Are Congresspeople Omniscient?

[Maqo]

According to Xero, 'excess funding is impossible - it mean the department needs to provide more'. And that if you do somehow 'overpay', then you'll notice very quickly that you have overpaid (presumably through ostentatious displays of wealth by government officials) and not provide as much money next time.

lol.

[Maqo]

According to Xero, 'excess funding is impossible - it mean the department needs to provide more'. And that if you do somehow 'overpay', then you'll notice very quickly that you have overpaid (presumably through ostentatious displays of wealth by government officials) and not provide as much money next time.

lol.

Because values are subjective, terms like "adequate", "enough", "sufficient" can only be determined by each and every consumer.

Because the goods are public, everyone receives all the goods. So what is adequate for one person will be not enough for another, but both will receive that amount of goods.
Which means the entire idea of 'optimal provision' of public goods is therefore nonsense, because you can't satisfy everyone - only a compromise which leaves no-one happy. Especially when you have only a limited funding pool and can't take money away from projects you don't like.
The only way you can even define what an optimum funding level is, is to give some portion of the population's opinion more weight than the other portion of the population. Currently, we give the majority opinion more weight - democracy. You want to give the wealthiest opinions more weight. That is plutocracy, and it would not last long.

But I have really no idea how granular it would eventually end up.

The least granular possible. In fact, departments would probably merge to become even less granular - eg the department of defense and education. Have fun with that!

[Maqo]

Because the goods are public, everyone receives all the goods.

Everyone does not receive all public goods...just like everyone does not receive all private goods. If you can understand why it would be stupid for everyone to pay for all private goods, then you can understand why it would be just as stupid for everyone to pay for all public goods.

The very definition of a public good : 'non-rivalrous, non-excludable' means that everyone receives it. You don't have to use it or value it, but everyone receives it.
If you CAN'T understand the way that markets acts for public goods is necessarily different to the way that the market acts for private goods, please go get yourself even a high school level education in economics and then come back.

So what is adequate for one person will be not enough for another, but both will receive that amount of goods.

Is your logic applicable to the nonprofit sector?

I really don't see why it needs to be... non profit can be public or private. Non-profit means absolutely nothing except that they purposefully don't make a profit.

Which means the entire idea of 'optimal provision' of public goods is therefore nonsense, because you can't satisfy everyone - only a compromise which leaves no-one happy.

I have 142 passages in my database that prove that what you're saying is nonsensical. How many do you need me to share with you before you revise your opinion?

Quoting 'passages' at people is never going to change their opinion - especially when about half the passages you've used previously in this thread disagree with you.

Just a very simple thought experiment:
50% of the people in your country want a standing military of 10,000 people; and 50% of the people in your country don't want a military at all. What is the optimal amount of military to provide? How do the people who want no military ensure that they get no military? What does 'optimal' even mean in this situation?

[Maqo]

Wealth inequality reflects the fact that some people are better than others at using society's limited resources. It therefore makes sense that some people should have more influence than others over how society's limited resources are used. This results in a greater abundance of the things that consumers want more of.

But it doesn't make any sense to argue that some people are better at using societies resources... but only in the private sector. If somebody is good at using resources to produce things that people want, then this has to be true no matter what the input is or where it comes from. Therefore, we can greatly increase abundance by allowing taxpayers to spend their money on public inputs just like they can spend their money on private inputs.

I disagree with every single sentence in there.
1) Wealth inequality reflects the fact that some people are better than others at using society's limited resources.
It really doesn't. People are dealt different hands. Get cancer and go bankrupt with medical bills? Have rich grandparents? Low income is a trap that is difficult to get out of. Most people perform wage labour and all their wealth is derived from their use of time (their own and others) rather than any kind of use of physical resources. The free market is about exploiting others out of your own selfishness and often really screws people over. And finally.. there are many uses of resources which are fantastically valuable to society but don't actually pay well because of free market competition.

2) It therefore makes sense that some people should have more influence than others over how society's limited resources are used.
Why? Why is my opinion worth more than yours just because I'm rich? Why does my ability to make cars mean I'm good at making bread?

