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USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

usafacts.org

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Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#171

Post by programbreeding »

ariwilson wrote: post #155
programbreeding wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A quick third take away seems to be the unprecedented rise in non-cash government aid (food stamps) during the Obama administration. The data is there, needs more analyzing of course. I'm not sure you can say it like that. It went up 2.13x from 1980 to 1990, 1.43x from 1990 to 2000, 1.93x from 2000 to 2010, and 1.07x from 2010 to 2015. There was a big jump of 1.93x from 2000 to 2010, but that is only 2 years of Obam…

Are those numbers inflation adjusted?

They are not. I took them directly from USAFacts[0], and according to their methodologies[1], they have not adjusted for inflation either.

[0] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/spending?comparison=...

[1] http://usafacts.org/methodology

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#172

Post by dlp211 »

JediWing wrote: post #153
xienze wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple things... The parent is talking about "progressive" as in "the tax gets progressively higher as you make more money", not in the "social justice" sense. The flat tax being regressive means that the poor would have to actually pay more in taxes than they do now, which is very little. That's seen as a bad thing. Obviously there are solutions to that in flat tax proposals. Second, "the wealthy pay very little t…

> The flat tax being regressive means that the poor would have to actually pay more in taxes than they do now, which is very little. That's seen as a bad thing. It is a bad thing. In low-income households, there is less disposable income. In that case, taxes eat into the cost of necessities (or near-necessities such as broadband for those with slightly higher income). On the other end of the spectrum, for those with…

In other words: The marginal utility of your first dollar is significantly higher than that of your last. Also known as the law of diminishing marginal utility.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#173

Post by minot »

Cshelton wrote: post #130
shmageggy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State/Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate/other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I'd have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Feder…

I think you would have to look at the reasons why the government tax revenue did not increase when rates were higher. The rich are have mobility. They can move money around the world and at high tax rate levels, they'd be content on neither earning nor bringing back any of the money they make elsewhere. Let's take an example of Apple's $200 B sitting offshore. I know that's a corporate tax, but same principal. I don'…

> I don't believe the tax burden on the lower classes in the US has ever been lessened by increased rates at the top levels.

I'll be frank. I have no reason to believe anyone is honest (not even myself). While we like to say that we are not savage animals, we are. CGP Grey made a video https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?t=1072 based on The Dictator's Handbook

I read an article on some online magazine which argued that the 0.01% is not the problem but rather the upper middle class as they like to call themselves. I imagine it is the same way all over the world.

> “Take the mortgage deduction,” he continued. “This is to stimulate homeownership amongst people who are already going to own homes. That is worth, to a middle-income family, a hundred bucks a year. I was a little surprised by that. You can have your own reaction; I was a little surprised by that.”

from https://archive.fo/UgQDd (NY times link, used to be the title link of this discussion)

I'm sure you know this but I didn't think about this for the longest time. Pretty much everybody is a hypocrite. Sorry but if someone advocates for less taxes on the wealthy, the first thing I will look for is whether I think the change will be good for me. Sorry for being selfish but then if I conclude the change is not in my favor, the first thing I will do is not the merits of their ideas but rather follow the money and see what they gain from this change.

Life is short. In the bigger scheme of things, we are just trying to find a locally optimal choice. When people say they want to lower taxes, they usually mean they want lower taxes for themselves. When people say they want fewer government services, the idea is usually they want fewer government services that they do not use.

> Let's take an example of Apple's $200 B sitting offshore.

Just to put things in simple terms, this $200B does not include money Apple made by selling iPhones in the US, right? It only includes money Apple made by selling iPhones in other countries? I don't get why we obsess so much over it. US economy is large enough. If they want to bring this money back to the US or they want to give money to their owners/stock holders, they can pay the tax at that time? I don't have a horse in this race. I am just trying to understand the premise as an outsider.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#174

Post by pwaivers »

bahmboo wrote: post #168
pwaivers wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, this chart says there are only 2,000-4,000 teachers in K-12 education: http://usafacts.org/metrics/34211 . This is obviously not true.

Most likely missing scale. Probably in thousands.

Yep you are right. I see the numbers in the report and they are in the thousands: http://usafacts.org/report-slides?page=66.

This still shows the flaws in the website. It does not say what the scale is in on graph at all, and other graphs will not be so obviously incorrect.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#175

Post by geogra4 »

kzrdude wrote: post #141
xienze wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept. The problem is that there are a lot of people who believe that SS isn't broken because you can simply increase retirement age, make people pay in more, and other assorted band-aids. SS will be "solvent" until it suddenly isn't, and people need to realize…

Retirement age must increase. People are living longer than when retirement pensions were first designed. It was easy to introduce, people weren't expected to live that long then and now they do.

the cap MUST increase

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#176

Post by dlp211 »

kzrdude wrote: post #141
xienze wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept. The problem is that there are a lot of people who believe that SS isn't broken because you can simply increase retirement age, make people pay in more, and other assorted band-aids. SS will be "solvent" until it suddenly isn't, and people need to realize…

Retirement age must increase. People are living longer than when retirement pensions were first designed. It was easy to introduce, people weren't expected to live that long then and now they do.

Living longer != able to work longer. Making SS solvent isn't a hard problem, we know how to do it. It is simply politically hard.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#177

Post by peterwwillis »

RightMillennial wrote: post #94
peterwwillis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain the obsession people have with the Constitution? It seems like some people believe all new laws shouldn't exist if they're not in the Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution and its amendments establishes limits to the power of the Federal Government. The obsession with it is that governments tends to overstep their bounds. It's something the lay person can read and point to, and definitively say when the government is doing something it is not authorized to do.

I'm pretty sure that many people have had conflicting ideas about what the government is "definitively" allowed to do or not do, which is what things like the courts and the legislature are for - to decide those things, and ratify clarifications and changes if needed. "Constitutional Law" is not an easy thing for a lay person to interpret.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#179

Post by flatline »

ruffrey wrote: post #139

Graduation rate seems awfully low, at 59% in 2012. http://usafacts.org/metrics/34352 --I do not think this is accurate.-- Edit: this is the college graduation rate. I assumed it was high school. Page needs more info!

The pages are so lacking in info right now that at first glance they appear worse than useless: something that anyone can point to and make any sort of rhetorical conclusion about and have supposed data to back it up. It not only needs the actual data (and...units?), but some broader context behind each data point. I assume these are in the works, but releasing it in this state, with this much press, is a potentially dangerous move for its future.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#180

Post by pc86 »

velodrome wrote: post #74
tcbawo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those prone to confirmation bias, commentary and interpretation of data can be counterproductive. The fact that Ballmer is purposefully not setting an agenda makes this more powerful. Otherwise people tend to accumulate their own set of convenient facts.

> The fact that Ballmer is purposefully not setting an agenda makes this more powerful. Yes, I agree. > Otherwise people tend to accumulate their own set of convenient facts. I think people will do this anyway...are we not human?

> I think people will do this anyway

Of course they will - just look at another set of comments on this page. Two people coming to diametrically opposed conclusions based on the same data w/r/t top marginal tax rates and US government revenue.

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