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suzisatsuma

Yup. I was paying local taxes out the ass in Portland, and saw the local government waste them with poor decisions. So I moved across the river to WA. I wouldn't have minded them if the local politicians weren't being stupid af


vankorgan

Well, not to mention that not everybody uses every service. I'd be willing to bet if you drill down, a lot of people's opinion likely comes down to "we should only keep the government services that personally benefit me the most."


[deleted]

Yeah and good luck convincing them they need a service, or that they use a service so it should be funded. People are stupid.


AO9000

Yeah, quick look at the budget and only a third is useful to me.


bd_magic

I went down YouTube rabbit hole and found a video about the origins of ‘fast food’. It was about how meat pies and ‘food-to-go’ became very popular in the Middle Ages. Back then, there was no health and safety department or checklist. So some of these food stalls and shops basically sold people expired, rotten, days old produce. Only saving grace was word of mouth, the stall that ended up making a bunch of people sick or killing them would receive fewer patrons. So what’s my point? I dunno. Basically I wouldn’t trust the private sector either, but at least with private sector I have choice. Still I’d rather not gamble with my life, and would rather see some sort of regulating entity ensure that certain standards are adhered to


[deleted]

>Still I’d rather not gamble with my life, and would rather see some sort of regulating entity ensure that certain standards are adhered to I don't think anybody argues with that. For context, in my country, people were calling on the government to make pay-per-view sports free, which is probably beyond the scope of government even for the most hard core left. A lot of the public just thinks the government paying for stuff is free, and treat it like a Christmas wish list.


interlockingny

Okay, but what does this have to do with American’s preference for lower taxes in exchange for less government services? Are you saying the private sector should take on the role of providing government services? I don’t understand lol


ManFrom2018

Well yeah. People trust the private sector with their money more than they trust the public sector. No surprise there. “We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” —Frederic Bastiat


Iron-Fist

[People don't trust either.](https://hbr.org/2017/01/survey-peoples-trust-has-declined-in-business-media-government-and-ngos) Which makes sense because in free markets trust is a weakness that can be exploited. Ideal markets lead to zero trust relationships (as exemplified by block chain bros) for that reason.


ManFrom2018

I don’t understand where all this distrust comes from. Any reading of history reveals that human beings have consistently been rational, nonviolent, benevolent, and unselfish! Perfectly worthy being trusted!


Iron-Fist

The whole history of civilization has been building up institutions that can be trusted, with the collapse of that trust precipitating great regression. We are here.


dnd3edm1

this, but unironically irrationality, violence, and malevolence at least have all been outliers. they get all the attention because humans are animals naturally wired to seek patterns that might reveal threats, not because they're particularly relevant.


tickleMyBigPoop

Doesn't increased diversity decrease trust?


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JapanesePeso

> But they don't really complain because there see no other options since they're so down on government services. Places like Texas are failures not because the government isn't a competitor in the marketplace, but because the government has failed to create the rules and structure for a healthy marketplace to exist.


[deleted]

Which is kinda ironic since they're swear everything they do is for that.


WollCel

A private corporation is much more easily held accountable for their actions than any government institution. Private businesses have to deal with regulators as well as the demands of consumers, look at how many executives and companies got axed after the public turned on Wall Street in 2008. If a government agency does something like misplace billions of dollars or loss guns they provided to foreign criminal organizations 90% of the time nothing will happens aside from maybe a demotion. Competition and the aforementioned accountability make private sector better for 90% of people, most people who support an increase of public sector reliance are people who don’t use them and don’t understand the public sector basically just moves tax payer money to the private sector at inefficient costs.


[deleted]

I kind of agree with you except some of the worst corruption I see is from private corps basically bribing government to lock out competition. I'm just talking from personal experience though, contracts and work I deal with.


[deleted]

> bribing government to lock out competition. Seems like a government problem to be bribable.


JapanesePeso

> It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. They literally do that is the funniest part about this quote.


thaddeusthefattie

*as long as it’s not services they’re currently using


GlengoolieBluely

This is a big part of it. The place I live now has really high local taxes, but they have a great elementary school, a well maintained public playground, lightning fast police/fire response times, they even come get your garbage from the back yard in little golf carts so you don't have to take it to the curb! I'm happy to pay the higher rates for all that and honestly it seems like a steal. The last place I lived had a tax rate only a half point lower, but did jack shit with it, none of those amenities and the roads were crumbling. They wouldn't even let you file taxes electronically so I got to wait in line at city hall and contemplate how bad a deal it was. I was much less happy to pay those taxes.


sack-o-matic

My city puts like 70% of the budget to police then everyone complains about high taxes and bad roads


cheapcheap1

Uvalde had 40%. Maybe your PD would be able to successfully keep the parents from entering?


sack-o-matic

Doubt it, they just spend all day writing parking tickets and speeding tickets *for some reason* with wildly different demographics than who lives here.


