Interesting argument and its true that income taxes hurt production and producers.
My biggest challenge with the idea of governments printing the money they need is that there would be no accountability. It is reasonably apparent that governments are not accountable enough for their actions.
i.e. why would they only stop at what they need when they could print 1M and give it to everyone or people who vote for them. And when that 1M is worthless, print another 10M for everyone.
As imperfect as the tax system is there is still a theoretical trace of accountability. Budgets need to be paid through taxes, taxes impact people, people vote for governments, governments create budgets.
I think we need to move towards a system with MORE accountability, less wasteful spending and less deferred debt.
Interestingly enough this probably means broadening the tax base, where both rich and poor pay more of the share of total tax. Only then will people have "buy in" to the government and the desire to hold them to account
>> My biggest challenge with the idea of governments printing the money they need is that there would be no accountability.
I think this is a good argument but there could be some kind of institutional structure to create accountability.
Kind of like the separation between the Federal Reserve and the Government. We need a structure that makes it difficult for the government to get the money. I think there is a difference between making it difficult and making it complicated. Right now it's not difficult for the government to get money somehow, it's just complicated but this complication just creates more bureaucratic jobs and makes the economy less efficient.
My biggest challenge with the idea of governments printing the money they need is that there would be no accountability. It is reasonably apparent that governments are not accountable enough for their actions.
i.e. why would they only stop at what they need when they could print 1M and give it to everyone or people who vote for them. And when that 1M is worthless, print another 10M for everyone.
As imperfect as the tax system is there is still a theoretical trace of accountability. Budgets need to be paid through taxes, taxes impact people, people vote for governments, governments create budgets.
I think we need to move towards a system with MORE accountability, less wasteful spending and less deferred debt. Interestingly enough this probably means broadening the tax base, where both rich and poor pay more of the share of total tax. Only then will people have "buy in" to the government and the desire to hold them to account