

Mark Cuban: Thoughts on Our Federal Government, Taxes and Small Business - inshane
http://blogmaverick.com/2011/09/20/my-top-10-things-our-federal-government-should-do-and-more/

======
dollar
Tear down foreclosed homes to prop up the housing market? If Mark is serious,
then that is some of the most ridiculous dumbfuckery I have ever heard of. Let
me give you a truly radical idea - rent the fucking homes.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm pretty sure Cuban is just mocking politicians here. Otherwise, how could
he possibly fit two economic fallacies (broken windows and rent seeking ->
wealth creation [1]) in one proposal?

[1] Seriously - the classic example of rent seeking is a hotel owner who burns
down a forest to deprive competing hotels of lumber, thereby driving up
prices.

------
typicalrunt
" What bothers me are not the taxes I pay to help others and to support the
services our country needs. What bothers me is the mis-allocation and
inefficient distribution of our tax money."

Completely agree. I doubt many people would be happy knowing that a lot of
their taxes (or government debt) goes toward funding the defense budget, two
wars, and such. But that's the price everyone pays for a democratic country.
If there were enough people pissed off about the misallocation of taxes, then
vote the bastards out.

~~~
wlievens
> If there were enough people pissed off about the misallocation of taxes,
> then vote the bastards out.

That actually happened in 2008, but apparently the public changed its mind
again two years later.

------
r00fus
Mark, watch out - the tea partiers, libertarians and wealthy will think you're
some kind of socialist with that kind of talk.

 _It's a good problem to have_ is a great saying and has helped me time and
again to put things into perspective.

------
cjy
"I have NEVER met a motivated person who has said they would not chase their
goals because of tax rates" This is a common mistake that Cuban makes. The
problem with taxes is that they affect marginal behavior. The doctor works a
little less, and entrepreneur sells out a little earlier, the medium business
hires one less worker than they otherwise would have. These decisions are
invisible because they are small and we can't compare what is to what would
have been. But, the costs of taxes on economic efficiency are real. We need
taxes for to pay for government. And, we can debate how big magnitude of the
distortionary effect of taxes. But this should be done with data not based on
anecdotal feelings.

~~~
AndrewMoffat
> But this should be done with data not based on anecdotal feelings.

This last line has me confused about the first part of your reply

~~~
guelo
Of course getting hard data in economics is close to impossible since you
can't run controlled experiments. The closest you can get is looking at
historical data such as comparing what happened after Clinton's 93 tax
increase and after Bush's 01 and 03 tax cuts. Or comparing similar countries
with different tax rates. But there are just too many variables to really
isolate the data and reach a firm conclusion. I do remember reading about some
economist's study that tried to look at the data and came to the semi-
conclusion that it doesn't seem that tax rates have much an effect on GDP at
all (sorry I can't find source right now).

------
nl
_With complete transparency we could have hundreds of volunteer deficit
reduction Super Committees to look for the best places to cut costs and
improve efficiency._

This sounds like a great idea, but I worry...

A lack of shared values means each "Super Committee" seems likely to fall into
a battle over values. Some will insist on cutting defence spending, other will
cut welfare programs. Compromises won't be based on what makes sense, but by
trading off between sides.

I'm not sure that is any better than the existing system - and in some ways it
is worse. It slows down government even more, and it is likely to increase
partisanship.

~~~
lucasjung
I think the idea is more that _ineffective_ (or at least terribly inefficient)
programs would be much less likely to survive in such an environment. If
program _a_ is designed to achieve effect _B_ , some people will argue for it
because they think that _B_ is desirable, and others will argue against it
because they think that _B_ is undesirable, or because it produces some side
effect _C_ which they find undesirable. However, if it is shown that program
_a_ does not achieve effect _B_ , or is terribly inefficient at doing so, then
even proponents of effect _B_ would have to agree that it should be
eliminated. Presumably, those proponents would then push for some new program
aimed at achieving effect _B_ , but that's a separate issue.

~~~
nl
You have much more faith in people relying on facts than I do.

Given that some people actively discount expert opinion, I can't see how
concepts like logical reasoning would work...

------
mmaunder
Pretty sure he means "moral imperative", not "moral hazard" which has the
opposite meaning in that context. Sorry, it jumped out at me.

------
tomjen3
He is so wrong about nearly everything he says.

First you can't get money out of politics and you wouldn't want to anyway,
because when the next Huey Long comes around, who is going to defend your
business?

Second the higher the tax rates the less income you loose buy not working that
extra hour. Since working has a cost, wear and tear on a car if you do
deliveries, payment to have somebody take care of your children, etc this
point will be meet before you would think it would be.

With regards to a corporation, the more expensive you make its operation, the
more you help foreign corporations.

Finally the issue isn't lack of taxes, it is wasteful military spending,
particulary in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not because the US isn't fighting
efficiently but because they hsouldn't have been there in the first place.

Personally I would solve the budget crisis by getting most tropes home, reduce
the army to one fifth, double the size of the elite forces (and use them to
take out Bin Laden rather than occupy Afghanistan).

So long as the US has nukes, nobody is going to invade and there will never
again be a world war two style clash of titans (because it would go nuclear
and be done with before the soldiers could even be called up).

