Everything’s a subscription, or wants you to sign up for one. I want off this shitshow please.

  • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    The government should exist only to provide essential services and regulation to the market, nothing else.

    There’s an awful lot of devil in those details. Does health care qualify as an essential service? How about Social Security, which is the only reason working-class people don’t all become homeless once they’re too old to work? Mail? Roads? Firefighting? Modern governments do an awful lot, and life would be an awful lot worse if they didn’t, but it costs an awful lot of money.

    Effort should be made to root out wasteful government spending, of course, but that means unraveling the twisted schemes of those who would misappropriate tax money without destroying the government functions they’ve attached themselves to, and much like surgically removing a cancerous growth from an organ without destroying the entire organ, it is neither easy nor permanent.

      • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Also, social welfare systems are usually required because you tax people to a point they can’t save money.

        This is a grave misconception. Taxes are not what stops people from saving money. Taxes are proportional to income, expenses, and/or wealth, so there’s always something left over.

        Prices of goods and services are what stop people from saving money. Prices are always set as high as the market will bear, which leaves no room for savings aside from those who have an unusually high income.

        The saying does not go, “the taxes are too damn high.” The saying goes, “the rent is too damn high.” Never forget that.