3) This results in a greater abundance of the things that consumers want more of.
Again, this doesn't follow.

4) But it doesn't make any sense to argue that some people are better at using societies resources... but only in the private sector
It doesn't mean that people are good at using resources in the private sector either! It means they are good at using *those types* of resources in that particular private sector. A successful car salesman is no more qualified to direct military spending than he is to run a bakery. Most people make money only because they have skills which are in demand: the only 'resource' they are good at using is their time. Comparatively few people get rich by combining raw materials to make products.
Further, a public good by definition is not 'used' in the same way that a private good is.

5)If somebody is good at using resources to produce things that people want, then this has to be true no matter what the input is or where it comes from.
Go find an artist, and ask them to bake you some bread. Find a lawyer and ask them to perform surgery. Find a builder and ask him to run a software company. Surely if they are good at using any resource (their own labour) they should be equally good at using any other resource in the world.

6)Therefore, we can greatly increase abundance by allowing taxpayers to spend their money on public inputs just like they can spend their money on private inputs.
When your premises are rubbish, your conclusion is equally rubbish.

[Maqo]

You mean other than simply ordering Federal agencies to transfer funds and responsibilities back and forth among themselves?

I had a farcical bronze toilet for each agency they could lease back and forth to each other for obscene amounts of money, but that works too.

They could also centralize into "The Department of Stuff" that contains all federal functions.

Both of those are definite possibilities.
I'd also be worried about merging of political and commercial ventures. This would be a good way to incentivize the richest people i the country to get into congress - or for political parties to buy out/absorb big corporations.

[Maurepas]

I'll go for it, but on one condition: You don't get to decide where your taxes go, only other people do. Nor do you get to decide how much you pay, only other people do.

Maybe that way Goldman-Sachs and others will actually pay taxes.

[Middleton St George]

"Are Congresspeople Omniscient" - No


If they were, our omniscient MPs would have done something about it!

[Mistelemr]

I do not think, by any-means we assume congress people to be omniscient, however due to our government type we DO assume them to be better at governing than ourselves collectively. As a Democratic-Republic, we have some assumption that congress people (whom are often far removed from the common person in terms of wealth and income) know how to run this country, and know what we need more than we do.

Personally I think that assumption is a load of bunk, and that the republican part (small r, not the party, but the govt type) is used purely as a means to winnow out the otherwise wonderful variety of political thought that could / would exist. Were it a direct democracy, we would likely see something entirely different ( as well, were it a direct democracy, the U.S would not likely exist, but would rather be a few different smaller countries( which, I think most of us will agree would be much more preferable to the current arrangement) )

[Nebraska]

Omniscient? I'm not even sure they're sentient!

[Neo Art]

You know, when you keep insisting 2/5 = 1/2, it makes us question if you understand enough mathematics to have even an elementary level understanding of economics.

Total tax percentage potentially paid by the above average US citizen, 2013 est. - 59.7% http://www.nowandfutures.com/taxes.html

Wow. Whoever wrote that shit is almost as bad at math as you are Ausable.

[Neo Art]

No, seriously, I'm reading that link and it's not even "bad arguments" the math is just...wrong. It's absolutely, absurdly wrong. As in "math doesn't actually work that way".

You can't just add up percentages like that.

[Neo-Mlytoria]

I'm not sure what the OP intends to ask or have discussed.

Obviously congresspeople are not omniscient, no one is. Is there an implied definition, to be used for the purpose of this discussion, of let's say "effective omniscience," knowing all information they could possibly need to know to perform their jobs with optimum efficiency and effectiveness? Even by that definition, I'd contend no they aren't at all even that much, no matter how well-versed any politician might be or how many hyper-competent advisors they might have.

It just seems like quite a pointless question, and one whose answer is obvious. Is this seriously the only part of the discussion here, or is there something deeper that was a little too briskly glossed over?

[New Chalcedon]

Our current system is based on the assumption that congresspeople are omniscient. (True/False)

If congresspeople can know, better than society itself, exactly how much benefit society derives from public education...then it has to be true that congresspeople can know, better than society itself, exactly how much benefit society derives from milk. So if we're better off allowing congresspeople to determine how much public education should be supplied, then we're also better off allowing congresspeople to determine how much milk should be supplied.