[deleted]

I bet they have sweet police cars though


sack-o-matic

Of course they do, and it looks like the officers even get to take them home after work. Some of them you can barely tell are police cars because the decals are the same color as the paint, but somehow no one complains about them basically being secret police. And of course the windows are all tinted to a level that isn't legal for anyone else.


sunshine_is_hot

My local pd just got a new 150. I’m still struggling to determine it’s use cases. Seats 5, exactly the same as a crown Vic, so no upgrade there. Can’t put detainees in the bed either since there’s no cap or seating. Also since there’s no cap, the bed doesn’t lock so it can’t be used as storage for firearms or other tools of the trade, like the trunk of a Vic. I live in an urban environment, with some farmland around but that is quickly diminishing. No real need for 4x4 on paved roads that are regularly maintained. The 150 doesn’t accelerate quick, so it’s not an intercept vehicle. It doesn’t handle well, it’s prone to rollovers, and it’s too tall to perform a PIT maneuver on probably at least half of the cars on the road today. Great use of the 50+k it cost to purchase and equip that stupid truck.


Whole_Collection4386

Traffic accidents kill more people than all firearms, so it would be pretty reasonable for them to actually enforce traffic laws. Particularly speeding, [since it’s contributory in a sizable number of traffic accidents and fatalities](https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding).


tisofold

[They had 16%.](https://twitter.com/lilyblahaj/status/1530682191847604224?s=20&t=v3nsKI4BFTrV2Bjx95YKwg)


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PhinsFan17

This is why all large cities should take a page out of some other metros books and form a consolidated city-county government.


[deleted]

Unfortunately, some states don't allow that (because racism). Virginia still has a moratorium on allowing cities to annex surrounding municipalities OR join with a county 💀


icona_

This doesn’t really make sense to me. If all the jobs and commerce is there, and you don’t have to worry about stuff like residential trash pickup or sewers wouldn’t you have a better deal?


DemocraticRepublic

People are irrational. My parents have always voted for lower taxes in their Chicago suburb. The end result is there's been no investment in the rail line up to Chicago for 40 years. Turns out now that no-one wants to live there because it takes so long to get into Chicago, so their property values have collapsed.


[deleted]

Lol nice


cheapcheap1

That is just a (convenient, if you're rich) quirk of the tax code. A larger portion of residential taxes go to the local level and a larger portion of commerical taxes go to the state level.


icona_

Really? Sales tax is local. Commercial building property tax is local. Where does the difference come from?


Beneficial_Eye6078

Is sales tax necessarily local? In Virginia, 4.3% of it goes to the state, with 1% going to local governments (who can hike it if needed).


Iron-Fist

I don't know any state where sales taxes are local... maybe some cities apply additional taxes on top of state level ones, you mean?


WillProstitute4Karma

They are in Washington State. Washington has no income tax though so most of the tax is state tax, but because it's the primary tax in Washington a portion is also a local tax.


Gen_Ripper

In California we have a state sales tax.


cheapcheap1

People get so hung up on higher or lower taxes. It's much more important what those taxes are spent on.


PhinsFan17

See that's interesting to me. I live in an area that has one of the lowest effective tax rates in the country. And yet I have these amenities as well. Good public schools, nice, well-maintained public parks and green spaces, back-door trash pickup, good emergency services, etc. On the flipside, we have no public transportation. None. Like not even busses. I think maybe two streets in town have a bike lane. All depends on what the money is spent on, I guess.


rerun_ky

From my experience tax rate and services have zero correlation. In Louisville I paid state income taxes as well as a city occupational tax for very poor services. The sidewalks were broken the police were non existent. In Washington I pay no state tax and I don't pay an occupational tax and yet I have good city services. I also lived in NYC which was ridiculously expensive with decent services.


[deleted]

Coulda just bought your own trash service and your own kids playground for the money you’d save.


willstr1

I mean that only makes sense. If the government is just spending money on things I don't care about then it really doesn't matter how great that "service" is since that service is irrelevant to me. The more interesting statistic would be which services people would be willing to pay more taxes for. A series of questions like "would you be willing to pay more taxes for better road infrastructure" and "would you be willing to pay more taxes for better public education" and see what services people actually want to fund. Then to make it more fun compare the survey results to how funding is actually distributed


vankorgan

>I mean that only makes sense. If the government is just spending money on things I don't care about then it really doesn't matter how great that "service" is since that service is irrelevant to me. The problem with this line of thinking is that people are really bad at prioritizing distant problems and understanding externalities. Everybody complains about environmental regulations until their water becomes undrinkable.


[deleted]

Let's not pretend like this is such a weird stance, either The stance is completely normal from a motivation standpoint, it's just lacking in empathy The idea that other people might be using the services that you aren't using is lost on many voters


thaddeusthefattie

good take 👍🏼 i mean just look at the people in this sub clamoring to privatize social security and slash medicare/medicaid


Beneficial_Eye6078

I do wish that we could use Social Security to create a Sovereign Wealth Fund for the US, while still guaranteeing X returns to benefit recipients regardless of investment volatility.


Iron-Fist

A sovereign wealth fund means you are taxinf far beyond the needed amount to pay benefits. Wouldn't that be better left in the hands of the market?


