Hello Woko Haram,
Who gets money and puts it in their pocket and never spends it in the economy? That would be absurd. They are going to spend it. If it is their income, they are buying a house, groceries, energy, products, etc. Poor people spend all they get. Rich people save some, invest some. Saving and investing do not go directly into the economy like money through the hands of the poor, but do have a deferred positive effect on the GDP. Cronyism can be fixed by passing the
Anti-Corruption Act.
Not all government spending benefits the economy. For example, nation building in the Middle East supports defense contractors, but it's still a net loss for the economy, since the benefits of the spending go to a foreign country rather than our own. War debts make up a significant part of our overall public debt -- including spending that happens in the aftermath of a war.
There's one example of who some government spending does not benefit our GDP directly. But it may turn out to be worth while in the long run if it prevents terrorism which causes us to lose things like the twin towers and part of the Pentagon. That day was a big negative on our GDP.
The problem with centrally planned growth is that it's not nearly as efficient as market driven growth,
I disagree. Unplanned market growth is haphazard and inefficient. Capitalism is inefficient. Capitalism bypasses regions of vast potential, wastes huge stores of human capital by leaving them idle. Leaves once producing projects and equipment idle as it moves on, leaves blighted communities strapped to pay for abandoned infrastructure. What does capitalism do for the inner city poor? Nothing. Worse, it leaves them to anguish and fester, only to cause expensive problems which must be dealt with by a responsible government. And the only way to do that is to tax the rich. Foolish capitalism has no guidance. It only seeks the greatest potential profits. The rich are going to be paying for the poor whether the poor are properly utilized to make a positive contribution to society or not. It is in society's best interest to HAVE A PLAN.
nor does it typically provide lasting benefits for an economy. There are exceptions to this involving infrastructure, like the Interstate Highway System, but few government programs are analogous with that.
The benefits of a large government, one which grows in relation to population growth and the growth of technology, are far greater than you care to admit. If one only looks at the negatives, than the negatives are all one sees. This practice overlooks vast potential.
And we already do this via welfare. If you want to convert to a UBI, then I'm ok with that, but the path toward that doesn't mean raising taxes but rather cutting bureaucracy. The current welfare state is bloated and wasteful. Replacing it with a UBI would likely save more money than it would spend.
I agree a UBI system would be far more efficient than the current system of millions of workers whose only task seems to be to determine who is deserving of wealth redistribution. At some point we need to simply say ok we're giving everybody a certain fixed amount so there is no need to run a vast system to determine who gets what. The plucky factor dividing us there is that I recognize that fixed amount needs to be enough to live on comfortably, while you would show no concern for that.
Sure, but that doesn't mean that we should just keep spending more money on the military. Government expenditures should always be weighed against the opportunity costs of taxation. If the opportunity cost of taking more money from someone is higher than the benefits of whatever the government is spending money on, then the tax and spending should not be done.
There is an undeniable logic in your words, but I would add that since we have to go from what we have now to what we would like, that we must consider the consequences of making changes. The problem with government spending is it cannot be cut off without causing unintended consequences. If you have thousands or millions of people making a living at fulfilling government contracts, and you just end it, then all those people are thrown out of work, and all the income they earned and spent would no longer be spent in the economy. That's going to be a big negative for the GDP. Government spending, once begun, cannot be stopped abruptly without harming the economy. There must be a central plan for how to transition from one set of circumstances, the current one, to the desired situation.
