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This is the question the politicians don't have the balls or brains to answer.

The question is: how would you allocate a fixed amount of money to the upper, middle and lower classes for the maximum benefit to society as a whole? Who should get more of the money and who should get less of it and why?

I say the rich should get the most money because investing in them allows for the most opportunities to be created. As to who should get the second most amount of money I say give to the poor, they overall when given to are the most generous with giving money where it is needed most. Last I say the middle class, their prize is all the opportunities provided for by the rich to ultimately become rich themselves.

I'd say don't steal the money in the first place. Barring that, return in proportion to the amount of taxes the victims of the robbery had stolen from them.

careinke wrote:I'd say don't steal the money in the first place. Barring that, return in proportion to the amount of taxes the victims of the robbery had stolen from them.

So in your mind, government, and there taxation has NO value?

Even as someone who leans libertarian, with 7.5+ billion people and the complexity of modern society, that just seems clearly wrong to me, if that's what you mean.

But unless you plan to have fully armed anarchy, with might makes right -- unless you have some taxation, how do you run a modern complex society without total chaos, or having 90+% of people die (and the resulting chaos anyway)?

BTW, I'm not saying a smaller government, less taxation, and less of government running about supposedly making like "fair" at great expense isn't a good idea. I'm just saying that simply claiming "tax is evil -- give all it back" is a non-starter without a meaningful, alternative plan for the real world we live in.

(Ayn Rand wrote a very fine novel with "Atlas Shrugged", which illustrated some important principles for government. That doesn't mean 7.5+ Billion people can all magically live in a nice valley or three, without taxation, and everything will be wonderful.)

Some starting principles:

1). NO spending program gets passed without a FULL accounting and CBO (or equivalent entity) endorsement for how it is paid for. Everything needs to be accounted for like what other programs get cut, etc.

2). No more programs which merely take money from group A to be given to group B, so politicians can get elected. So for example, no wealth tax to pay for "free" college. (I don't have a problem with Social Security in principle -- as long as the taxes it raises fully pay for it. Same for Medicare.)

3). We go back and apply the principle in item 1 to ALL government spending we already have. This implies no more ongoing budget deficits, even in economic growth phases.