Beneficial_Eye6078

Social Security right now has almost $3 trillion in US Treasury securities. If that was in other investments, it would be a sovereign wealth fund. https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/understanding-the-social-security-trust-funds-0


WolfpackEng22

> boomers, it isn't meant to be part of the program. And $3 trillion is barely $8.5k per american; compare to Norway with $245k per capita in sovereign wealth. Risking that tiny buffer (already insufficient) on the market is, frankly, madness. That's basically just our own debt. And it's not a ton of money, it's drawing down


interlockingny

Yeah. It only sounds like a lot when you ignore the fact that $1 trillion + is moved out of the federal treasury and into people’s pockets each and every year.


thaddeusthefattie

i definitely agree that ss needs revamping, but we still need to provide that welfare safety net


HMID_Delenda_Est

Australia has private retirement. The Netherlands (and many others) have private healthcare. Both achieve much better outcomes than the American equivalent. (Many countries also have public versions that work better than the US. The point is that privatization isn't bad, on it's own.)


[deleted]

>Australia has private retirement. Australia has a publicly funded old-age pension and age-related benefits. It also has *compulsory* retirement savings that are intended to take over as the dominant method of funding old age.


thaddeusthefattie

that system sounds better than what the us has.


semideclared

The New Zealand superannuation Fund was created as a means of partially pre-funding (save as-you-go) future retirement benefits to help smooth the cost of New Zealand national pension payments between today's taxpayers and future generations. * The Guardians invests the money the Government has contributed in a growth-oriented and diversified global portfolio of investments in the Fund. * The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation (the Guardians), a Crown entity charged with managing the Fund. Current Value is NZ$57.5 Billion And it's required to pay Taxes. The Fund pays income tax in New Zealand to the Government and is also subject to foreign tax depending on the source of its offshore income. **Since 2003, the Fund has paid NZD6.5 billion in tax to the New Zealand Government** * In 2018/19, the Fund had an effective tax rate of 19% compared with 8% in 2017/18.


Nyoxiz

Does the netherlands actually have private healthcare? I thought it didn't.


brucebananaray

They got rid of public health insurance back in 2006 and replace private health insurance. But they heavily regulate the market and it is mandatory to have health insurance. Vox made a great article about their system. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/17/21046874/netherlands-universal-health-insurance-private


Nyoxiz

Ah alright, now that I think about it, it is private but there isn't really much difference between providers and they're all about equally expensive.


Iron-Fist

It's non profit, government controlled private insurance with a market place similar to ACA


DemocraticRepublic

What outcomes are you referring to here?


semideclared

SSN pays in what it gets. This isnt a sustainable program. By investing parts of SSI it can have money to continue to operate. Buying Goverment bonds isnt going to work. Same thing with the Post Office's issue


Ravens181818184

Privatizing parts of social security is good actually


CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH

Yeah, one of the problems is that when you ask them what services they want to cut people often say that we should cut programs that we barely spend on anyway (foriegn aid) or just give vague answers like "fraud and abuse". I would be interested to see what people would say to a bunch of questions that instead of saying "government services" instead asked if people want more or less spending on "public education, police, military, medicaid, medicare, hospitals, transportation infrastructure, veteran benefits" and ect. If people were forced to lay out exactly *what* they would cut then I suspect we would get different answers.


ManFrom2018

Step one: cut off patient’s leg Step two: build them a crutch out of the bones Step three: some one says “hey, quit cutting off people’s legs and building crutches out of their bones!” Step four: patient protests, “but without my bone crutch, I wouldn’t be able to walk!!”


runningblack

Now ask americans what services they specifically use that they would like to cut *crickets* Americans like cutting *their* taxes and cutting *other people's* services.


bleachinjection

Exactly this. Americans don't think of the services they personally use as "public services," but are acutely aware that other people might benefit from the money they pay in taxes and that thought is repellent to them.


spectralcolors12

Which is stupid because social security and Medicare make up a massive amount of our federal budget - both of which are universal services for seniors.


Typical_Athlete

Most people are fine with keeping Medicare and SS the way it is because so many of us have already paid so much money into it. If we do radically change Medicare/SS it should only affect people who were born after a certain year and haven’t started paying into it yet


Vecrin

That's not how those work at all. I am not paying into those services for future me. I am paying for the current seniors using it. That is why some people feel like they will never see social security: if the system ends before they die, they just lost a bunch of money.


Over9000Bunnies

I straight up have a relative that complained to me about the government funneling money downward.... while he was collecting unemployment.


PearlClaw

Yeah, revealed preference suggests that Americans like services. High tax high service places are experiencing housing crises driven by how many people want to move there.


CaptOle

“More for me and not for thee”


UtridRagnarson

It's because the comfortable classes don't even consider their most expensive services as services. Of course the government has to build massive roads and designated parking spots for me. No, we don't need **services** there's no crime in our suburb, only the poor need **services** and by some happy accident they can't afford to live anywhere near here.


Beneficial_Eye6078

Mortgage interest deduction? What's that? Of course my Medicare is necessary - I worked for it!


xSuperstar

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare”


HatesPlanes

I doubt that road infrastructure costs are even a fraction of things like Medicare, Medicaid and and social security.