The fact of the matter is...as a group, millions and millions of taxpayers have infinitely more insight/foresight than 300 congresspeople do. That's why we'd be infinitely better off by allowing taxpayers to decide for themselves exactly how much positive feedback (tax dollars) they give to government organizations.

Fail strawman is fail. What's more, the free rider problem only applies to public goods, where it will automatically kill any effort, such as the one you describe, to "voluntarily" donate to public works.

Milk? Milk is a private good - how much or little you have doesn't affect me in any significant way. Healthcare....now, that's a different matter. If you're diseased as all fuckery, then I have a higher chance of catching diseases despite the fact that I look after my health.

[New Chalcedon]

So your argument in favor of plutocracy is that the proven wealth and income of the Nation's top 10% makes them the best people to decide what society ought to do, while the proven poverty of the Nation's bottom 50% justifies their disenfranchisement?

Consumers are the best people to decide what society ought to do...and producers are the best people to figure out how society's limited resources can be used to make it happen. By limiting this sanity to the private sector, you're hamstringing producers and screwing consumers. Why do you want to do that? Do you think that the poor benefit when you waste society's limited resources?

Why do you want a small clique of ultra-wealthy persons, many of whom inherit their wealth rather than even pretending to earn it and many more of whom "earn" the money shuffling numbers on sheets of paper to maximise short-term profits even though it means their employers will go bankrupt in 5 years, to decide what level of taxation I should pay, and what should be done with the money?

Why do you want Paris Hilton to have a greater say in how the public finances work than, say, Paul Krugman?

What's stopping me from saying "You're doing a good job, government, but I really want this iPhone" and just not pay taxes because I can?

You bringing this possibility up would incentivize some taxpayers to give some of their tax dollars to the IRS.

You're assuming that people are (a) economically irrational, (b) utterly altruistic and (c) not short-sighted.

To be sure, Congress is often not much better - see, for example, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which every serious economist knew would plunge the budget into the red but were done anyway to please the wealthy donors - but at least there are mechanisms for accountability as far as Congress is concerned.

Me bringing this up highlights what a stupid idea it is.

I'm actually overdoing it by bringing this up. It would have sufficed to say it' stupid.

It's pretty sad if equating pragmatarianism to anarcho-capitalism is overdoing it for you.

There is nothing "pragmatic" about your suggestions. Wildly impractical on a practical level, yes (after all, how does one apportion the votes in a consumer-sovereignty political system? Should we present our shopping receipts for votes?). Utterly reprehensible on a moral level, that too. Completely asinine in its unthinking assumptions of benevolent omniscience on the part of a handful of heirs and heiresses, as well. It's also, incidentally, doomed to fall apart within a decade of implementation.

But "pragmatic"? No, nothing of the kind.

how do I decide what is the best engine to put into the new fighter jet?

You don't, you're a consumer...not a producer. You just decide for yourself whether the DoD is doing more harm than good. And if you don't want to figure it out then you'd simply just give your tax dollars to your personal shoppers (congress).

In regard to the italicised, it's nice to see that you subscribe to the essence of Ayn Rand's philosophy, in which there are two classes of people - the heroic makers who know best what to do with everything, and the greedy takers who should be grateful that the makers let them live.

In regards to the bolded:



Ashmoria did not claim that Congress should be peoples' "personal shoppers", and no-one - except perhaps yourself - is sufficiently deluded as to believe that this is the function they fulfil.

[New Chalcedon]

Therefore, the invisible hand does not depend on prices. It just depends on people having the freedom to weigh the alternative uses of their limited resources. When people have this freedom, then resources will be put to their most valuable uses. In other words, the allocation of resources will be efficient.

<dropped jaw>

Excuse me?

Price signalling is exactly why free markets in private goods work and command economies in private goods don't.

<pause>

Seriously, are you going for the 2013 NSG Economic Ignorance Award, or what?

