Americans more willing to pay taxes??

America would implode and Canada would have to share its bored with Mexico

I know you meant border rather than bored, but it is much more fun with bored. :) Then again, maybe you meant what you wrote. If America implodes, than the snowbirds and the spring breakers may need to find new warm coastal areas to visit.
 
I'm a Libertarians, and I WILL touch it (some psychos play with fire, a like playing with knives). No, aping Europe wouldn't help. Need to cut spending. Say, if there was no Great Society and welfare and all that junk.

So, the Gilded Age was such a great time to live in?
TTL USA would look like one of the South American countries... Chile if you are lucky, but more probable Brazil with it's favelas.

Avoiding the Cold War would be good too, wouldn't have to spend so much on weapons. Of course, technology wouldn't have advanced as fast as it has in that case.

I have to agree, but the post-WW2 technology makes some kind of arms race likely.

Oh, and no more loop holes in the tax codes to let corporations off.

Actually many of the "loopholes" are, or have been, incentives for companies to invest their money in certain way more beneficial to the society. It's like tax credits for individuals.

And then we can add some tariffs to it. I know the Libertarian Party is more a free trade place, but I happen to disagree on that subject.

Smoot and Hawley agree with you.
 
You mean a federal consumption tax, otherwise known as a GST/VAT?

Okay, handwave. Let's say Eisenhower brings it in to pay for the highways. Or the education expansion after the Russkies get into space. Or maybe Kennedy starts the new impost, at the same time as he cuts the top income tax rates upon entering office.

My guess is the GOP Right then makes it an article of faith to cut said national consumption tax when they become the majority.

So, if there is a Reagan revolution, the newly ascendant conservatives probably gut such a tax, reduce it's rate, or just decentralise it to the states. Just as they cut income taxes in OTL.

Okay, this is a simplistic view of how things might play out if such a major policy is enacted in the postwar decades--but you have to admit, the leading political philosophy in America for a good quarter century was geared towards cutting taxes at both the federal & state level. I don't see why they don't extend that economic cure-all to a VAT/GST.

This tax alone isn't going to prevent the rise of a "Deficits don't matter" mentality.
 
I think there is a basic misunderstanding in this thread. Our "debt" to China in particular does not come from government deficits but from our trade deficit. As long as we have a trade deficit with China, China will necessarily have a surplus of dollars, and they will most likely spend that surplus to buy U.S. Treasuries. If by some miracle, the outstanding U.S. government debt is so low that there aren't enough Treasuries for China to buy, they will instead spend that money buying up U.S. property, ie real estate, office buildings, factories, corporations, etc. For most people that fret about the "debt" to China in particular as opposed to government debt in general, that would actually be a worse outcome. So since the premise of your thread is mistaken, I'd suggest revising it. Like say, what ways the U.S. could have acted to minimize its trade deficit, or the long term effects of very low levels of government debt.

Sorry, but the Chinese (and Japanese) holding a huge amount of t-bonds that have been issued by the US government to cover federal budget deficits is foreign debt.

I don't care if the original poster has presented us with a sketchy, bare bones what-if, or if he has a habit of getting into flamewars with people over similar topics. He is fundamentally right that China holds massive amounts of US government debt.

Doesn't matter if you have a Friedmanite economics vocabulary with which to mount your political argument. (Heh, I have Thomas Friedman to validate what I've just written.)
 
Sorry, but the Chinese (and Japanese) holding a huge amount of t-bonds that have been issued by the US government to cover federal budget deficits is foreign debt.

I don't care if the original poster has presented us with a sketchy, bare bones what-if, or if he has a habit of getting into flamewars with people over similar topics. He is fundamentally right that China holds massive amounts of US government debt.

Doesn't matter if you have a Friedmanite economics vocabulary with which to mount your political argument. (Heh, I have Thomas Friedman to validate what I've just written.)

You can try reading my post for one. Our national debt comes from our deficit. Our debt to any particular nation on the other hand, comes from the trade deficit with that particular nation. China holds a massive amount of U.S. government debt, that is true, but no amount of economizing that does not also reduce the trade deficit would reduce the amount of either debt or other U.S. property held by China. That is the mistake I was pointing to.
 
Im Italian.
In 1983 i I went for the first time in the United States.
In that occasion i know a nice Italian-American lady,in USA from many years and American citzen,that tell me that the taxes in United States were much higher that in Italy.
This in 83,now i don't know.
 
You can try reading my post for one. Our national debt comes from our deficit. Our debt to any particular nation on the other hand, comes from the trade deficit with that particular nation. China holds a massive amount of U.S. government debt, that is true, but no amount of economizing that does not also reduce the trade deficit would reduce the amount of either debt or other U.S. property held by China. That is the mistake I was pointing to.

