Comments for Taxes should be slashed by half at http://www.adamsmith.org , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.adamsmith.org Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:19:13 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/taxes-should-be-slashed-by-half-200805221428/#comment-285 Re "what about the poor", as we know from the post-war years, food, water, power, coal, car manufacturing etc was all state controlled/provided. Are 'poor' people hungrier since rationing was ended? Are cars more expensive? How many 'poor' people have died of thirst since water companies were privatised? "provision" of e.g. health and education is only half the equation - the other half is funding. What objection can any sane person have to taxpayer funded health or education vouchers (with a right to top up with private money)? That seems like an admirable half-way house to me. - Mark Wadsworth Sat, 24 May 2008 13:55:34 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/taxes-should-be-slashed-by-half-200805221428/#comment-277 The main reason such profligacy is tolerated is that the efficiency/value-for-money is not typically the justification for them. Very few deny that better services could be obtained privately, but the question tax-cutters will be faced with is: 'what about the poor?' - Graham Thu, 22 May 2008 16:32:07 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/taxes-should-be-slashed-by-half-200805221428/#comment-276 How long would it take to cut taxes by half? I presume it wouldn't be possible to do it in your first budget given the number of people employed by the state who would lose their jobs... - TomG Thu, 22 May 2008 12:41:52 +0100 http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/taxes-should-be-slashed-by-half-200805221428/#comment-271 It's a great article, but appears to be the summary of a series of articles, unless he's already done so, you'd need separate chapters on a) the spending side - splitting this up into core functions of state like refuse colletion; State provision (and associated waste) and pure waste (quangoes, subsidies), b) the taxation side (and some taxes have much higher deadweight costs than others) and c) the merits or otherwise of pure redistribution - e.g. taxpayer funded vouchers for schools are, AFAICS, universal non-means tested benefits, but at least the provision side is done privately. - Mark Wadsworth Thu, 22 May 2008 10:22:29 +0100