Efficient doesn't mean desireable, it just means pareto-optimal. If one guy has everything, and everyone else is in abject poverty, it's still "efficient", and might well be the outcome of a given perfectly efficient market.

This, by God.

It continues to amaze me that Xero can imagine that he can apply economic concepts to public finance without understanding economics at all.

He doesn't understand public finance, he doesn't understand economics, and yet he seeks to apply one to the other in such a fashion as to support a pre-arranged position of "help the rich out!".

I wonder which Faux News pundit he is IRL?

[New Chalcedon]

And you still don't understand the irrelevance of the definitions. It doesn't matter how you define public goods or private goods...the question is how we end up with a greater variety/quantity/quality of the goods that we want more of.

If you think the definitions matter to the process by which we overcome scarcity then please, by all means, present your argument.

But the fact of the matter is, you're simply not seeing the forest for the trees. You're trying to "gotcha" me so bad with trifling details that you're blinding yourself to the very objective and point of economics.

TRANSLATION: "I don't understand anything at all about economics. My lack of understanding uniquely enables me to transcend the petty limitations of the field to come up with economic ideas that are truly breathtaking in their scope and importance, because I can make economics be and say anything I want it to be and say."

You know, there are a score of nutjobs every year who claim to have invented perpetual motion because they're not bound by the limitations of conventional physics and its theories or definitions either.

<dusts hands off>

I believe my work here is done.

Wait, you were still trying to teach him?

Wow. Talk about trying to make the horse drink.....

[New Chalcedon]

Wait, you were still trying to teach him?

Wow. Talk about trying to make the horse drink.....

Eh? He was trying to teach me? I thought he was trying to teach you.

Yet it was your "arguments" he was replying to. Funny, that.

Maybe he doesn't need to teach you because you already know about economics?

I should hope so: I do have a degree in the field, after all.

What is the definition of a public good

In order to answer this question, I must first define two qualities which bear on the nature of public goods: excludability and rivalry.

An excludable good is one that the provider thereof can cut off from those who do not pay for it: for instance, the t-shirt you're wearing is excludable, as if you refuse to pay for it, the shopkeeper can effectively prevent you from making use of it. Goods for which the opposite is true are non-excludable - that is, the provider of those goods cannot choose to cut off those who do not pay - for instance, national defense. Let us assume that your asinine "citizens' choice" taxation "system" enters play: simply because I choose not to allocate any of my money toward defense does not mean that the military can refuse to defend my home.

A rivalrous good is one which only one consumer at a time can enjoy: once again, a T-shirt is an excellent example, as unless you're really friendly with the current wearer, only one person can wear one at a time. Conversely, a non-rivalrous good is one that many people can enjoy simultaneously: for instance, clean air. The fact that I'm breathing does not, in any meaningful fashion, reduce the availability of clean air for your own lungs.

A public good is, by definition, non-excludable and non-rivalrous: it cannot be denied to individuals on account of refusal to pay, and it can be enjoyed simultaneously by many persons. Examples include national defense, clean air, knowledge (over the long term), street lighting, flood levees, firework displays (as used by ASB earlier), etc. etc.

As such, it is subject to the market-failure points "tragedy of the commons" (in which a commonly-held resource is depleted because no individual consumer has any incentive to economise on their personal consumption thereof; or in which no-one has any incentive to spend any resources or effort building up), "free riders" (in which persons partake of goods provided without paying for them, mostly because the provider has no effective means of demanding that they do so) and "externalities" (in which persons unrelated to a transaction derive either benefits or losses from it, yet do not pay for the benefits or receive compensation for the losses).

It should be noted that I didn't once have to consult anything but my own memory for that definition. The benefits of education.

and how does the definition prevent public goods from being produced in greater abundance?

Because the non-excludable nature of public goods means that no self-respecting private firm will seek to provide public goods to the public as a whole: they cannot demand payment, and as such will fall under the weight of hordes of free riders. Further, the same free-rider problem (as well as externalities) applies to any attempt to spend public money only where the taxpayers choose in advance: why should I, as a (hypothetical - you wouldn't catch me dead there) Arkansas resident vote to spend money upgrading the Port of New York, instead of on a local roadworks improvement project?

