Many EU countries have a “VAT” and like feel like this is kinda targeting poor people. Like, for the rich, this is insignificant, for poorer people, a (example) 20% tax would be a huge burden. Why do they do this?

🤔

  • Lauchs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    Yeah, I’m not sure I’ve seen any of those in my lifetime. I’m Canadian and even Steven Harper, who would be almost a Democrat by American standards, wanted to go to war with the census for Reasons.

    Broadly though, my understanding of Conservative values, peeling back the state, more self reliance etc is broadly unpopular to the many who think the state has a big role to play in social welfare from education to healthcare

    If you could offer just rough ideas/goals, what would your sane, honest Conservative budget feature? Not looking to fight just genuinely curious. (No numbers obviously but like what would you want to cut. No vague “government waste” though please.)

    • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      I don’t mean specifically politically conservative rather an economic conservative plan. It wouldn’t be too crazy if we cut taxes and cut spending at the same time. That’s unpopular though because so many never studied econ

      • Lauchs@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        Fair but I’m not sure what the point of spending cuts is beyond ,shrinking the state, cooling down an overheated economy or reducing a deficit. What am I missing?

        A lot of government spending is super popular (think entitlements, healthcare, infrastructure etc.) I have an econ degree (admittedly, not particularly used as I’m now a dev) but I’m still not seeing a particular impetus…

        • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          If you are going to reduce the revenue you are taking in you need to cut spending to avoid creating a deficit or debt, and yes you would do this to cool off an economy or to pay off debt should you cut spending without cutting taxes.

          • Lauchs@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            Oh, if the impetus is just to cut taxes, well I don’t think that’s particularly ideal.

            If you’re cutting taxes in the hopes of Laffer striking again, fine but that’s supposed to be revenue generating.

            If you’re cutting taxes for the sake of lower taxes, then you need to have some services in mind that are worth less than the value of the tax cuts, not just in terms of dollars but in terms of what they do. For example, you could cut SNAP benefits but yeah, most would be against that because feeding poor kids is pretty popular.

            I don’t think these are unpopular because people don’t know economics so much as there aren’t many services they’d give up for marginally lower taxes.

            • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 day ago

              Ideally the impetus to cut taxes would be as a response to a recession to get the economy moving. Im not advocating cuts for cuts sake.

              • Lauchs@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                24 hours ago

                Ahhhh, gotchya, sorry missed that!

                Though, I think tax cuts are fine to spur demand (especially targeted at lower income levels) though I’m a little hesitant about cutting spending. I’m in the camp that feels deficit spending is okay, maybe even desirable for things like recessions and wars. Spending cuts usually act as a drag on growth so if your goal is to heat up an economy, cutting taxes AND spending seems counter productive…