doing well. When there is downturn, I do worse. So it works for me, not because anyone gives me anything, but because I get more opportunities.

So the argument here is not really about trickle down economics. It is about capitalism versus socialism. Are people responsible for their own success or is the government and charities responsible for their welfare? Whichever you choose, fine, but only capitalism can create lasting wealth in the overall economy. Socialism can create equality and order in the short run and can be useful in stabilizing disintegrating economies. But it is a stop-gap. It cannot create prosperity long term because it is forcibly taking from the rich to give to the poor and at some point, you run out of other people’s money to spend.

To my mind, and this is backed up in my life and business, the economy is measured by: Can people with useful skills, the will to work hard and talent to work smart, find appropriate employment? The hard-core poor are what charity is for. Charity from us all, not just the rich. People who have passed up getting useful skill for majoring in Basket Weaving, people who aren’t ready to work hard, people who can’t work smart need to get used to making what little their economic productivity can provide them.
 
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Reagan didn’t even remember anything in the end so it trickled out of his memories.
 
MonteRCMS said:
More like the Galveston County plan rather than Social Security.

More like the cash pay and major catastrophic insurance plans rather than Medicare.
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Where are those allowed in the constitution?
 
JamesATyler said:
A free market, with the citizen able to retain or spend money according to his own wisdom does not guarantee income equality. It does allow citizens to spend where they see fit or retain capital and build wealth. The moral question as to whether a citizen should store wealth in a bank, give to charity, or create a business should be the citizen’s choice. Even if the whole country engages in some folly, spending all their money on something foolish, at least any citizen with greater wisdom can do something different. If we empower Congress to make too many economic decisions, if they act foolishly then we all go along for that ride. The government is not able to guarentee a decent standard of living. Even if they promised income equality they could still make us all equally poor.
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So, income inequality is unimportant as a metric and may be ignored completely when evaluating one system or another? Remember, there are many systemic factors besides handouts that can affect income inequality, such as appropriate educational opportunities, etc. Are ;you sure you want to dismiss them all as unimportant?
 
They are not IN the Constitution. SO … just take the existing “unconstitutional” Social Security and Medicare programs and simply transition those over to the Galveston County and cash pay systems.
 
MonteRCMS said:
There are constitutional government functions and “extra-government” functions.

Some government functions are less constitutional than others.

Check Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution.
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My point is that when people feel the government uses tax money to carry out the will of the people, they resent taxation less. They don’t magically like paying taxes any more than they like paying any of their other bills, they may jealously believe someone else is getting off paying less than they ought to, but they understand the necessity. If they believe the government squanders their money or uses it for ends they do not believe are just, of course they will look at taxes as not only unnecessary but inherently unjust.
 
MonteRCMS said:
They are not IN the Constitution. SO … just take the existing “unconstitutional” Social Security and Medicare programs and simply transition those over to the Galveston County and cash pay systems.
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Where in the Constitution does it allow the government to run healthcare and retirement programs?
 
jfz178 said:
So the argument here is not really about trickle down economics. It is about capitalism versus socialism. Are people responsible for their own success or is the government and charities responsible for their welfare?
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Even the Bible recognizes that some of those with capital will exploit those who have only labor to offer if there is not an explicit system of justice forbidding oppression of the one who works.

The question about how to handle it when someone will not work or cannot work (and how to tell the difference) is not a totally separate question, but undervaluing work by allowing unjust undercompensation of work or demeaning those who do certain kinds of work certainly increases the temptation to falsely rely on charity instead of exerting oneself to do dignified labor.

It is high time that we quit referring to people who do an honest day’s work that needs to be done as having a “dead end job,” A person who does his or her job well does not deserve to be looked down on. They deserve respect. In our society, though, unskilled labor is both paid very little and also looked down on because they are paid so little. If you are low-paid, people feel free to make all sorts of snotty comments and even blame you for not having a higher-paid job–as if that work could go undone if only everyone had the dignity to get better jobs!
 
King George supposedly said that if the colonists don’t like taxation without representation, see how they like taxation WITH representation.
 
And now we have a huge segment of our population who gets representation without taxation 😦
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Where in the Constitution does it allow the government to run healthcare and retirement programs?
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Where in your conscience does a wealthy country get by with allowing widows and orphans to call out to God because their rich neighbors will not see to their most basic needs?

Let’s get real here: We are the rulers of this nation, because we vote. We have the same power as a Christian king would have both to raise taxes and to pay for the care of the indigent out of the purse of the Crown. There is nothing that forbids us from setting up a just level of taxation from which the material needs of the poor are seen to. Yes, we can decide that the amount we can fairly compel is insufficient. We must see that there is a level of taxation that is unjust to compel, regardless of how praiseworthy the reason for wanting to do that.

If we see the situation of the nation’s economy that way, however, it is still on us to take care of the least of the Lord’s brethren. If we don’t vote it done, we cannot just leave it undone.

St. James spoke to this situation:

So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. James 2:12-17
 
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