And now that I've given a brief insight into one week's content from Microeconomics 100, will you please go and do your research before trying to apply your own personal definitions to every economic problem out there? Or is that too much to ask of a right-wing ideologue like you?

[New Chalcedon]

Because the non-excludable nature of public goods means that no self-respecting private firm will seek to provide public goods to the public as a whole: they cannot demand payment, and as such will fall under the weight of hordes of free riders.

True, but irrelevant, given that I'm not an anarcho-capitalist.

The only difference that I can see is that you think people should be able to individually and personally allocate their taxes, while an-caps don't think there should be taxes at all. What's more, I never claimed you were an an-cap. So take your strawman and shove it.

Further, the same free-rider problem (as well as externalities) applies to any attempt to spend public money only where the taxpayers choose in advance: why should I, as a (hypothetical - you wouldn't catch me dead there) Arkansas resident vote to spend money upgrading the Port of New York, instead of on a local roadworks improvement project?

So even though you're sacrificing 50% of your income for the public good, you're still a free-rider simply because you fail to see the benefit of upgrading the port of New York?

No, I think that most people are - in economics - woefully short-sighted. They'll fail to see the greater benefits of an upgrade to the Port of New York - which won't directly affect them much - compared with the benefits of, say, upgrading their local road network, which will put dollars in their pockets directly.

Do you think it's at all possible that public projects are not all equally valuable/beneficial?

And this has what to do with your "point" again?

Is it hard for you to consider that values are subjective? Does it strain your brain to imagine that one person's trash is another person's treasure?

And this has what to do with your "point" again?

And now that I've given a brief insight into one week's content from Microeconomics 100, will you please go and do your research before trying to apply your own personal definitions to every economic problem out there? Or is that too much to ask of a right-wing ideologue like you?

Evidently you don't seem to realize that you failed to explain why the definition of public goods prevents them from being produced in greater abundance. Yes, public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous...therefore we have government organizations supply them and force people to pay taxes. What does this have to do with whether or not public goods can be produced in greater abundance? That was my question which you completely failed to answer.

Only because you're too blind to see the answer right in front of you. Oh, wait, I forgot how ignorant you are of public finance, so I shall spell out the remaining half of the point - something I wouldn't have to do for anyone who'd passed Macroeconomics 101.

Public goods cannot be produced by the private sector because they are public goods - there is no way for a private-sector provider to get their money back.

Public-sector provision of public goods is limited by the resources the government has. Unless you're trying to argue that people are generally willing to pay a higher rate of tax - in which case you're even more ignorant than I thought - then the only way to give more funding to one project is to give less to another.

And frankly, I'd prefer a deliberative system of allocating such resources, however flawed it may be, to subjecting appropriations to glitzy media campaigns and snap popularity contests. I don't know why, but placing the decision in the hands of the media - which is what would happen under your proposal whether you wanted it to or not - doesn't inspire me with confidence.

If you had done your research, then you would know that I'm not a right-wing ideologue. My goal isn't to kick even one public good over to the private sector. My goal is not to reduce the tax rate by even 1%. So please stop spewing your pre-recorded and entirely irrelevant arguments at me. Save them for actual right-wing ideologues.

If you walk like one, and quack like one, then don't get too precious when I call you one. Whether it's part of your self-conceptualisation or not, you're a right-wing ideologue. You use right-wing ideologue talking points, operate from a right-wing ideologue basis of "argument" and refuse to accept anything that contradicts right-wing ideology. If you don't want to be called a right-wing ideologue, don't act like one.

We're done here.

If you fail to do this, then by "bravely" running away you're implicitly acknowledging your vast economic ignorance.

It takes some nerve to come into a thread and say someone is economically ignorant when you can't even define what a public good is.

To be fair, Xerographica is the OP of the thread. But yeah, it takes nerve to call someone else "ignorant" when they've just finished tearing down your own utter lack of grasp of the basic conceptual tools for public-sector economics.

