@pthenq1 Agreed. Also keep in mind how much taxes I pay depends alot on the country and how well their government spends it.

In the USA the government taxes the rich, and the poor as much as europe, in fact more in some cases. Yes so much of the money is wasted on the military or doing a shitty and inefficient job at solving most problems that I can easily argue that based on the current output of the government we should be paying half what we do in taxes, less if we cut our military spending.

On the other hand the Netherlands has some of the highest taxes in europe. Yet their cities and roads are as clean as they come, technology invesments are made for all sorts of public services, the infrastructure is amazing. Despite paying about the same as I would in america for the most part I dont mind spending the money on taxes because I feel im actually getting a good value in return.

@freemo in some Trump's years I paid more taxes than Bezos.

And I do not agree with that!

@pthenq1 I certainly have no love for what Trump did with my taxes. Then again Biden seems just as inept with how he is spending them, in fact more so. Biden has **increased** military spending over Trump's military spending by 12.3 billion. The guy is bleeding money.

@freemo It is because the China war. It will happen. And we must be ready

@pthenq1 If it werent for the fact that the USA is all around the world oppressive people and pushing a military presence rather than just preparing with tech and defense I might agree with you. But the fact is the US military engages with the rest of the world unethically. I cant fund something like that.

@freemo
It could be better.

But the Pax Americana is needed. Or someone else will model the world to its preference. Imperial void is not an option.

@pthenq1 aruging about two horrible choices isnt useful IMO. There is a good middle ground, one where we have a well funded military but dont use it for unethical purposes.

China is unethical, so are we. If any future war came the the USA winning would be no more a good outcome than China winning honestly. Both governments have long since past anything resembling ethical.

@freemo yeah. I agree. We have to be the good ones.

@freemo
Yes. Optimizing expenses would be healthy.
USA has the worst and most expensive Heath system in the world. That could be reduced minimum 90% without losing quality.

Defense must be optimized. But we would probably spend more. A China/USA world war is coming. Except if we move forward to a space race to mine, develop and colonize the moon and Mars (a more healthy alternative). In both cases we need an expansion of expenses there.

And the education system is incredible expensive an inefficient. It could be reduced the taxes and making universities free for the people at the same time. We need more engineers, no less.

Lot of optimizarions

@pthenq1 The USA health system isnt a governement expense. So sayings its expensive is a bit out of scope of the point here of government spending. That said I do agree the US system of healthcare needs to be reformed from a price perspective, just as the european healthcare system needs to be reformed from a quality perspective.

The rest I largely agree with yea.

@freemo
It is. The government pay through Medicaid and Medicare. They cannot negotiate prices with laboratories by law.

Then you have health military expenses. And of course they deserve it!

And people with devastating health conditions like HIV, Cancer and others are paid by the government who compensate the insurances. And yes. It must be done.

A cavity treatment cost 290 bucks. That's not a new disease, or uncommon. It is robbery. And we could get rid of those costs restructuring the health system.

@pthenq1 Ahh so you mean mostly just the medical assistance the government gives the poor and military, yea thats fair. But without universal healthcare overall the governments healthcare expenses are really a very small drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of universal healthcare. So small its almost not worth talking about.