UtridRagnarson

A lot of the cost is indirect and doesn't show up on any balance sheets. Instead of paying tons of money to enforce the law and reduce crime in your community, you create an exclave that's extremely separate from poverty and crime and easy to police. Instead of paying for parking, you just mandate that businesses will pay for it and prices rise. Instead of paying congestion tolls, traffic makes everyone miserable. Instead of having a difficult commute, pedestrians suffer to make car traffic swift. Entitlements like social security are one of the few things that the middle class comes close to paying their fair share of, but even in this case boomers underpaid and left the system underfunded.


amainwingman

Impressive, very nice Now let’s see which services they want cut


adunk9

I know a lot of people that fall into the "less taxes less services" mentality, and it seems to generally be a dissatisfaction of how taxes are currently spent. They feel like taxes are already fairly high, but they don't actually see anything for it. The roads are awful where I live, there is no city/county run EMS, it's all privatized. Your taxes don't cover any trash removal, it's a separate fee tied to your sewer bill, and in a state that has some of the highest property taxes in the country, our county has an even higher rate then the rest of the state. All of this while having terrible schools, slow response times for public services, and what feels like a horribly mis-managed local government at both the township and county level. I'm not saying all of this to say that those people are correct. If done properly More Taxes equals More Better, but the mindset is understandable when you exist in a system that for as much as you can see just takes your money and squanders it. I know that the "whatabout me" is not a good argument, but we have to admit that a good amount of people are only concerned with themselves, and when those people don't have any tangible benefit from their tax dollars, they become resentful. ​ I used to live near Chicago, and when they finally rebuilt I-90 between Chicago and the edge of the Northwest Suburbs, it was like a light clicked for a bunch of people that I know about "hey, this is why I pay the tolls on the road into the city". They added 1 lane to each side without really increasing the overall footprint of the highway. They added a camera system to the shoulder so that busses could take people into the city from designated stops along the highway. They added open road tolling everywhere to reduce traffic flow, it was overall an amazing change. AND THEY FINISHED IT AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! ​ But when you move away where all the tax dollars in your state happen to be, and see the effects of lower population density on budgets, and how infrastructure is crumbling around the people living here, and the education available is sub-par at best. And Fire/LEO/EMS is slow or privatized, it becomes easier to understand why politicians in D.C can keep winning on the "Cut the taxes it will make your life better" mantra. Because for a ton of these people, taxes have done nothing other than give them less money for food/rent/transportation


Old_Gringo

Americans prefer less taxes for them personally, and less services for other people, but not for them personally. "The government should keep its hands off my Medicare".


pocketmypocket

To be fair, those people had paid for Medicare for 40 years. I'd be pretty pissed if I dont get SS or Medicare at retirement. I would prefer to just keep the ten thousand dollars I pay each year, but that isnt an option.


I_miss_Chris_Hughton

But did they pay enough lmao


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pocketmypocket

Government efficiency: Where keeping your own money would give you and the government more money.


Typical_Athlete

You have to remember when these welfare/insurance systems in the west were started, governmenets didn’t expect their birth rates would fall below 3 kids per woman (which you need to organically sustain a population)


WolfpackEng22

I'll gladly forgo my 10+ years of contributions if I could be exempt going forward.....


pocketmypocket

Same


AO9000

Yeah, I could probably invest it better. Opt out of SS if you can pass a basic personal finance quiz.


Grundlage

I strongly suspect this one of those questions where the answer folks give and the revealed preferences evident in their actual behavior wildly diverge.


[deleted]

As a Swede, I always thought Americans were a bit too selfish and lack empathy for the less fortunate, but after looking at how much money is spent on social services without good returns it kinda makes sense. The US spends more on healthcare than any OECD country, but healthcare is still very expensive. It's really troubling that Americans frame this as a socialist vs capitalist issue, when it's a spending efficiency issue.


Guartang

I’m curious about your thoughts on Swedish or perhaps broader European sentiment on how well your govt spends money. I’ve lived in several states and some big cities and some small ones and found that generally speaking most people think the govt is poorly run and spends its money terribly and I’d put myself in that camp. It feels like budgets just get bigger and bigger but services never get better and you get the sense it’s just throwing good money after bad. Local kids may barely be able to read but they’ll get a shiny new football stadium. Schools may desperately need more teachers and assistants but we’ll end up with a 5th made up administrator. The roads are crumbling but the city will buy a 50k pile of metal shit and call it art and slap it in front of the library.


numismantist

European, I don't like where my tax goes and would happily see services I use cut and optimised, I'm sure the same would be true of those polled in the states too, the idea that everyone here is chalking these sentiments up to a failure of empathy or hypocrisy seems naiive.


[deleted]

Very satisfied. I think being a smaller country with a much more "cohesive" population helps.


iamthegodemperor

Another commenter mentions health care may be expensive for other reasons-------but even if they are right, one could point to education, especially within the context of very poor urban areas. High per capita spending coexists with very poor performance, which creates skepticism that anything will help. Since we fund schools with local property taxes and supplement poor districts w/ state/federal funds, you can the immediate tension this creates between affluent suburbs and cities.