Not that "nerve" appears to be in short supply among Xero's ilk.

[New Chalcedon]

It's only 1/10 difference between 4/10 and and 5/10. It's just more convenient to say "half" than "two fifths".

So I looked up the US GDP. I just wanted to see.

Your approximation is approximately 1.5 trillion dollars off.

That's a pretty big math error.

If you're confident that congresspeople know your preferences well enough to spend half your money...then what argument would you have against them spending most of your money?

Congress doesn't spend half my money. They spend 0%. They also spend 0% of your money.

How you ask? Simple. Once I pay for a product or service, the money used is no longer "mine" in any meaningful sense. It's like asking why I'm ok with Exxon spending 10% of "my" money and why shouldn't I give them the other 90%.

That money, once I purchase the fuel, is Exxon's money, and they can spend it any way the elected Board of Directors chooses to spend it. If they do so poorly, they can be voted out at the next shareholders meeting.

Similarly, once you pay your taxes to the Fed, that money paid is not "yours" in any meaningful sense anymore. It belongs to the Federal government, and the elected congress can spend it any way it chooses. The voters can, at next election, replace them if their work was sufficiently unsatisfactory.

Silly Galloism - don't you know that the Federal Government never rightly has money? All the money it has is stolen or otherwise misappropriated, and truly belongs in the pockets of mega-corporations individual taxpayers!

[New Octopucta]

There's absolutely no way that letting people decide where their taxes go could go wrong.

[Ngelmish]

If representatives were making all or mostly decisions that the OP agreed with, this absurd thread would never have happened. The fact of the matter is that whenever people starting railing against representative democracy, they rarely are speaking from a position of philosophical disagreement. It almost always boils down to the fact that so long as one agrees with the decisions, one doesn't really care about what the decision-making process is, let alone called.

Fortunately, since most people live busy lives and have to take on some sort of specialized training to survive in this economy, we delegate the responsibility of direct democracy to our representatives based on the theory that their specialization gives them the kind of information that is needed to make decisions that we don't feel like we're expert enough to make. Whether or not that is demonstrably true in the case of every legislator ever is entirely beside the point.

[Orham]

Total tax percentage potentially paid by the above average US citizen, 2013 est. - 59.7%

The statement that the public sector accounts for half of economic activity is a statement about the proportional relationship between government expenditures and total economic activity. Why would we measure the total proportion of economic activity due to government expenditures by examining the estimated proportion of total 2013 tax receipts obtained from wealthy US citizens? Wouldn't examining overall government expenditures as a % of GDP make more sense as a measuring stick for determining the proportion of economic activity due to government expenditures?

This statistic was supposedly so critically important to validating your initial claim that the public sector in the US accounts for 50% of economic activity that you restated it outside your link. Explain that decision, because it doesn't make any sense at all to me. It's like trying to determine your height by counting the number of cashews in a bowl of mixed nuts.

[Orham]

What difference does the tax rate mean to you? Does it matter to you if the government spends 75% of your money? If so, why? In case you missed it, the main argument of my opponents has been that congresspeople are pretty good at guessing your preferences. If this is the case, then should you really care if the government spends most of your money?

Until you answer my question, I won't answer yours.

EDIT:

The question I'm asking is very simple and addresses a very specific argument you've made, Xerographica.

What does the estimated proportion of total tax receipts in 2013 paid by wealthy US citizens have to do with the proportion of economic activity due to government expenditures? You said that the public sector composes half the US economy, and when challenged with the argument that government activity actually only composes 2/5 (40%) of the US economy, you proceeded to parade out the claim that the estimated proportion of total tax receipts paid by wealthy US citizens in 2013 is about 59%. Hence my question about the relevance of that statistic for your point.

[Orham]

You said that the public sector composes half the US economy, and when challenged with the argument that government activity actually only composes 2/5 (40%) of the US economy, you proceeded to parade out the claim that the estimated proportion of total tax receipts paid by wealthy US citizens in 2013 is about 59%. Hence my question about the relevance of that statistic for your point.