You can try accepting the real world reality that US treasury bonds issued to fund the US deficit are popularly, legitimately, & non-gate-keeperly, considered foreign debt when they are held by the central banks & finance ministries of China, Japan, et al.

If you want to educate us as to the correct Chicago-school definitions of 'foreign debt' and 'national debt' then I'm perfectly happy to school you as to how us non-economics-undergrads use the expressions.

Though in my experience the terms used have always been simplified to 'government debt' and 'non-government debt', with 'current accounts' thrown into the mix. But what would I know, I live in a country where the terminology is more English than American.

LATE EDIT:
xchen08 said:
Our "debt" to China in particular does not come from government deficits but from our trade deficit... the outstanding U.S. government debt is so low that there aren't enough Treasuries for China to buy... the long term effects of very low levels of government debt.

So, you explicitly state there is little or even no US government debt held by the PRC, not that there is merely a difference between the espressions 'trade debt' and 'national debt'. That's Cheney "deficits don't matter" thinking, I suppose. Or maybe the Laffer Curve applied to geopolitics.

Hoist. Petard. Own.
 
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You can try accepting the real world reality that US treasury bonds issued to fund the US deficit are popularly, legitimately, & non-gate-keeperly, considered foreign debt when they are held by the central banks & finance ministries of China, Japan, et al.

If you want to educate us as to the correct Chicago-school definitions of 'foreign debt' and 'national debt' then I'm perfectly happy to school you as to how us non-economics-undergrads use the expressions.

Though in my experience the terms used have always been simplified to 'government debt' and 'non-government debt', with 'current accounts' thrown into the mix. But what would I know, I live in a country where the terminology is more English than American.

And yet again, you continue ignoring my point that the level of U.S. debt outstanding and Chinese holdings of either that debt or other U.S. property are not the same. I honestly don't even know what point you are trying to make, since you keep on pounding on a point I have not and never did dispute.
 
And yet again, you continue ignoring my point that the level of U.S. debt outstanding and Chinese holdings of either that debt or other U.S. property are not the same. I honestly don't even know what point you are trying to make, since you keep on pounding on a point I have not and never did dispute.

Look at my 'Late Edit' above RE the bizarre & misleading equivocation that you first made to justify your dismissal of the original poster's reference to American debt in China: "Our "debt" to China in particular does not come from government deficits but from our trade deficit".

I'll grant you that there are diferences between government & non-government debt--yet that doesn't really matter in a debate where you state that American debt to China doesn't have much of anything to do with government deficits.
 
LATE EDIT:

So, you explicitly state there is little or even no US government debt held by the PRC, not that there is merely a difference between the espressions 'trade debt' and 'national debt'. That's Cheney "deficits don't matter" thinking, I suppose. Or maybe the Laffer Curve applied to geopolitics.

Hoist. Petard. Own.

Nice, you editted my post into an incomprehensible mess in order to to make it mean close to opposite what it actually did. Real nice.

Here's my actual quote:

me said:
Our "debt" to China in particular does not come from government deficits but from our trade deficit. As long as we have a trade deficit with China, China will necessarily have a surplus of dollars, and they will most likely spend that surplus to buy U.S. Treasuries. If by some miracle, the outstanding U.S. government debt is so low that there aren't enough Treasuries for China to buy, they will instead spend that money buying up U.S. property, ie real estate, office buildings, factories, corporations, etc. For most people that fret about the "debt" to China in particular as opposed to government debt in general, that would actually be a worse outcome.

In other words, our trade deficit with China results in China having a large surplus of dollars, which China will use to buy dollar denominated assets. The most prominent of those in the international market are U.S. Treasuries. If a balanced budget in the United States has resulted in insufficient Treasuries on the open market for China to buy, it will buy other dollar denominated assets, such as U.S. real estate, corporation stock, etc.

I'll grant you that there are diferences between government & non-government debt--yet that doesn't really matter in a debate where you state that American debt to China doesn't have much of anything to do with government deficits.

And it doesn't, if U.S. debt to China is the sum of U.S. government and non-government debt to China plus Chinese holdings of U.S. property, which is what I was talking about.

Edit: Upon further reading of your posts, it seems clear that you are either being deliberately dishonest or lack reading comprehension to extraordinary levels. I'm actually curious now just how you misinterpreted each line of my post.
 
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Nice, you editted my post into an incomprehensible mess in order to to make it mean close to opposite what it actually did. Real nice.

Sorry if you think you've been taken out of context, but your first sentence was too clever by half.

You expect me to take seriously your classification of just what you think is really America's "debt" with China.