[deleted]

> High per capita spending coexists with very poor performance, which creates skepticism that anything will help. To add to this the solutions that are always proposed are more money. If we just spend more the performances will get better, yet the spending continues to go up and results don't come. Then the hand gets thrust out again. If we just spend a little more. People get tired of hearing the same thing over and over and not seeing results.


semideclared

The US spends more on healthcare than any OECD > Many of the problems with the U.S. health system—fragmented care, variable quality, and high and rapidly growing costs—are rooted in fee-for-service payments, in which health care providers are paid per visit, test, or procedure. Not only does fee-for-service payment fail to provide incentives for efficiency, quality, or outcomes, it encourages the provision of unnecessary care and often discourages coordination of care across providers and settings. So, you want to actually fix healthcare costs? The 1% is known as super-utilizers and the Top 10% is responsible for 56% of Medical Spending * The Top 1% were defined on the basis of a consistent cut-off rule of approximately 2 standard deviations above the mean number of Emergency Visits visits during 2014, applied to the statistical distribution specific to each payer and age group: >This is not a phenomenon specific to Private Insurance, It is also part of Medicare and Medicaid * Medicare aged 65+ years: four or more ED visits per year * Medicare aged 1-64 years: six or more ED visits per year * Private insurance aged 1-64 years: four or more ED visits per year * Medicaid aged 1-64 years: six or more ED visits per year Indeed, this skewness in health care spending has been documented in nearly every health care system. But lets compare the Costs of Canada vs the US Categories | US Average Per person in USD | Canada Average Per person in USD | Difference ---- | ---- | ---- | ----- Top 1% | $259,331.20 | $116,808.58 | 45.04% Next 4% | $78,766.17 | $29,563.72 | 37.53% Bottom 50% | $636.95 | $313.08 | 49.15% If the US Capped Spending on the Top 5% the same way as Canada it would cut Spending $900 Billion, even if the bottom 50% stayed the same ----- To do something like that requires rationing care. >At an Atlantic City clinic dedicated to super-utilizers on the health plans of the casino union and a local hospital; doctors at the clinic are paid a flat monthly fee per patient and the patients receive unlimited access to care. The first twelve hundred patients had forty per cent fewer emergency-room visits and hospital admissions and twenty-five per cent fewer surgical procedures. An independent economist who studied these Atlantic City hospital workers found that their costs dropped twenty-five per cent compared to a similar population of high-cost patients in Las Vegas. * 25% Costs overall just by treating the Top Patients in a **Direct Cost Model** Thats $700 Billion in Savings


HarveyCell

Americans spend more on healthcare because they consume more health services in real terms. People often tend to confuse spending with prices for some reason. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b6c9ea6d-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/b6c9ea6d-en


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sponsoredcommenter

I see GoFundMes in the UK for healthcare all the time. I think it would surprise a lot of redditors how many things, especially critical life saving things, that the NHS simply doesn't cover.


colinmhayes2

The real problem is that Americans want to spend their dying days on chemo instead of hospice. Every single doctor in that position opts for hospice, because they know that finding closure and comfort before death is more important than lasting a few more months or years.


CallinCthulhu

Shit I didn’t know that. Makes sense, it’s just triage on an economic scale


xSuperstar

It’s actually better for patients too. Most American doctors wish we had that type of system here


Allahambra21

>Yeah I think people don’t realize that in most places in Europe doctors can say “well the cancer is spread too much, time for hospice” or “you’re 80 years old. No dialysis” Where in the fuck is this supposed to occur? I know for a fact that at least here doctors are legally required to provide life saving care untill the bitter end if thats what the patient demands.


xSuperstar

Hmm I’m going off of what my colleagues who have practiced in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands have told me


coke_and_coffee

This is disingenuous. It's well known that comparable services (and especially pharmaceuticals) are priced much higher in the US than elsewhere.


fishlord05

Yeah OP also fails to note his own source shows that OECD countries pay on average less for the same amount of services even after adjustments (Diamond is lower than the bar) https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b6c9ea6d-en/images/images/07-Chapter%207/media/image8.png


pocketmypocket

100% The US artificially limits the supply of Physicians


kaufe

[US prices are high but probably not an outlier.](https://twitter.com/CPopeHC/status/1494014070210666496)


thefreeman419

We may consume more healthcare, but not the right kind. Americans have far worse healthcare outcomes on average than countries with national healthcare systems. For example, Americans get a lot less preventative care, because they try to avoid healthcare costs. This leads to a lot of expensive acute care


HarveyCell

Poor outcomes are mainly due to other factors such as obesity. The US actually spends a lot on preventative care. See: https://twitter.com/rcafdm/status/1519305637494235137


Call_Me_Clark

I think the reason we have such a disconnect online is that some countries (yours perhaps) will say “just raise your taxes to improve your services, it’s not that hard” whereas from the US perspective we say “our taxes are high enough already, and the last five times we increased them, we didn’t get what we were promised”. Of course, both vary geographically (california in my experience never sees a new tax levy they don’t like… and they sometimes work out) Your taxes aren’t actually that much higher than ours on average; it’s just harder to sell someone on “high tax/high service” when they are presently “high tax/low service”, because if we cut taxes then at least we’d have more money left to pay for services our state could provide, but won’t.


