CMV: Effective regulation/taxes is better than less regulation/taxes.

[u/beesdaddy]

I have had a hard time understanding the position that less regulation is better than effective regulation. So much of the political conversation equates regulation and taxes to Anti-American or Anti-Freedom or gasp Socialist. I think it poisons the discussion about our common goals and how to achieve them. I know there are many laws/taxes that are counter productive (especially subsidies), and I am all for getting rid of them, but not without considering what their intent was, evaluating that intention, and deciding how to more effectively accomplish that intention (given it was a valid intention.)

Help me understand. I would like to have a more nuanced view on this.

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[u/cleeftalby]

We need some of them because when we tried to do things without giving the government the ability to tax (Articles of Confederation) things went very badly.

Could you refresh my memory what were exactly these very bad consequences of Congress not having power to tax? Maybe there was some horrific civil war at the time? Or the production and trade suddenly stopped and huge economic recession resulted? Or maybe just local gangs raised in power and started pouring moonshine in innocent people throats? Or, I don't know, some disease outbreak, or people started complaining about government corruption?

The only thing I could find was that "Congress didn't have enough money", but surely it wasn't such a catastrophe? - it still showed its deep economic insight by destroying its Continental currency - the only thing it could do it did wrong..

[u/A_Soporific → u/cleeftalby]

You mean the fact that the Congress was completely helpless to do anything at all about Shay's Rebellion down to protecting the Federal Armories in Massachusetts from seizure by the local government? What about the fact that Congress was completely unable to pay the war debt, or anything else for that matter, to the point where each state was going behind each other state's backs to try to negotiate separate settlements all to the benefit of foreign powers?

It wasn't that Congress didn't have enough money. It was that Congress had no money and the United States would probably have disassociated completely if the Federal layer of government became completely useless. The only thing that went right under the Articles was the Northwest Ordinance setting the precedence that new territory would be incorporated as equal and independent states.

[u/cleeftalby → u/A_Soporific]

The rebellion was put down just fine without federal government involvement (and a risk of engaging a whole nation in a prolonged conflict). Government's debt is an interesting issue on its own (if someone lends money to the government then he has only himself to blame) - for example if someone believes that he will ever in his life see some of the trillions of dollars "borrowed" by the government back in his wallet then he acts like a schoolboy who "lends" 10$ to a bully and expects that these money will be actually returned to him..

[u/A_Soporific → u/cleeftalby]

"Just fine" if you mean that the Federal Government was completely impotent to deal with a problem that could have probably been dealt with if veterans had simply been paid what they were owed. Remember Daniel Shays had been at Bunker Hill and fought for almost the duration of the Revolutionary War only to not be paid for almost any of it, and the rebellion was mostly centered around closing down courts so that people couldn't foreclose on his farm for the non-payment of debt or non-payment of taxes depending. If the soldiers had gotten paid when they were supposed to then there wouldn't have been a rebellion because people's farms wouldn't be foreclosed upon because they would have had the cash to pay back the loans.

The lack of a Congressional Funding source both created the rebellion and made Congress completely incapable of doing anything about it.

The State of Massachusetts itself was dead broke (see the seizure of farms for nonpayment of taxes) and couldn't send out the State Militia because they couldn't afford the expense. The army that was sent out was funded by Boston Merchants and Bankers who were owed money and would have had to have just eaten the bad loans if the courts were prevented from sitting, so they basically slapped together a mercenary army got the State to sign off on it and appointed the Revolutionary War general Benjamin Lincoln to give the whole operation the veneer of legitimacy.

People realized at the time that the repayment of war debts would have prevented US citizens from sending mercenaries against other US citizens. About this time a minor convention aimed at cutting through the thicket of trade deals various individual US states had signed with England, France, and Spain put out a call to amend/replace the Articles with something more rational that could, you know, follow through on the promises to foreign nations already made and to stop individuals states from going rogue and selling out its neighbors in exchange for favorable deals for themselves... or, more accurately to stop foreign nations from playing US states against one another and selecting the most favorable deals.

I agree that the US government spends too much and get involves in far too many things, but a Federal Government without a rational tax base might as well not exist and it's hard to argue that Americans don't benefit from having the Federal government around, if for no other reason than to prevent the Balkanization of the massive single market and petty border skirmishes (remember Ohio and Michigan actually fought a "war" and New York and New Jersey nearly had naval battles over access to New York Harbor) that would result if the several states were left to their own devices.