Post AtAeEoGVUhijChVAI4 by Mor696@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by Mor696@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #AtALL1JM0L2qH155k0 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2025-04-17T00:54:24Z
       
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       (1/2)@Mor696 > Politically Left but think government should be sensible spendersPick one. "Sensible spending" is a hard right shibboleth, which always translates to cutting funding to public services and infrastructure where they benefit workers more than the wealthy. Even if the overall result is actually higher public spending.
       
 (DIR) Post #AtALX99mf0DO56O4EC by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2025-04-17T00:56:39Z
       
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       (2/2)When targeted carefully, public spending can increase the tax take, making it revenue neutral. Conversely, cutting spending can reduce the tax take, so much that it's effectively an increase in spending relative to revenue.Take firing public employees, in a country with welfare benefits. All else being equal, each job abolished creates one new beneficiary, and reduces the tax paid by that worker. So the public can end up roughly paying the same amount, to get 1 less employee.
       
 (DIR) Post #AtANzpBADRqmQZppaa by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2025-04-17T01:24:13Z
       
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       @Theresacityinmymind > fiscal conservatives' are OK with paying $35,000+ per year per person to imprison peopleExactly. Welfare benefits are much cheaper than prison. But the "sensible spending" excuses used to cut or abolish benefits, are never used to argue for easily-accessible benefits for as long as people need them, as. a hedge against poverty-induced crime increasing the spend on prisons.
       
 (DIR) Post #AtAeEoGVUhijChVAI4 by Mor696@mastodon.social
       2025-04-17T04:26:11Z
       
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       @strypey That's not true. Every government spends money they don't need to.Canadian Gov bought the F-35 jet for $10 million more a copy than brand new F-18s. That's not "Sensible Spending".
       
 (DIR) Post #AtBShWWtVeLmIt3I0W by light@noc.social
       2025-04-17T13:51:30Z
       
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       @strypeyHow tf do you know what @Mor696 interprets by "sensible spending"?
       
 (DIR) Post #AtCVImRjgjBhRwUaG0 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2025-04-18T01:55:28Z
       
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       @light > How tf do you know what @Mor696 interprets by "sensible spending"?I know what it means as a trope in political discourse. Just like I know what tropes like "law and order" or "freedom of the press" are usually used to mean. Regardless of any argument-by-etymology applied to the words such tropes are made up of.@Mor696
       
 (DIR) Post #AtCVhWbhiOdZZ4xClc by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
       2025-04-18T01:59:55Z
       
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       @Mor696 > Every government spends money they don't need toThis includes everything they spend money on.> That's not "Sensible Spending"That depends entirely on what your political goals are. There is no such thing as spending that's "sensible" separately from that. It's a propaganda phrase, designed to sneak in the assumption that some spending is inherently "sensible" and some isn't, without explicitly making such a claim and having it questioned.