It's only 1/10 difference between 4/10 and and 5/10. It's just more convenient to say "half" than "two fifths". It's not like my argument is suddenly only going to be relevant to Western Europe but not to the USA...

I suggest that this type of mechanism is an important explanation as to why public sector spending in Western Europe as a whole has increased from 35 to over 50 procent of GDP from 1970. - Assar Lindbeck, Overshooting, Reform and Retreat of the Welfare State

Xerographica, I want to make sure you fully understand what just happened. You've finally answered my question and acknowledged that I am right, but you've done so indirectly. I'll review the conversation in steps so that you understand.

1. You made the claim that in the USA the public sector accounts for 50% of economic activity.

2. Some of your opponents (not me) responded by claiming that the proportion is actually closer to 2/5, or 40%.

3. You argued against your opponents' claim by stating that the estimated proportion of total tax receipts paid by wealthy US citizens in 2013 is about 59%.

4. At this point I came into the thread and asked why the estimated proportion of total tax receipts paid by wealthy US citizens in 2013 is data which supports your initial claim about the proportion of economic activity in the US which is attributable to the public sector. I further stated that overall government expenditures as a proportion of GDP is a better measuring stick for that figure.

5. You provide a link to Lindbeck's work discussing the public sector's proportion of economic activity in precisely the way I suggested it ought to be examined (government expenditures as a % of GDP), in effect acknowledging that the data you provided about the estimated proportion of tax receipts paid by a given demographic in a given year has no bearing upon your initial claim, and was therefore irrelevant to the matter of what proportion of economic activity in the US is due to the public sector.

Just to make sure the point hits home, I'll state it plainly. I at no point suggested a counter-figure against your proposed proportion of economic activity due to government expenditures in the United States. Read the thread, you'll find that claim to be completely true. My question, and my point therefore, was entirely confined to one thing: what sort of data ought to be examined in order to determine the proportion of economic activity attributable to the public sector. My complaint was that you had used irrelevant data to support your claim about that figure. And your Lindbeck source uses the sort of data I suggested ought to be used to measure the proportion of economic activity attributable to the public sector, the sort of data you weren't using before: government expenditures as a proportion of GDP.

Did you think I said that you were trying to determine your height by counting the cashews in a bowl of mixed nuts because I was hungry?

Now answer my question. If you're confident that congresspeople know your preferences well enough to spend half your money...then what argument would you have against them spending most of your money?

Actually, that's very straightforward. You're fond of saying that congresspeople ought to be in charge of determining how much milk I have to drink if they're to be left in charge of other sorts of allocations, so I'll use that example as I answer your question.

I know everything I need to know in order to determine whether I would prefer to have more or less milk. I know whether I like milk, I know whether milk fits within my budget, and I know whether I have enough milk to last or whether I need to purchase more. I furthermore know precisely how much milk I need to purchase should I find I need more. I don't need to have any specialized knowledge about milk, nor do I need to invest any particularly burdensome amount of time examining the current status of my milk supply, in order to make an informed decision about my milk supply and budget allocations thereto. Finally, my individual allocations toward milk have absolutely no broader social impact whatsoever, no matter how effectively or ineffectively I may make my decisions. As a result, it's perfectly reasonable to leave decisions about such allocations to me alone.

Now let's look at another good: national security. I think we can agree that national security operations are a tad more complex than managing one's supply of milk, yes? That managing allocations to agencies responsible for maintaining national security is a task which calls for a great deal of specialized knowledge about their operations and conditions, both past and present, individually and collectively? I think we can also agree that obtaining said specialized knowledge, and furthermore keeping said knowledge up to date, is a task which requires a considerably larger investment of time than most people are able to make, yes? Finally, I'm sure we can agree that decisions about allocations toward national security initiatives have a significant and far-reaching social impact. As a result it is reasonable to sacrifice a system of strict adherence to each and every individual's preferences on national security allocations, where there is no guarantee that such decisions are well-informed and made methodically, instead implementing a system which tasks well-informed representatives with simultaneously adhering to the collective will of their constituents (as expressed through a free and fair election) as closely as possible while still governing methodically.

[Otrenia]

What is this... I don't even...