I strongly agree with most of this, and also wanted to point out that Congress decides on the budget, so thanks for writing that better than I would’ve.
But on this particular point:
If billionaires were taxed more, the marginal increase in government spending would likely be spent on things preferred by the political group that was able to enact greater taxes on billionaires. My impression is that this political group would spend it in ways much more effective than the current average spending.
I’ll say that I don’t know how the American left works, but here in Israel the social-democratic left (which I vote for) is very good at saying “Here are some important and ignored problems, we have to spend money to solve them” but then very bad at saying “Here’s where money needs to go to effectively solve the problems”.
In 2021 my party became part of the government for the first time in ~20 years, and were very good in working to enact laws, but bad in setting economic policy or in spending money from their ministries’ budgets.
I strongly agree with most of this, and also wanted to point out that Congress decides on the budget, so thanks for writing that better than I would’ve.
But on this particular point:
I’ll say that I don’t know how the American left works, but here in Israel the social-democratic left (which I vote for) is very good at saying “Here are some important and ignored problems, we have to spend money to solve them” but then very bad at saying “Here’s where money needs to go to effectively solve the problems”.
In 2021 my party became part of the government for the first time in ~20 years, and were very good in working to enact laws, but bad in setting economic policy or in spending money from their ministries’ budgets.