Sure, and back then people didn't fathom flying, tanks, or space exploration either.
Good thing we learned better :)
Good thing we learned better :)
Of the things they could fathom, they might have even been better at them. Certainly better per dollar spent.
They also breed dependence and servitude to the centralized authority, many of which are even designed such that working and earning income puts you in a worse spot than not.
The people in charge aren’t stupid, it works this way by design.
The people in charge are just like you and me, they are trying to improve things and work really hard.
You would need the second derivative to be meaningful (and maybe that's what you mean), the percentage increase compared to the percentage increase in inflation (i.e., if in one year inflation is 2% and healthcare costs increase 4%, and the next year inflation is 2%, and healthcare costs are > 4%, and this trend continues, that would be concerning)
The federal government spends something like 10 times as much on defense as direct educational expenditures and it's still significantly more than education if you include things like loan financing in education.
I mean, OK, but that's only because the second part of your comparison isn't a federal government responsibility and there are only certain targeted initiatives (mostly pork-barrel) that fall into that category. Same for federal spending on education.
But when you look at all government spending on education, it's very clear that we spend more on education (5% of GDP, not counting loan guarantees) than on defense (3.7% of GDP). Except education is funded by local government whereas defense is funded by the federal government.
It's just not true that the federal government spends more on education than defense, in fact it's very lopsided in the other direction.
The context is a thread on the federal income tax specifically, and someone said the federal govt used to be not very technologically ambitious, and someone else says, essentially, it still isn't technologically ambitious, it spends most of its money on education and social welfare. OP corrected that. The social welfare part has some validity but federal education spending is quite minor.
Yes the total spending by all govts in the US including state + local has a lot more education spending but the thread and the whole article are focused on federal taxes.
As I think about more though, I must wonder if this could be a regional thing and varies.. and or if that is relevant to the specifics in this thread.
The more I think about it, I wonder if places like Cali and NY would think of things in that manner.. with places like Texas and TN thinking very differently.
It's an interesting thought, and wonder if there is data / polls out there for something seemingly basic like this.
Anyway, regardless of your personal definition of the term, the intent of communication of the person you are replying to is crystal clear and in obvious contradiction to your analysis. (That person expressly uses the word “federal.”)
The highest rate in 1913 was 7%. Today the lowest rate is 10%.
Those rates seem selected to support your point. For example, you left out that highest rate in 1944 was 94%.
There is also quite a bit of historical context that you are omitting. In 1913, without social security, common people in the US were impoverished in old age. The country had little infrastructure.
It's not as simple as "taxes only go up".
And with them, the country's population, infrastructure, and economy expanded and transformed. Some may argue for the better, others for the worse, but taxes and societal development are intrinsically linked.
Wars were financed, population and productivity increased by huge amounts, and the entire economy shifted from an agrarian to an industrial one. The country's massive physical, social and and human infrastructure was built, one that the current high standard of living is still largely dependent on.
It is highly motivated reasoning to only highlight the tax rate increases without the sweeping societal changes that accompanied them.