By the Numbers

Amazing that our goverment can piss that much money away each year on pet projects and to pay for unnecessary tax cuts.

Matt, your simplistic comment makes no sense on several levels. The figure of just under a trillion stated by Mikal shows a SURPLUS in the Social Security fund not a DEFICIT which direct contradicts your comment about government pissing away money.

Moreover, if you opine that tax cuts are unnecessary, then you must believe 1) either people are taxed precisely the right amount, 2) are not taxed enough or 3) that some people are taxed too much and some are taxed too little. If you believe, as I do, that government pisses away tons of money on pet projects why would you infer that ANY taxpayers, rich or poor, pay MORE money to government knowing it will be squandered?

In government-speak, there are revenues and outlays. Tax cuts are not outlays as you incorrectly state ("...pay for unnecessary tax cuts.") Reducing the tax rate on taxpayers reduces the amount of individual tax expenditure but does not necessarily reduce the total amount of revenues to government. It is a paradoxical truth that reducing the amount people pay in taxes actually increases total revenues to government.

For example, when Best Buy has the occasional sale cutting prices by 10%, they are betting that more consumers than normal will buy their products. The result is that by decreasing their prices (like taxes) Best Buy attracts more buyers (like taxpayers) increasing their volume (like GDP) and total sales (like revenue).

People should spend more energy demanding frugality in government than in-fighting on which class is not paying its fair share of taxes.

Dave, you are TOTALLY right. I read the posting pretty early in the morning for me - Denver. I misunderstood what I was reading by about 180 degrees. I apologize, and I'll try to read in the evenings when I have my head a bit more together. My poorly constructed sentence provides evidence that I was not wholly cognizant at the time I posted.

Out of your three tax archetypes, I would place myself into Type 3, but with a healthy dose of skepticism about where our money is spent by our government. I feel that large sums are truly thrown away, and why increase taxes when some Senator is trying to get a multi-million dollar pig research facility with federal funds, of course in the name of education. It's the maddening anecdotal stories that are easiest to criticize. Back to the issue, I agree that our citizens should spend less time fighting over ëwhoí owes ëwhatí and concentrate on the accountability of our elected officials. Ideally, our citizenry would not stand for the ridiculous fiscal behavior of our government.

However, our citizenry doesnít care enough to vote, or our government restricts them from doing so. Only 76% of our citizens of voting age are registered to vote, granted a large portion of the remainder is likely ineligible due to felony convictions, mental health or some other restriction. Of those that have actually registered, only 67.5% bothered to vote. Run the numbers together and you get 51.3% turnout of all citizens of voting age (http://www.fec.gov/pages/2000turnout/reg&to00.htm). A slight majority of our citizens are active in Presidential elections. Voter turnout goes down considerably when considering local and state elections. Those are the elections that would likely have the greatest impact on the spending portion of the tax and spend government. Now, how do we get people involved to that degree? Once we have them involved on the local, state and national levels, how do we get folks to influence their various representatives to spend wisely? Whereís the chicken? We need an egg.

10-4 on the morning-hour stuff and I'm glad you didn't take my remarks personally.

As far as taxation, I belong in the camp that everyone is taxed WAY too much. Because of base-line budgeting, Congress continues to get more and more money each year regardless of necessity. Ordinary people don't run their own personal budgets this way, rather adjust their spending to fit their income levels. Generally, I think that the more local the spending, the more wisely money is spent.

With respect to apathy, I believe that more people should take time to understand issues and the character of the people they elect rather than simply electing partisan laundry. Many people see politics as merely a spectator sport and frankly choose to focus their energies on football, NASCAR, etc. I don't find this objectionable at all but we all know people that are walking encyclopedias for the sport they enjoy but can't name the U.S. Secretary of State off the top of their head. So it's hard to chalk apathy up to lack of intelligence. Moreover, I have met guys that are dumb as a brick but can tell you EXACTLY how many green/black 1967 Corvette convertibles rolled off the line with tri-power 427's.

Personally, I hope the voter turnout continues to go DOWN. I don't like when the truly ignorant drones are bused in to the polls voting for a prescribed candidate. I spend HUGE amounts of time studying politics only to see it essentially negated by someone without a clue. I have witnessed voters who show up at the polling place become, at the last minute persuaded by someone in red, white & blue handing out buttons several feet from the door. These voters should stay home and stop watering down informed votes.

I do believe that we are witnessing a time when the internet and perhaps specifically bloggers, the new pamphleteers, are exposing untouchable politicians who once thought their actions and words could be hidden by virtue of their domination over media outlets. This is changing big time. Freelance "journalists" all over the world are picking up and disseminating information so rapidly, the large media outlets don't have time nor the capability to spin or bury it. I believe that when Gen-Xer's becomes senior citizens most of the large traditional newspapers will be gone. Currently the big networks are becoming more and more irrelevant and illegitimate due to outright fraud and blatant bias. This means that the informed will have access to unfiltered information which can lead to substantive mini-revolutions in all levels of government.

The internet is the chicken. I believe Humpty Dumpty is starting to wobble.

BTW, Matt, care to weigh in on my post on the big board regarding Boulder's economy? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

To paraphrase the old SNL skit: Dave, you ignorant slut. Matt was correct in his first assessment. The quoted figures do show that a trillion more dollars were collected for SS than were spent for it, but that money is not sitting in a Social Security account somewhere. There is no SS account; all government revenues, including Social Security, are combined into a single account and are spent without regard to what they were collected for. The fact that that account has not accumulated a trillion-dollar surplus since 1983 does in fact show that we pissed it away.