Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!husc6!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!alberta!calgary!radford
From: radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Unemployment shifting
Message-ID: <375@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 14-Sep-86 18:12:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: vaxb.375
Posted: Sun Sep 14 18:12:39 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 07:34:43 EDT
References: <1291@drutx.UUCP> <907@gilbbs.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Ab.
Lines: 73

In article <907@gilbbs.UUCP>, mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes:

> In article <1291@drutx.UUCP>, dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes:
> > Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes
> > from the private sector via taxes.

> Hold the phone!  This is the sort of deliberate misinformation and 
> dishonest argumentation about which I have been complaing all along.
> 'Libertarians' seem to just love this sort of bull puckey.

In addition to being impolite, this tirade is quite unjustified by the
text of the posting, which might perhaps be wrong, but is almost certainly
sincere.

> Assume for the sake of argument that there are, say, 150 million tax paying
> entities in the US.  Assume further that some 500,000 of them are "corporate"
> entities (a delightful fiction which the 'libertarians' ought to love, the
> legal assignation of *INDIVIDUAL* rights and privileges to an organization).
> Let us further assume that the US government determines that it is desireable
> to generate 500,000 juobs (most probably training postions).  Each taxed 
> entity will be paying 1/30 of the real cost of providing these jobs.  Thus,
> at *MOST*, XYZ Widget Co. pays 1/30 of one unit.  

This is incomprehensible. Are you really trying to claim that the government 
multiplies jobs by a factor of 30 by this process? 

>    Of course, this ignores the reality that corporate entities (businesses,
> really) ****DON'T PAY TAXES****.  Face it, it's true.  The cost of taxes paid
> by any properly managed business are passed on to the clients or customers of
> that business, through higher prices.  Thus, taxes may be paid *THROUGH* a
> business, but seldom, if ever, are taxes paid *BY* a business.

Probably not true, but irrelevant even if it is true. *Somebody* pays the
taxes. They might have instead hired somebody. Or bought something from 
somebody who hires somebody.

>    The 'libertarian' also conveniently ignores that possibility that such a
> jobs program does not necessarily have to result in an increase in taxation.
> It is thouroughly possible to simply build two fewer B1 bombers, or to cease
> wasting billions of dollars on SDI in order to provide a service of much 
> greater benefit to society as a whole.  But 'libertarians' don't want to
> discuss this point, because then they can only fall back on their BS
> argument that any form of taxation is thievery.

If the job program is paid for by building fewer B1 bombers, I'm all for
it, assuming we can't just keep the government from spending the money at all.
In case you don't know, libertarians are generally opposed to vast military
expenditures designed to let the government interfere in other countries'
business. I don't fathom why you think libertarians wouldn't want to 
discuss this point.

In practice, however, "defense" spending goes on regardless.

> tom keller					"She's alive, ALIVE!"

There's no way you can prove that the government increases the net number
of jobs using this sort of argument. I'll help you out:

    1) By taxing the population, the government can invest wealth 
       productively that the people would otherwise have frittered
       away on non-essentials.

    2) By spending money on jobs without increasing taxes, creating
       the money out of nothing, the government can cause wealth to be
       utilized that otherwise would have been idle.

Argument (1) is commonly used in socialist countries. Aside from being
paternalistic, it doesn't seem to work. Argument (2) suffers from the
flaw that it only applies in a deflationary situation. Any such situation
would today be the fault of the government in the first place, since it
controls the money supply, and would be better solved in other ways.

    Radford Neal