> Whatever you thought about Ron Paul, his politics would have prevented all of this. All of the wars. All the foreign aid. And we would live in paradise ;)
This made me laugh. Considering how much Republicans and Tea Partiers are ostracized for making cuts, just imagine how much people would come down on a fiscally conservative basically Libertarian candidate in 2016 (even if he runs as a Republican).
Ostracized by who? People in the media or regular working class folk who pay plenty but get little?
My parents both work and make money and the only real benefits that they have gotten as a result of trillions spent on war is that they'll continue to pay taxes for the rehabilitation of the soldiers whose bodies and lives have been destroyed.
They MIGHT collect on social security, etc but given that they're still at least 10 years from retirement, it's certainly nothing they can count on.
And given that there's been talk about raising the general Soc Sec boundary from 65 to 70, it's even more of a question if they will benefit...
Both my parents have "retired" in the past year though they continue to work for money, and they were both a little bitter about how low the benefits are. I had to point out that at least they will probably get what they get. For those of us younger?
Okay, but he also believes that the income tax is unconstitutional. If he's able to get social security to go away it's likely he'd also eliminate the income tax. Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents.
If two people are making a combined $120k/year their tax burden is around $27k. With 10-15 years to go til retirement that's another $270-$405k in gross savings, neglecting any ability to earn interest (which right now is effectively 0%).
I don't know what the social security pay-out rates are these days but $300k today versus a decreasing probability of future benefit payments from the SSA seems like a reasonable risk to take, given the choice. Not that we'll ever have the choice, mind you.
> Okay, but he also believes that the income tax is unconstitutional. If he's able to get social security to go away it's likely he'd also eliminate the income tax.
X wants A.
X also wants B.
Therefore, if X gets A, X will also get B.
That doesn't work.
> Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents.
Your analysis seems to be pretty shallow on this, particularly, it seems presume that the income tax can go away with everything else operating as is with no effect except taxpayers not paying the tax.
A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different.
If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term (not good odds that will happen, mind you) then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people might listen to the "income tax isn't constitutional" argument as well.
The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it. You can speculate that people wouldn't both abolish social security AND the income tax. I speculate that such a thing could reasonably happen. We'll never actually find out who's right.
> A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different.
Sure, but the ability to build a minimum winning coalition on eliminating social security is pretty much irrelevant to finding a minimum winning coalition on eliminating income tax.
> If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term
Its not possible for them to "wake up and realize" that because its not true, but its certainly possible for them to be convinced of that; indeed, that's a fairly common idea (at least, if you take out the "ponzi scheme" part) now. What is less common is the idea that the best way of dealing with that is to eliminate the program entirely rather than addressing features that make it nonsustainable. [1]
> then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people might listen to the "income tax isn't constitutional" argument as well.
Sure, its entirely conceivable that people might listen to that argument. That's a bit different saying that it is likely that he would also be able to eliminate the income tax (there is a big gap between "conceivable" and "likely" and another big gap between "listen to" and "agree with".)
> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it.
I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it.
> You can speculate that people wouldn't both abolish social security AND the income tax.
I could, but I haven't. A statement that your claim that a particular outcome is likely is not supported by the argument you have presented for it is not a claim that the outcome is impossible.
> I speculate that such a thing could reasonably happen.
There's a difference between speculating that a thing "could reasonably happen" and asserting, as you did previously, that it is likely.
>> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it.
>I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it.
You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way. I get that, and it makes a lot of sense. I generally feel the same way.
What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold. You'll probably disagree with me on that issue but ultimately there's no way for us to know either way. It's all speculation. The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.
I think it's highly likely that the only way social security could get eliminated is some kind of a revolution, peaceful or not. Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in (they like the program) and plenty of people who paid in their entire working lives (they desperately want to get their money out of it) that they constitute a large entrenched interest.
You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all. I'm suggesting that for a rock that friggin huge to get moved there's some kind of bigger thing happening like a landslide, an earthquake, a big explosion, etc and thus, perhaps it might.
> You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way.
No, I am arguing that arguments of the form "if X occurs, its likely that Y will also occur" need to be justified by more than "X would take a radically different world, and Y occuring would be conceivably plausible in such a radically different world, therefore, it is likely that Y will occur if X occurs."
> What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold.
I haven't made any such assertion. I have simply argued that you have failed to provide anything that remotely approaches support for you claim that it is likely that income tax would be eliminated if social security was eliminated.
> The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.
Even granting, arguendo, that point and your belief that social security takes a "revolution", that's not evidence in support of the likelihood of any particular currently-unlikely change being made possible by the situation that enables the elimination of social security.
> Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in
The only people who have substantial SS benefits while paying very little in are the lower-earning surviving spouses of people who paid in and then died, so I think your premise here is a bit dubious.
> You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all.
No, I'm not. A better analogy would be saying that I am rejecting the claim that the mere fact that it would take a quite substantial minimum energy to move the 1000 ton rock from point A to point be justifies a claim of the specific path a neighboring rock would be likely to take in the event the first rock was moved from point A to point B.
You haven't convinced me that I'm made some highly incorrect giant leap of faith in logic, and I clearly haven't convinced you that my ideas aren't outlandish. Thanks anyhow, though. It's taught me to be more specific in my arguments.
The average car is driven say 10k miles per year. At 20mpg that's 500 gallons of gas. At $4 per gallon, it's $2k. At $8 per gallon, that's $4k. A difference of only $2k.
I'm not sure that the money on wars is well spent (even in a callous, dollars only sense) if it's saving the average household $4k a year in gas money (two cars).
Yup, there used to be an old ad campaign--"If you have it, a truck brought it." And it's true--although with modern supply chains today we probably should also throw in ships, trains, and airplanes.
Transportation costs are embedded in the cost of every physical good.
Trains are much less sensitive to fuel prices than trucks are.
The capital investment necessary to make trains work at all is really big. But after that the marginal cost of an additional car is very low. In terms of energy efficiency, trains are much better than trucks. What they lack is convenience, at least right now.
In terms of cost, trucks often win because the trucking company doesn't bear the burden of building/maintaining the highway system. Yes they pay fuel taxes, but trucks make basically all the wear on roads. Wear seems to be based on the fourth power of weight. Check this: http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776...
This is a common theme for basically everything having to do with energy efficiency. You can have low up-front cost and larger ongoing costs, or larger up-front costs and lower ongoing costs. In the case of trains the ongoing costs are similar at current fuel prices but once they double again you'll see more train cargo and less truck cargo.
The problem with trains is that the capital investment and up-front work that is needed becomes a political issue[1]. How do you decide on the route of a new train line? Who pays for the line to be built?
Building railway infrastructure was simpler when there was a lot of open country to build long straight lines through, but building a new line today is much harder with compulsory purchase of land and groups lobbying against it. The process takes a long time too, so elected officials won't see the benefits of backing it at the next election.
I think it is unlikely that US freight will move from road to rail without a significant amount of political and financial pressure.
It's always amusing watching people talk about Ron and Rand Paul on the internet. Usually they haven't quite figured out that they're basically fake libertarians. Ducks
Libertarians != libertarians. The difference is that Libertarians are a party and libertarians like to party. :)
The Pauls are fiscally conservative which is only 1/2 of the Libertarian equation. The party stands for social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. Basically this just means less tax, more privatized government services, and to leave people alone if they aren't hurting each other.
Small-"l" libertarians are those that believe the liberty of the people is most important, even more important than any social or ethical constraints that have been placed upon them, but they believe that there can be a government that can enforce this, unlike anarchists.
First, I agree with many small "l" libertarians are not comfortable with the US Libertarian Party. But how is your paragraph 2 above at odds with paragraph 3? You don't say so explicitly, but are you suggesting that small "l" Libertarians don't believe in fiscal conservatism?
The Pauls are basically grandstanders. They'll adopt any pseudo-libertarian position that they think makes a good soundbite. They record will show that they haven't actually done much of legislative consequence. Anyone who takes them at face value based on the soundbites IMO needs to develop more of a sense of cynicism when assessing politics.
Ron Paul specifically had been talking for what, 20 years about auditing the federal reserve more than they were allowed. They finally got something through under someone else's name, but the victory was his.
The reason is that Ron Paul and his like cannot push through something on his own. The entrenched interests are way too powerful.
> You are confusing popularity with effectiveness.
No, I am saying this ineffectiveness is motivated by lack of genuine interest. They're just opportunists, no better than any other.
His son is even more blatant about this, showing up at the last minute with tough questions when something is in the headlines, but not showing any signs of prior interest or following through. It gets him quoted in the news a lot, and a lot of support from people who aren't paying attention.
They are very willing to fall totally in line with the entrenched interests you mention. That they happen to be allowed token protest votes on stuff that won't be in serious danger is incidental.
That and... I guess being pro-life is a big libertarian position?
This made me laugh. Considering how much Republicans and Tea Partiers are ostracized for making cuts, just imagine how much people would come down on a fiscally conservative basically Libertarian candidate in 2016 (even if he runs as a Republican).