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Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

I'm not at all surprised that people brought up on political propaganda think that this propaganda represents the opinion of the "vast majority of economists".

The reality is, anyone who knows anything about economics knows that taxes inhibit economic growth.

The idea that this is wrong, is so absurd that it should be laughed at.... only the problem is, most americans are absolutely ignorant of economics and thus can be tricked into believing it. Or in your case, assuming that "the vast majority of economists" think this, and have done so "for decades".

Frankly, it is astounding how much you have rejected economic as a science while thinking the partisan ideology you're pitching is "economics".

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Any economist worth their salt knows that taxes may or may not inhibit economic growth. Taxes invested in infrastructure, security, and education may actually increase growth long term. Taxes wasted on corruption will most definitely hurt growth. Property taxes also encourage people to put properties to work, inheritance taxes encourage more dynamism between the generations (discourage old money aristocracy), and so on. Overly harsh taxes on the rich will also encourage avoidance (honest or dishonesty) and migration (negotiate your own rate with a swiss canton), while regressive taxes on the poor will lead to riots and revolts.

Societies are complex systems and managing them efficiently is actually (gasp) quite difficult.

Societies are complex systems and managing them efficiently is actually (gasp) quite difficult.

This is _precisely_ the core tenet of conservative fiscal policy. The idea of coordinating any economy of non-trivial size from a central position is a fool's errand and invariably puts drag on the economy.

The USA is hardly a very centralized system; a lot of taxation happens at the state and local levels, while spending as a share of GDP isn't crazy compared to other developed countries (who mostly consider us very conservative). From some cruddy numbers I found via a quick Google; if someone has better numbers, please share, Federal government spends 25% of our GDP, state/local another 15%, we spend 60%. Of course, we spend money we haven't earned (lent from other countries), so say the federal government taxes at about 15% of the economy (states/locals don't go into debt as much, so they are probably roughly event at 15%). T

Sources:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.ht... http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/apr/22/ma...

It does seem trivial that taxes stifle economic growth, however, isn't this under the assumption that people will spend the money they garner on tax breaks rather than sit on it? Although the government is laughably inefficient, wouldn't it be more productive to increase taxes and then have the government spend because the government is guaranteed to spend all of it?

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