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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (69512)	5/2/2018 6:38:11 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 356113

I understand about having separate funds. I have separate funds myself, in one case a I owe money to a fund. I'm paying interest to my 401K account since I have a 401K loan. But that loan isn't really an asset, or if you want to call it one its exactly countered by the equal debit. The same for the interest and principle payments. The interest and principle payments don't make me any richer. Similarly when the government moves money between different funds it isn't getting any richer. Different funds can make sense for accounting and planning reasons. They also can have legal importance (my money in my 401K is more restricted then money outside of it), and be used for different purposes. But the overall picture is more important than the relationship between the sub funds.

To: neolib who wrote (69512)	5/2/2018 7:23:59 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 356113

employment tax should really 100% be considered part of the Federal Gov's annual taxation income Because that's what it is. Taxing is taxing spending is spending. Yes there done in different ways, and used for different purposes, and sent to and from different structures under different rules, and if you get down in the weeds its not all a big nothing, it matters in certain ways. But the big picture is that the government taxes and the government spends. What it spends on matters, some spending is more useful than others, some can be harmful even in gross terms not considering the cost, while other spending is beneficial enough to more than be worth the cost. Similarly some ways of taxing cause more problems that other ways of bringing in revenue. But what label you put on that taxes or spending, or what type of tax goes in to what fund to be loaned to some other fund and then later paid back by some other tax doesn't matter on the big picture level. Entitlements are important not because of the label or what taxes fund them or how the funds are accounted for but because 1 - They are set up in a way to make them slightly harder to cancel. and most of all because 2 - They are the biggest area of spending, and they are growing faster than any other large category of spending.