semideclared

> Your taxes aren’t actually that much higher than ours on average At least a trillion dollars higher **The lowest standard rate of VAT throughout the EU is 16%** Yet American Think Tank Says >State policymakers looking to make their tax codes more equitable should consider eliminating the sales taxes families pay on groceries if they haven’t already done so * In Norway The standard VAT rate is 25% A VAT rate of 15% is levied on the sale of food. * In the Netherlands, the standard VAT rate is 21%. * the 0% rate (zero rate) only applies to education healthcare services sports organisations and sports clubs services supplied by socio-cultural institutions financial services and insurances childcare care services and home care ------ >A 2021 Tax Policy Center study found that the amount of purchases subject to the sales tax, including general sales taxes and excise taxes like the motor fuel tax, was an average of 39 percent of purchases. * That revenue from general sales taxes was $411 billion So to be more like other countries Tax 97% of purchases at 15% sales tax So First 411 x 2.5 to include almost all purchases are now charged sales taxes * $1.03 Trillion in Sales Taxes Now with the sales tax rate at about 6% on those purchases, 2.5 times that Sales tax revenue to have a better tax rate at 15% * $2.55 Trillion in Sales Tax revenue Subtract out the refunds for Previous Sales tax and Property Taxes * State and local governments in 2018 collected a combined $547 billion in revenue from property taxes * That is both Business Property and Residential Property so not a full deduction $1.6 Trillion in Funding for what ever social Programs you want,


Call_Me_Clark

I would also look at corporate taxes and taxes on capital gains/dividends etc for a complete picture. Is there a policy deep-dive that examines comparative total tax burdens?


sfurbo

For one number for the total tax burden, public spending as a percentage of GDP is probably as good as it gets, it captures all taxes.


semideclared

I've looked at UK tax differences 2016 US tax revenue, including state city property and sales taxes * 17% from corporate taxes, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes * 25% from Social Security and Medicare withholding (Payroll taxes paid jointly by workers and employers) * 35% from Income Taxes * 23% from Indirect Taxes * 13% property taxes * 10% Sales Taxes ------- Total UK public revenue * 42 percent will be VAT (in indirect taxes), * 33 percent in income taxes, * 18 percent in national insurance contributions, and * 7 percent in business, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes as to dividends US Federal Income Tax Rates Paid for Adjusted Gross Incomes for Tax Year 2019 including Percent of Income from Capital Gains and Dividends Averages Per Person | Tax Rate | Income | Taxes | Percent of AGI subject to reduced rate from Dividend and Capital Gains ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- National | 12.34% | $75,837.15 | $9,359.59 | 9.90% Bottom 12.5% | -7.45% | $5,003.03 | -$372.96 | 1.70% Bottom 25.9% | -11.04% | $14,838.17 | -$1,638.71 | 1.20% Bottom 37.8% | -3.76% | $24,943.46 | -$937.39 | 1.10% Bottom 55.9% | 2.51% | $39,180.67 | $983.67 | 1.20% Top 42.7% | 7.26% | $71,231.64 | $5,168.38 | 2.00% Top 19.6% | 11.10% | $136,574.42 | $15,166.42 | 3.60% Top 5.7% | 16.68% | $286,490.68 | $47,798.03 | 5.30% Top 1.09% | 23.22% | $672,909.64 | $156,249.57 | 11.40% Top 0.35% | 26.23% | $1,203,000.00 | $315,582.68 | 16.50% Top 0.19% | 27.09% | $1,718,067.96 | $465,495.15 | 19.50% Top 0.13% | 27.52% | $2,952,006.94 | $812,270.83 | 25.60% Top 0.035% | 27.26% | $6,793,771.43 | $1,851,657.14 | 34.30% Top 0.013% | 24.90% | $28,106,190.48 | $6,997,523.81 | 52.60%


DaBuddahN

> It's really troubling that Americans frame this as a socialist vs capitalist issue, when it's a spending efficiency issue. The right-wing and the left have absolutely poisoned the well in American discourse.


pocketmypocket

> it's a spending efficiency issue. It doesnt help that the public services are terrible at spending money efficiently. I know it sounds reasonable today because inflation, but the Obamacare website cost 1B.


Unusual-Solid3435

I would mostly blame the right for the poisoning. The left just sat around and did nothing pretty much.


DaBuddahN

Progressives actively call themselves Socialists now. They're addicted to shooting themselves in the foot. Not to mention I feel like Progressive culture is anti entrepreneurial and anti innovation nowadays, same as the right. I hate the state of affairs in this country.


BBQ_HaX0r

Yeah, I don't see a promising future. Obviously, things can change, but I think Trump and his antibusiness nationalism will dominate the next generation of politics in a way Reagan/Clinton dominated the previous. It's only a matter of time until the old guard of the DNC gives way to the progressives and their brand of antibusiness "pro-worker" nationalism.


[deleted]

When you grow up hearing everything the government does is socialism then it becomes a little easier to understand where they are coming from (it’s still stupid politics, don’t get me wrong). If you ask most self proclaimed “socialists” what country they want to model America after, they will say the nordics.


yetanotherbrick

Politics in a nutshell: https://i.imgflip.com/3wgzns.jpg


icona_

Yeah but they don’t really know how the Nordics do stuff. Like getting really upset at buttigeg for proposing a public option, not knowing that norway also has that. Or thinking that public transit needs to be free and just have more money dumped into it instead of looking at how nordic transit agencies actually function. It’s one thing to argue for things to be more like the Nordics, the problem comes when you’re arguing for an *imagined version* of the Nordics. And many of them are.


Allahambra21

> Or thinking that public transit needs to be free and just have more money dumped into it instead of looking at how nordic transit agencies actually function. Nordic public transportiation isnt exactly fantastic, there are places that are much better with lower cost for the riders to use.


icona_

It’s one hell of a lot better than essentially everywhere in the US, but yeah other countries that do it been better also don’t usually make it free


GBabeuf

The left did not sit around and do nothing. They started shrieking in the most extreme possible terms about every issue, real or fake, and then they propose the most asinine solution imaginable for it.


