If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Isn't that ironic, that people like you leave comments like yours and get moderated up like in this case while talking about the government in USA, a country, where people came to for freedoms?
Freedoms, as in freedoms from government.
The reason USA became the wealthiest country in the world in 19 century was capitalist free market and industrialization, which only became possible because the US was so free to do business in because the government was so limited, so small and so insignificant.
What are you basing this on? In the 19th century the USA wasn't a super power and wasn't doing all that well with pretty much slave labor camps otherwise known as textile mills just to get started. In the 20th century we became a super power due to massive infrastructure investments giving us our highway system and DARPA helped us build the Internet as we know it today. Sorry, government played a huge part in all of that. Everything from establishing minimal wage to setting fire codes help improve the way o
USA should never have become a 'superpower', building empires is against its original ideals, that was distrustful of empire needs for standing armies, heavy taxes, large bureaucracies, and centralized decision making.
USA however did manage to pay out all of its debts in 19 century and to become the world's largest creditor nation. It took on all sorts of loans during the century but US used the loans to build up production capacity, to increase its infrastructure and to start manufacturing that allowed it
Your view of history is downright scary but if you were indeed born in the USSR then it would make sense that you have a very incomplete picture of how the USA developed in the 1800s and early 1900s.
As for corporate taxes I laugh as your assertion given that GE paid zero tax dollars and did billions of dollars in business and is by no means unprofitable. On a smaller scale, my company does a few hundred million and again, pays almost no taxes due to loopholes and reinvestment. When you can afford to pay for a tax lawyer you end up paying almost no taxes, this is why GE pays for an army of them.
Rail in America died not because of the interstate system but because of corruption on a massive scale, see the very definition of robber barren.
Fire codes were established because private businesses were building unsafe buildings which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people by the early 1900s. They are very much necessary. Minimum wage effectively ended slavery and serfdom as workers could no longer be taken such advantage of. This is the product of textile mills with their corporation owned towns that paid their workers just enough to pay rent ensuring that they would forever work in the textile mill. There is no reason to think lifting it now would be anything but bad for the people already hit the hardest by the recession. Apprenticeships still exist today so I'm not sure how you think they were destroyed. I myself have an apprentice and many people in my family have gone through the electrical apprenticeship process. It is quite alive and well, you just have to pay people enough to live.
As for Canada as it sounds like that is where you moved to. They have the exact same corruption of their process through monopolies gaining significant power and influence. I give the Canadian people a lot of credit for standing up to some of the more ridiculous proposals brought forth but Canada is headed in the same direction especially if the U.S. defaults on its debt.
Given the success of the American economy immediately after the great infrastructure project of the 30's and 40's I'm not sure how you can claim that it destroyed anything. Rail systems were already on their way out at that time and following it America saw more growth than any country ever before it.
Now for tech history which is always fun, the telcos got packet switching from DARPA, not the other way around. DARP created it, they then worked with universities around the world to establish Arpanet, [wikipedia.org] the world's first packet switched network. TCP/IP followed almost a decade later. DARPA has been responsible for a lot of the technical innovation in use today as are held as THE example of why the government should be involved in the research process.
One last thing, the U.S. in the 1800s was not a creditor nation at all. Until the early 1900s we weren't on the radar of any other nation. Our contributions to WWI set the stage for operating in the world theater but again, we weren't really that special until WW2 when our manufacturing capacity and military allowed us to supply Britain with weapons, ammo, and vehicles. That set the stage for America as a manufacturing powerhouse through the 1990's where outsourcing began heavily shrinking exports and drastically increasing imports which set us down the path we're currently dealing with. Of course corporate greed and unregulated commerce played huge parts in it as well which are arguments why we need the government to do its job.
Well ... (Score:5, Funny)
Easy enough (Score:0, Insightful)
If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Too bad government isn't voluntary, or t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't that ironic, that people like you leave comments like yours and get moderated up like in this case while talking about the government in USA, a country, where people came to for freedoms?
Freedoms, as in freedoms from government.
The reason USA became the wealthiest country in the world in 19 century was capitalist free market and industrialization, which only became possible because the US was so free to do business in because the government was so limited, so small and so insignificant.
Today, with gov
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you basing this on? In the 19th century the USA wasn't a super power and wasn't doing all that well with pretty much slave labor camps otherwise known as textile mills just to get started. In the 20th century we became a super power due to massive infrastructure investments giving us our highway system and DARPA helped us build the Internet as we know it today. Sorry, government played a huge part in all of that. Everything from establishing minimal wage to setting fire codes help improve the way o
Re: (Score:1)
What are you basing this on?
USA should never have become a 'superpower', building empires is against its original ideals, that was distrustful of empire needs for standing armies, heavy taxes, large bureaucracies, and centralized decision making.
USA however did manage to pay out all of its debts in 19 century and to become the world's largest creditor nation. It took on all sorts of loans during the century but US used the loans to build up production capacity, to increase its infrastructure and to start manufacturing that allowed it
Re:Easy enough (Score:2)
Your view of history is downright scary but if you were indeed born in the USSR then it would make sense that you have a very incomplete picture of how the USA developed in the 1800s and early 1900s.
As for corporate taxes I laugh as your assertion given that GE paid zero tax dollars and did billions of dollars in business and is by no means unprofitable. On a smaller scale, my company does a few hundred million and again, pays almost no taxes due to loopholes and reinvestment. When you can afford to pay for a tax lawyer you end up paying almost no taxes, this is why GE pays for an army of them.
Rail in America died not because of the interstate system but because of corruption on a massive scale, see the very definition of robber barren.
Fire codes were established because private businesses were building unsafe buildings which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people by the early 1900s. They are very much necessary. Minimum wage effectively ended slavery and serfdom as workers could no longer be taken such advantage of. This is the product of textile mills with their corporation owned towns that paid their workers just enough to pay rent ensuring that they would forever work in the textile mill. There is no reason to think lifting it now would be anything but bad for the people already hit the hardest by the recession. Apprenticeships still exist today so I'm not sure how you think they were destroyed. I myself have an apprentice and many people in my family have gone through the electrical apprenticeship process. It is quite alive and well, you just have to pay people enough to live.
As for Canada as it sounds like that is where you moved to. They have the exact same corruption of their process through monopolies gaining significant power and influence. I give the Canadian people a lot of credit for standing up to some of the more ridiculous proposals brought forth but Canada is headed in the same direction especially if the U.S. defaults on its debt.
Given the success of the American economy immediately after the great infrastructure project of the 30's and 40's I'm not sure how you can claim that it destroyed anything. Rail systems were already on their way out at that time and following it America saw more growth than any country ever before it.
Now for tech history which is always fun, the telcos got packet switching from DARPA, not the other way around. DARP created it, they then worked with universities around the world to establish Arpanet, [wikipedia.org] the world's first packet switched network. TCP/IP followed almost a decade later. DARPA has been responsible for a lot of the technical innovation in use today as are held as THE example of why the government should be involved in the research process.
One last thing, the U.S. in the 1800s was not a creditor nation at all. Until the early 1900s we weren't on the radar of any other nation. Our contributions to WWI set the stage for operating in the world theater but again, we weren't really that special until WW2 when our manufacturing capacity and military allowed us to supply Britain with weapons, ammo, and vehicles. That set the stage for America as a manufacturing powerhouse through the 1990's where outsourcing began heavily shrinking exports and drastically increasing imports which set us down the path we're currently dealing with. Of course corporate greed and unregulated commerce played huge parts in it as well which are arguments why we need the government to do its job.