Comments on: We are all moderates

By: McCain or Obama? — Vista News & Ramblings

McCain or Obama? — Vista News & Ramblings — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:50:05 +0000

[...] One of the co-bloggers over at Deans World has a post up with some interesting figures. The US federal government currently spends about 21% [...]

By: Dean Esmay

Dean Esmay — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:09:43 +0000

I can sort of agree with all that, Bcostin, except from what I’ve seen large corporations match the following description perfectly, word-for-word:

Given the chance, they’ll outlaw, starve out, or attack private initiatives that compete with their own goals.

They usually regard alternatives as attempts to bypass their authority, not as necessary competition.

…also tend to be monolithic, wasteful, and easily hijacked. Substantive policy decisions are made slowly, and often in secret, and once established they resist changes even if their data is wrong.

And I won’t even get into incidents where I’ve seen corporate bureaucracies stifle innovation.

By: bcostin

bcostin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:03:30 +0000

My problem with increased government spending is a practical one: The more money the government allocates to itself the less money is available for private use. Government agencies, like anyone else, tend to be very jealous of their authority. Given the chance, they'll outlaw, starve out, or attack private initiatives that compete with their own goals. I think school choice is a perfect example of this. They usually regard alternatives as attempts to bypass their authority, not as necessary competition. Government-run systems also tend to be monolithic, wasteful, and easily hijacked. Substantive policy decisions are made slowly, and often in secret, and once established they resist changes even if their data is wrong. Agriculture subsidies, for example, have screwed up farming practices and consumer prices for decades, but there's no real prospect of reforming them. And, from all I've seen, government-run health care systems fail badly at innovation. There don't seem to be many pioneering new treatments, technologies, or drugs coming out of Canada or Sweden. bcostin's last blog post..?We need more white people.?

By: Same Wine Different Bottle — Dean’s World

Same Wine Different Bottle — Dean’s World — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:32:44 +0000

[...] suppose this supports Maniakes’ contention that things won’t change much if Obama wins. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social [...]

By: Yu-Ain Gonnano

Yu-Ain Gonnano — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:19:08 +0000

I would agree that corporations are not people and thus don’t have rights. They have the priviledges that society deems beneficial. However, corporations don’t pay taxes. Corporate taxes are calculated as operating costs and are built into the price of goods. All you do by taxing corporations (or any business for that matter) is drive up the price of goods. Which are disproportionately borne by the poor as the single mom pays the same amount of Wal-Mart’s taxes on the bicycle as the married doctors.

And PunningPundit, I think you’ll find that in practice your 5% and 10% are backwards.

By: Maniakes

Maniakes — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:16:33 +0000

Obama is not proposing a nationalization of the health care industry, or even the health insurance industry. He’s advocating price fixing, increased regulation, and means-tested subsidies for health insurance. This means that private health care spending might be reduced, but it won’t go away. Nor will the current federal spending on health care via Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP (currently about a quarter of the federal budget) go away.

I don’t think the assumption of equal results is a safe assumption. We don’t currently have a free market health care system; we have a privately owned and operated but heavily regulated and heavily subsidized health care industry, and Obama’s plan will keep the current form but increase the level of regulation and the level of subsidy. It won’t make our health care industry resemble France’s (a government-run no-frills PPO supplemented by unregulated and unsubsidized private insurance) or Switzerland’s (mandatory purchase of private insurance) or the Netherlands’ (mandatory purchase of private insurance, with a government-run reinsurance program).

By: mgarbowski

mgarbowski — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:48:08 +0000

Thanks for the clarification and extra info.

By: Punning Pundit

Punning Pundit — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:43:34 +0000

Just for fun, compare the 25% of GDP the federal government would spend under Obama with the 16% of GDP we spend on Healthcare. If, say, Obama were to oversee a 5% of GDP rise in Federal spending while presiding over a 10% of GDP deduction in healthcare spending, (assuming equal results– and most national-health care-having nations have better results than we do) we all come out ahead…

By: Maniakes

Maniakes — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:28:46 +0000

State and local government spending in the US run about 10% of GDP, which puts the combined figure at about 31%. I got my numbers for Singapore and Sweden off of wikipedia, and I don’t know if they’re combined or purely federal numbers, nor do I know to what extent government services are divided between national and local goverments in those countries. Since Singapore is effectively a city-state, I suspect the national government covers everything.

Even at the 31% figure, my core point holds: even under Obama the US would have a much smaller government than Sweden, and even under McCain the US would have a much larger government than Singapore.

By: mgarbowski

mgarbowski — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:16:56 +0000

Do all of the countries with which you compared us also have state and local taxes, or some equivalent of the same? Because here federal spending and taxes is just a part of it, and most of the services that people get from the government are provided by those entities, not the feds.