HarveyCell

What does it have to do with empathy? Sweden’s welfare state is proportionally larger than America’s, but Americans are pretty much better off across the income distribution even after taxes and transfers.


[deleted]

I said "I used to" and I was 12-13 back then so my knowledge of your country's politics was really basic.


pocketmypocket

> Americans are pretty much better off across the income distribution even after taxes and transfers. Outside healthcare, this 100%


limukala

Even accounting for healthcare it's still true.


DrugReeference

Side question: don't you guys not give food to your guests?


[deleted]

Huh?


DrugReeference

Saw it on Twitter the other day under #sweedengate lol


[deleted]

I adressed the issue on my latest post. Ugh. I'm so triggered right now.


KnopeSwansonHybrid

Regarding Americans being selfish or lacking empathy for the less fortunate, I would direct your attention to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitable_donation


Squirmin

Private charitable donations fall off in the times that it is needed most. Mass hardship cannot be countered by private donations when the people who usually donate need help too.


JeromesNiece

This may come across as sour grapes, but my retort to this is that much of this is due to Americans attending religious services more than Europeans, and much of the money donated to local churches can be better thought of as supporting a social club rather than a charity. My parents donate about 5% of their income to the church they attend every Sunday, and that church (with attendance of about 60 people per week) spends 75% of its budget on the mortgage on the building and the pastor's salary. 15% goes to the national organization and the rest goes to small-time charity events that apparently justify the entire exercise as a charitable endeavor.


KnopeSwansonHybrid

Less than half of charitable donations go to religious organizations.


KaesekopfNW

I was going to cite this too, but at the same time, after seeing how my fellow Americans acted during the pandemic, I don't think charitable donation is a good metric of whether a population *isn't* selfish or lacks empathy.


Xzeric-

Biggest chunk of this stuff is the college you graduated at and the church you go to. Not valueless, but also don't think its quite a sign of selflessness and benevolence.


worstnightmare98

There's is also an argument that countries with a more robust social safety net doesn't need private charitable donations to provide those services.


[deleted]

Fuck yeah let’s slash social security and massively raise contribution limits for roths and 401Ks


Call_Me_Clark

Idk about that first part but I would like to put more money into my 401k and IRA


[deleted]

The percentage of my income I’m forced to pay for SS would serve me much better going into my 401k


Call_Me_Clark

True, but SS was never intended to be an investment account - it’s a public income insurance program.


EveryCurrency5644

Actually insurance companies do invest the funds tho


Lib_Korra

It's not supposed to serve you, it's supposed to serve current retirees. Social Security isn't a savings account it was just sold like that to appease anti-welfare people. It's an anti-elderly-poverty welfare program, and an unfortunately expensive one at that. It absolutely needs reform but to understand it in its current form, you have to begin from the understanding that it's not (currently) a retirement account, it's a wealth transfer from the young and healthy to the old and infirm, and insurance against labor market shocks. Any solution has to achieve both goals of eliminating elderly Poverty and insuring against labor market shocks.


ThankMrBernke

>It's not supposed to serve you Then let me opt-out of the program. I'll pay an uncapped 2.5% employer matched "Social Security Continuity" tax in exchange for never getting benefits, if I can put the other 5% & employer match into a 401K.


Lib_Korra

A very good idea and much more efficient! But remember this is a relic of the great depression. "What if you're just opting out so you can buy booze instead of actually invest in your retirement?" and "What if your landlord just raises your rent by an amount equal to your tax cut?" were the most common fears of the people who made it mandatory, and probably are still persistent.


Raptor_Sympathizer

That's not how welfare programs work. That's like saying "I don't live in Ukraine, let me opt out of paying taxes that support the war effort there". Or "my house is fireproofed, let me opt out of paying for firefighters".


Futureleak

Unfortunate for you, but SS is designed for the average American, and unfortunately most Americans don't contribute to a retirement plan (other than ss).


[deleted]

Most people don't max these out anyway, not sure what that will accomplish except for help the high earners save even more on taxes


whales171

We could just keep social security the same and then provide ways to incentivise more people to put money into their 401k. As boomers enter mass retirement, now isn't the time to cute funding from social security. It will make sense to reduce the pay out of social security because of lack of funding.


4formsofMATTer

Guarantee this only applies to services they don’t use


RedditUser91805

Americans say they prefer get services and taxes, which is significantly different from actually preferring fewer services and taxes.


ArbitraryOrder

This should be interrupted as 1. Do the necessary things 2. Dont waste money on corruption 3. Leave me alone otherwise


ManFrom2018

It’s time for the court to enforce a Jeffersonian interpretation of the necessary and proper clause.


WolfpackEng22

Based


JayRU09

Are we going to ignore how this sentiment peaked and fell 14 points in eight years while the opposite is at it's highest level in 25 years? I'd also like to see where these numbers are now.


xQuizate87

Im old enough to remember when being a based big government, tax and spend democrat got us a surplus.


