This is how we fund area 51

[Perchoutofwater]

Okay. For example, the overhead costs of administering medicare are estimated to be from 2% (low range) to 6% (high range). The "best practices" for private industry is around 13%.

 

And I disagree with you that government fails to collect tax efficiently. Show my another country with a population greater than or equal to the US' that is more efficient than the IRS and I'll eat my words. It ain't perfect, I'll grant you. But the IRS is collecting record tax revenues right now. While there is certainly room for improvement, and further considering that the IRS is saddled with enforcing the abomination that is the Internal Revenue Code (which they don't write), the IRS is actually one of the few arms of the federal government that doesn't metaphorically resemble and group of retarded gibbons masturbating all over each other. Moreover, they're doing a bang up job in the face of recent and substantial reductions in staff.

 

 

I'll give you medicare, though I don't see that as an essential service, or at least is wasn't until we started sitting around staring at our navels waiting for government to do everything for everyone. Taxes could be collected much more effectively if the tax code was trashed and we just went to a sales tax, or to just a property tax instead of an income tax. I'm as happy as you are that Bush's tax cuts are causing the IRS to collect record revenues. Unfortunately most of those tax cuts have sunset provisions.

[yo mama]

I'm as happy as you are that Bush's tax cuts are causing the IRS to collect record revenues. Unfortunately most of those tax cuts have sunset provisions.

Well, to be fair, the tax cuts doing most of the heavy lifting in this regard are the reduction in capital gains and dividend rates. The rest of Bush's tax cuts are largely welfare for the wealthy and corporate segments of the nation. But hey, like it or not, we're a welfare nation.

Edited August 17, 2007 by yo mama

[Ursa Majoris]

I'll give you medicare, though I don't see that as an essential service, or at least is wasn't until we started sitting around staring at our navels waiting for government to do everything for everyone. Taxes could be collected much more effectively if the tax code was trashed and we just went to a sales tax, or to just a property tax instead of an income tax. I'm as happy as you are that Bush's tax cuts are causing the IRS to collect record revenues. Unfortunately most of those tax cuts have sunset provisions.

I also think we should trash Medicare and Medicaid, then there'd be much more room and money for pompous Texan company owners. Never mind what the Medicare / Medicaid recipients may have done in the past, they haven't contributed directly to your wealth, so F 'em I say. Their life expectancy should be reduced back to the good ol' days of the Gilded Age.

 

As for the rest of this, whether the tax code should be trashed for a simple sales tax is not the point. Your claim that all government agencies are grossly inefficient is demonstrably false, certainly in the case of the IRS. It is also demonstrably true that private health care is a money pit that dwarfs the so-called inefficient European government systems.

[The Holy Roller]

I also think we should trash Medicare and Medicaid, then there'd be much more room and money for pompous Texan company owners. Never mind what the Medicare / Medicaid recipients may have done in the past, they haven't contributed directly to your wealth, so F 'em I say. Their life expectancy should be reduced back to the good ol' days of the Gilded Age.

 

As for the rest of this, whether the tax code should be trashed for a simple sales tax is not the point. Your claim that all government agencies are grossly inefficient is demonstrably false, certainly in the case of the IRS. It is also demonstrably true that private health care is a money pit that dwarfs the so-called inefficient European government systems.

 

 

...which is hidden in Area 51. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.