That's nice, vague, and very off-topic of you.

xchen08 said:
In other words, our trade deficit with China results in China having a large surplus of dollars, which China will use to buy dollar denominated assets. The most prominent of those in the international market are U.S. Treasuries. If a balanced budget in the United States has resulted in insufficient Treasuries on the open market for China to buy, it will buy other dollar denominated assets, such as U.S. real estate, corporation stock, etc.

I see where the problem is here between us, xchen08.

This is a thread about US political economy. Admittedly the original poster's scenario is very thin--but he was almost certainly referring to US government debt when he wrote, "And [what if] this [POD of tax policy] had resulted in no debt to China?"

Naturally you have ignored the context of this thread (US domestic fiscal policies dealing with balancing the US budget--or perhaps not balancing the US budget) so as to advance Kudlow-esque boilerplate about how the US government deficit (or at least the Bush deficits) is/are not worth commenting on, because it's not as if the US government has recently run a trade deficit with the PRC at the same time as running a budget surplus at home.

Oh, right. That's not true, of course.

America did run a budget surplus at home at the same time the PRC had a trade surplus with America.

But that's OT in a thread that is supposedly about US domestic policy. Right?

xchen08 said:
And it doesn't, if U.S. debt to China is the sum of U.S. government and non-government debt to China, which is what I was talking about.

Okay, I'll grant you that you have an agenda here, that that agenda is probably about deliberately ignoring the death of fiscal responsibility under Bush and the radical increase in the PRC's trade surplus with America that occured at the same time. Because it's actually fiscally responsible to believe government deficits don't matter, or something. (Though I like your sideswipe at the opponents of deficit spending as a bunch of xenophobes who would freak if Chinese capital was going towards buying downhome American assets. Kudos. The best defence is offence.)

Good for you.

I'm only sorry I was ignorant not to realise that's the only point you want to make in a thread supposedly about taxation.
 
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incomprehensible ranting

Here's the OP:

so what if the American People had tax system like in post WW2 Europe? And this had resulted in no debt to China?

The question was asked in the first response how the first would lead to the second. Subsequent posts make clear that what was of concern in this thread was the seeming influence Chinese holdings of U.S. debt grants over the U.S.

I thus weighed in with the fact that the first does not lead to the second, with the second interpreted as any Chinese holdings that can be implied to be leverage over the U.S. Quite on topic. You, on the other hand, have some sort of obsession with the evils of right wing fiscal irresponsibility. Now, I actually quite agree here, but it is nowhere on topic.

Sorry if you think you've been taken out of context, but your first sentence was too clever by half.

Let's see, you editted my post in way to make it seems as if I had claimed the PRC held little or no U.S. government debt, when that part was actually a hypothetical describing what would happen all else equal if the PRC held little or no U.S. government debt. That's outright dishonesty, much less a simple taking out of context. I have no idea how you thought you could get away with something so blatant, until I understood that you actually had no understanding of my post in the first place. This is expanded on at the end of this post.

Naturally you have ignored the context of this thread (US domestic fiscal policies dealing with balancing the US budget--or perhaps not balancing the US budget) so as to advance Kudlow-esque boilerplate about how the US government deficit (or at least the Bush deficits) is/are not worth commenting on, because it's not as if the US government has recently run a trade deficit with the PRC at the same time as running a budget surplus at home.

Oh, right. That's not true, of course.

I've already answered regarding context. Incidently, I don't have a clue why you think bringing up a recent situation where the U.S. ran a budget surplus at the same time as a trade deficit with the PRC (incidently, leading to a major increase in Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasuries) somehow helps your point rather than mine.

Okay, I'll grant you that you have an agenda here, that that agenda is probably about deliberately ignoring the death of fiscal responsibility under Bush and the radical increase in the PRC's trade surplus with America that occured at the same time. Because it's actually fiscally responsible to believe government deficits don't matter, or something. (Though I like your sideswipe at the opponents of deficit spending as a bunch of xenophobes who would freak if Chinese capital was going towards buying downhome American assets. Kudos. The best defence is offence.)

Did I mention I don't support fiscal responsibility, or did not bemoan its end? Any examples? I thought not. I actually do sort of understand now. You didn't understand (and still don't understand) my point. However, all those big words made you angry and you constructed a Bush-loving strawman randomly incorporating a few of those words in order to get angry about, which you then proceeded to attack. That would explain why you kept on attacking me, yet none of your attacks had much to do with anything I actually said.
 
I think Americans are willing to pay more in taxes now then in the previous 30 years...that is I think Americans are willing to have other Americans(the richest Americans)pay increased taxes.
 
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