Cæptain's Log

This is about the civics quiz you can take here.  I contested 2 of their answers.

I have just a few comments on the civics quiz:

#33.  If Taxes = Spending then shouldn’t it most logically result in no debt (the only assumption is that there was no prior debt).  Under the same conditions, however, each person is not taxed equally, nor does the government spend equal amounts on each person (the wealthy are taxed to benefit the un-wealthy), so to state that tax per person = spending per person would be false as well.

#30.  I would like to contest that the best way to ’stimulate’ the economy is to increase spending.  The quiz verifies that taxation should decrease, however, to simultaneously increase spending would mean to differ the taxation in the form of money supply inflation or through debt, which put serious hampers on economic productivity, even if the cost is delayed for a short time.  Additionally, this implies that government can utilize the money better than individuals who earned it can.
This diverts resources from productive uses and utilizes them in less productive or counter-productive uses.
You also have to consider government’s track record with spending money and it’s effectiveness of utilizing it.  Even if the money the government used was completely free and did not redirect wealth from any other sector of any economy, it could still be counter productive, as, for instance, if they were to ‘bail-out’ a certain sector of the economy (like the auto industry) then that would maintain that industries hold on important assets (like land, factories, resources, people, etc) that are clearly being improperly utilized (otherwise they would not ‘need’ a ‘bailout’) and should be reallocated by the market to more productive uses.

Just some of my thoughts I hope you consider.  Thanks.

Post a comment back if you would like me to elaborate on my position on this.

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