I tend to take a look at the situation from more of an infrastructure perspective, partially due to my employment. What I do know is that there are very compelling arguments that electrical, data, and most importantly transportation infrastructure is absolutly critical to sustainable economic growth. When you get issues with intermittant power, or unavailable internet, or road conjestion, buisinesses go elsewhere.
On the west coast particularily, international trade is a huge portion of our economy, most of that involving goods trucked up and down I-5 to various deepwater ports. Trade out of those ports, over ships and via air, accounts for a somewhat greate than 75% of the total U.S. economic trade with asia in paticular. Though most of those trade goods leave via the West coast, they are produced throughout the U.S.. Any particular persistant delay in traffic on California, Oregon, or Washington state roads has a direct and documented effect on the trade deficit with china. Yet federal road budget money for so called "megaprojects", needed to fix the 20 or so west coast large scale traffic infrastructure issues, has been drying up at an alarming rate. Washington has 3, Oregon 2, and California approximatly 15 projects on roadways alone that if they were majically put in place today, would immidiatly relieve the conjestion from the mexican boarder to Canada and allow trucking companies to utilize a larger standard trailer size, which would in turn put more wear and tear on the roads and require more frequent paving or thicker paving in the first place as they do in Germany in particular, but it would also immidiatly and directly proportionally increase the amount of trade goods available. Lowering shipping costs, lowering the costs associated with trade, increasing profits and increasing the amount of money coming in to corporations who would then in theory hire more people.
Part of the issue with infrastructure is we keep strangling progress with wasted money. A typical interchange across a 6 lane highway, with 4 lanes of traffic and a middle turn lane currently costs in the U.S. around $28 million dollars, from initial design, to final lane painting. 20 years ago that same interchange would have cost about $2 million. Of that cost Literally $5 million off the top goes to study environmental (plants and whatnot), archeological, "environmental justice" (people of shall we say... lesser means?), and other studies that we didn't do previously. Now don't get me wrong, alot of the price increase has been due to inflation over the years, and the need to incorporate better, longer lasting concretes and asphault, along with more expensive signalization and signing, better groundwater collection, etc. But my point there is that there are some quite frankly rediculous levels of regulation and needless beurocracy that any project these days has to endure, and we can't afford it anymore. It doesn't take a 3 month long comprehensive environmental report to determine if there are any endangered species inside a 2 acre section of land. Send some guy out on a weekend to go look. Endangered plants? get a shovel and move them about 500 yards to the right. Endangered animals? guess what, they'll move before you run them over with a backhoe.
I guess the point there is that its not so much who we tax or how much, it's what are we actually getting for the money? We aren't funding the infrastructure pieces that we need, thats for sure. Trickle down economics is a good idea in theory, but the amount of regulatory crap employeers have to go through here in the U.S. makes it far more lucritive for them to pay someone over in Kerala 1/16th the cost to do almost as good a job. Yes, give corporations large tax breaks so they can afford to hire more workers, but make those tax breaks contingant upon them actually hiring additional workers in the U.S. Penalize any that outsource manufacturing to additional countries with higher taxes.
The alternative strategy of taxing your prodicing classes (especially the middle class) to the point they drop to poverty level and then relying on government to provide every service imagineable may work, and it may keep an ever growing segment of voters happy, but it guts the ability of small and mid sized buisinesses to establesh and grow.
Sure, have welfare. but while you are on that welfare check, you report to a work detail 3 times a week to do something productive for the economy. Commit a crime? we'll work you 7 days. Health care? pass legislation that perscription drugs may only be sold in the U.S. for a price as high as the lowest price they are being sold elsewhere on the planet. No more of this "oh, we'll charge YOU mr. american $50 for this pill. but we'll charge a canadian citizin $0.05 cents, because, we have to recoup or research costs... you don't mind do you?
All these bailout programs? Either we make money off them, or we own whatever we bailed out. Social security? We're paying people to leave the workforce. You get that, or a paycheck. not both. Or at very least if you are getting a paycheck we tax your social security until you actually retire. Farm subsidies? no more of this paying people not to farm. Flood the market with cheap food, drive every other food producing country out of buisiness if necessary. Maybe we'll have enough left at that point to make biofuel feasable.
I know not even a good portion of those would be feasable or will ever happen, but its the kind of thing we need to seriously consider.
