Comments about ‘Letter: Government is inefficient’

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John C. C.
Payson, UT

Keith and supporters claim government doesn't create wealth. If they are right, then neither do business owners, their managerial staff and service contractors. Only their laborers do.

Kent C. DeForrest
Provo, UT

Another shallow, simplistic conservative argument for a fantasy world that would be an absolute hell to live in.

"It would give hope and re-enable a path to the American dream."

Many people, including this letter writer, worship the holy America Dream without understanding what it even is. Guess what? It is not a mansion, a million dollars, and 10 milligrams of Ambien before bedtime. Here's the dictionary definition: "An American social ideal that stresses egalitarianism and esp. material prosperity." Yes, equality. When we can figure out a way to correct our corporation-dominated system so that it produces both equality and prosperity, then we may have a chance at achieving the American Dream.

Making the tired old claim that government is the problem is both false and duplicitous.

casual observer
Salt Lake City, UT

Our government's constitutional responsibility is to "...promote the general welfare...." not assure. Finding the correct role for government is determined by political philosophy. The socialists/communists (do everything) and libertarians/anarchists (do nothing) are at the extremes and seem to have captured the two major parties. Neither presidential candidate reassures me.

LDS Liberal
Farmington, UT

As history recalls --

Adolph Hitler ran his rise to power based on the cries of inefficient Government and the evil liberal Weimar Republic.

He promised to make every facet of German society ultra-efficient, lean, running like clock work. He eliminated waste in Government and Society.
You either produced to Society, or you were eliminated from Society -- Nobody got a Free lunch.

Auschwitz was an example of even turning mass human genocide and extermination as efficient as modern factory.

Remember the old adage: Hey, at least he made the trains run on time.

Bountiful, UT

Well let's see, we have 13% of all taxpayers ($100K of income and above) paying 87% of the ALL federal income taxes collected.

But yet somehow LDS Liberal feels that the 1% who owns 80% of the wealth needs to pay 80% of the taxes.

Me-thinks he is advocating WEALTH redistribution rather than INCOME redistribution. In my book, that is socialism and I refuse to accept it.

So far, the federal income tax laws are on my side and likely will remain so regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.

The Real Maverick
Orem, UT

Where are the jobs?

We've seen lower taxes for almost 12 years.

So where are the jobs?

Centerville, UT

When 1% owns 80% of everything, they should pay 80% of the taxes.

When a rich man builds his roads,
builds his own infra-structure [water, sewr, power],
has his own police force,
has his own Fire & Ambulance,
educates his own workforce,
finds his own medical cures,
and builds and maintains his own standing army,
THEN and only then can cry about how unfair the redistibution of wealth is.

But the taxpayers including the 1% are the ones who paid to build all the infra-structure and pay for all the services that non tax payers get to enjoy and use. What a class warfare statement to say the non tax payers paid for all this.

The CBO reported the top 1 percent earns 13.4 percent of all pre-tax income, but paid 22.3 percent of taxes in 2009. But because they have accumulated wealth you demand they pay more tax. In other words if I put money in a savings account you expect me to pay more taxes. You want to rob me of my savings. At what level of savings will you leave my savings alone.

Tooele, UT

Re: "Tax rates are at an all time low"


Taxes have never been higher -- but they're headed there.

Before 1913, there were no federal direct taxes. That is not to say no taxes, but they were hidden away in the cost of goods and services. Back then, taxation for most Americans is estimated to have averaged 3-6%.

Then "progressives" took power, and taxes exploded.

Today, about 50% of middle class American incomes are filched in taxes.

Visible taxes include -- state/federal/local income and social program taxes, real and personal property taxes, sales and use taxes [including gas and other transportation taxes and fees], and several excise taxes. Many are compound -- taxing previously taxed income.

But, in addition to those, there are hundreds more. Most are hidden and compounding in the cost of goods and services. These include import duties, "corporate" income and transaction taxes [a misnomer; corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do], debt service/interest, and most insidious of all -- the Fed's inflationary thievery.

Talk about grievous to be borne!

Centerville, UT

No As history recalls -- Adolph Hitler ran on the promise of equality for all.
Points from the "Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party"
All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by …increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

Tooele, UT

Re: "Remember the old adage: Hey, at least he made the trains run on time."

Uh, that was Mussolini.

But, set that aside for a minute -- I'm not following the argument. Why castigate a fellow socialist for the same principles liberals currently advocate? The "no free lunch" argument is the one the regime used to promote Obamacare's mandatory lock step. And its historically improbable government efficiencies were supposed to offset the thievery of Medicare funds.

But, to an even more basic issue -- are liberals now insisting government SHOULD be inefficient? Or, that if Obama could ever get trains to run on-time, everything else he's done to destroy America must be forgiven?


USS Enterprise, UT

To "The Real Maverick" if you want to look at the recent history of jobs in the US, prior to your Democrats taking control we had around 5% unemployment. Since then it has crept up to over 8%, or higher if you look at the number of people who simply gave up. The jobs dried up during the Democrats watch, so why should we keep them around since they killed the employment rates?

To "LDS Liberal" history also recalls that Hitler used extensive social welfare programs, such as old age pensions, they promised free education, free healthcare, mandated profit sharing in business, all was to be carried out through the central government. They had an extensive welfare system that was used in propaganda by Hitler.

Ernest T. Bass
Bountiful, UT

Banks, Wall Street and big business are even more inefficient than government. They are fueled by greed. Government didn't cause the financial collapse.

Mad Hatter
Provo, UT

So how do you organize a community without government? If you get two people together and develop some type of cooperative arrangement, don't you have a "government" with a governing set of rules?

Anarchy isn't a viable option. The Old West see any civilizing force until "law and order" came to town and government was established to serve the interests of the community. However, to say that "government is inefficient" is an oxymoron. Any system has its inefficiencies just like any machine has its inefficiencies. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. It is only transformed.

Usually it is not "government" that is inefficient; it is the people who make up "government" who are inefficient. Politicians learn how to take advantage of the inefficiencies for their personal benefit. Why else do they become politicians? The revolving door between higher office and lucrative private-sector jobs is revealing.

Change within government is affected by inertia and the self-interest of those who serve and those who they depend upon for their election. Call it "inefficient" but recognize it for what it is.

Ali'ikai 'A'amakualenalena
Provo, UT

Mountanman Hayden, ID

"Obama is responsible for everything bad in the world!"

Is this a correct summary of your views?

Utah Businessman
Sandy, UT

@ Ali'ikai 'A'amakualenalena

"Obama is responsible for everything bad in the world!"
Is this a correct summary of your views?

I would put it this way--there is "more truth than poetry" in that statement. There certainly no question but that Mr. Obama is EXTREMELY liberal.
I have asked this question of you liberals a number of times and have never gotten an answer:
If conservatives are the "dunderheads" you claim, why does Utah, which is governed mostly by conservatives year after year, consistently have a very healthy economy and low unemployment? As they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". For the nation as a whole, we have conservatives in power, then liberals, then an even mix, etc., so it is hard to tell which does what and who is really doing a good job. However, when a state consistently has one or the other, such as Utah, you can get a much better indication of who is responsible for success or failure.

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