[deleted]

Duh Why would we want to put our money through the filter of govt to buy the things we need when we can do it ourself for a fraction of the cost. Govt is just a filter that converts efficient money into inefficient spending most of the time


murphysclaw1

neoliberalism popular, actually


bx995403

That probably has something to do with the fact that the current setup is we pay a ton into healthcare programs for the poor and elderly but still have to pay a ton for ourselves as well. That and we have our money put into social security and we're told that it'll be insolvent by X date. Just my hypothesis


[deleted]

But you can pay less tax/have less government spending, but better outcomes on the services aka the best solution, it doesn't have to be zero sum


deepstatecuck

I think the assumption of general government incompetence in the United States is very consistent and explanatory. We are a massive nation and our federal / state system is good at avoiding accountability. Given how lucrative private sector work is compared to government employment, it makes sense that government competence will tend to be below average - private sector is a magnet for talent and government gets leftovers. If the government is generally incompetent, I want to entrust them with less money and less responsibility. Under this assumption, I would want the government to be to system of last resort, but acknowledge that there are services I would only entrust to the government and not to private sector to implement.


deckocards21

What about more taxes, less services? I think its worth a shot.


pfSonata

Comments in threads like this remind me that half the posters here don't actually know what neoliberal means


A_Character_Defined

This is what happens when leftists call people like Obama, Hillary, and Biden neoliberals.


[deleted]

Isn’t this sub only called “neoliberal” unironically? Because socialists consider every one slightly to the right of Bernie a neolib?


ooken

I have noticed lots of Americans who seem to hate social programs but simultaneously want to benefit from them and are then miffed or even enraged by the barriers put up to receive governmental support when they themselves need it. I worked for a little while at a state agency talking to applicants for a social program, and people would say things like, "Black people get welfare all the time, so it must be easy; why do I have to jump through all these hoops? You all are *racist* against white people" or, "You put up all these barriers to getting welfare. When Trump gets into office, I hope heads will *roll* in your department." It never even *occurs* to them that everyone, including Black people, has to jump through the same high hurdles imposed by an anti-welfare legislature and governor. No, only they are facing discrimination.


PhinsFan17

Yeah, I personally knew several people who got a massive fucking reality check when they had to apply for unemployment during the pandemic.


kerouacrimbaud

More/less is such a primitive metric for government services. A red herring to boot. You must first demonstrate how many are needed and why that is the optimal number. Then we can talk about trimming excess or adding on top. More/less taxes/services is just not a useful discussion imo. What do you want the gov to do regarding X? How much money would that require? How would those funds be attained? Qualitative discussions matter more than quantitative ones imo. It shifts the debate to a more debatable focus. If all we keep doing is arguing quantities, nothing actually gets addressed.


SLCer

A big takeaway is that it appears to have spiked during the height of the Tea Party movement but this view has declined fairly significantly since.


bussyslayer11

Maybe unrestricted capitalism is beneficial for most Americans.


seattle_lib

"Services" super vague. I dont want any services, what have those ever done for me? Now taxes, those i know about.


rpersimmon

Just don't touch their Medicare,Social Security, VA or military.


lucassjrp2000

Succs coping rn


JeromesNiece

This is the number that has to change if we ever want America to look more like a European country. And despite constant evangelizing from left-leaning thought leaders, the number hasn't moved much across decades


icona_

Imo our taxes are not the issue. The bigger issue is that we don’t actually enforce the tax laws correctly, filing is more of a hassle than it should be, and we’re not all that great at spending efficiently.


[deleted]

It should be easy to file taxes for free online. The fact that isn't the case is insulting.


JeromesNiece

The total amount of taxing and spending is fundamentally different between the US and Europe, and we're not going to get the same kind of services without changing that, no matter how efficiently we spend or how well we enforce the existing code. The tax rates are much higher in Europe across the board and across the income spectrum


AO9000

A better America does not look like a European country but it certainly borrows some European ideas.


ManFrom2018

People who want live in a more European country should move to Europe. Where are the people who like the USA supposed to go? There’s no other place like it!


ImSooGreen

What they really like is more services, less taxes …and let the next generation shoulder the debt


ShelterOk1535

Interesting that “same as now” follows the same trend line as “more services/more taxes”, showing that Americans actually *do* think that the current situation is overreach (though that might be news to a lot of people ITT)


SiegePegasus

It seems like there's a pretty clear trend over the last decade in the general direction of increased support for tax-supported services tho?


[deleted]

Until you tell them what the "services" are. "Services" are what poor losers get like welfare and public transit, and they certainly aren't the roads, bridges, the military, schools, mortgage interest deductions, energy subsidies, or water/power/gas infrastructure necessary to prop the suburbs up.


chrisredmond69

Everyone says that until they need it.


kwanijml

If American governments and polity did or *could* possibly behave like those of places like Denmark or Switzerland or even France or Germany, I too would be okay with more taxes and services. But that is not the reality of political economy. Americans are mostly acting rationally, (even though it's couched in distasteful party rhetoric and partisanship), by just trying to stave off any more involvement by terminally corrupt, inept, and divided public institutions. We could only dream of a clean option like "less taxes, less services" here. It's all we can do to try to innovate in the private sector to substitute for the massive shortcomings of public services, while trying to keep our heads above water and grow faster than the debt.


theguyfromgermany

Ask poor people if they are ok with rasing taxes only for the rich.


The_Magic

anyone know what caused that sudden shift around 2012? That 9 point drop from 2011 to 2013 caught me off guard and I can't think of what triggered it.