this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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Accurate except for the “instead” part. Road maintenance comes from local taxes, whereas military aid comes from federal taxes.
Well if you really want to get technical about it.... No programs or spending are really funded by taxes anyway, the government just says "OK" and the numbers in the bank accounts of the companies implementing said program go up. Taxes funding things is just a myth. Taxes just delete money. So technically, nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void.
Edit: People seem to be down voting because they think this is tinfoil hat BS or something. It's not. Look up modern monetary theory. Governments with fiat currency don't need to collect money to pay for things. They just invent and issue more currency. See this video: https://youtu.be/75udjh6hkOs?amp%3Bt=1628
That has real sovcit vibes.
Not at all. Look up MMT. Modern monetary theory and economics are well beyond "spend taxes to fund programs". Governments that issue debts in their own made up currency don't need to "spend" money, they just give money to the programs they support.
As far as I understand that's the definition of fungibility, right? Every dollar is interchangeable and identical?
So there's no functional difference between deleting $1 and creating $1 except semantics, compared to moving $1, as long as the total value doesn't change.
The government just deleting money and printing money to pay for whatever it wants suggests that those things aren't equal, which would be the problem if it were true.
That’s what causes inflation. When you print more than you delete, at a rate faster than total economic growth.
Yes, they both create and delete money. That doesn't mean that the two processes need to be equal or balanced.
Your purchases do, or someone is owed their portion of the transaction. That's not the case when the government is writing bonds or appropriating funding to programs. They can create money freely, regardless of the tax they collect. Taxes serve a different purpose.
Tell that to Japan. One of the highest spenders. Still stuck in perpetual de flation for over 20 years at this point.
It's not that simple.