Accurate except for the “instead” part. Road maintenance comes from local taxes, whereas military aid comes from federal taxes.
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Unless you have the wrong drinking age in your state.
Underrated comment here. Federal road funding in the US was used to strong arm States into having a common drinking age.
And there are literal laws of nature that would prevent that from ever changing.
I mean, potholes in my area get fixed pretty quickly, because the local government takes its job relatively seriously.
Really hoping self-healing asphalt tech advances quickly in the next decade.
Well if you really want to get technical about it… No programs or spending are really funded by taxes anyway, the government just says “OK” and the numbers in the bank accounts of the companies implementing said program go up. Taxes funding things is just a myth. Taxes just delete money. So technically, nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void.
Edit: People seem to be down voting because they think this is tinfoil hat BS or something. It’s not. Look up modern monetary theory. Governments with fiat currency don’t need to collect money to pay for things. They just invent and issue more currency. See this video: https://youtu.be/75udjh6hkOs?si=dVpp9V5f96kLDV4-&t=1628
That has real sovcit vibes.
Not at all. Look up MMT. Modern monetary theory and economics are well beyond “spend taxes to fund programs”. Governments that issue debts in their own made up currency don’t need to “spend” money, they just give money to the programs they support.
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As far as I understand that’s the definition of fungibility, right? Every dollar is interchangeable and identical?
So there’s no functional difference between deleting $1 and creating $1 except semantics, compared to moving $1, as long as the total value doesn’t change.
The government just deleting money and printing money to pay for whatever it wants suggests that those things aren’t equal, which would be the problem if it were true.
That’s what causes inflation. When you print more than you delete, at a rate faster than total economic growth.
Yes, they both create and delete money. That doesn’t mean that the two processes need to be equal or balanced.
Your purchases do, or someone is owed their portion of the transaction. That’s not the case when the government is writing bonds or appropriating funding to programs. They can create money freely, regardless of the tax they collect. Taxes serve a different purpose.
I mean this is a cute clever thing that sounds smart that isn’t.
The government pays for things. The government funds that through monetary policy that includes printing money, as well as raising money via taxes. Whether the government deletes a dollar you give them and prints another dollar vs transferring the dollar you gave them into their spending budget is super irrelevant.
It’s functionally the same and either way, your tax dollar, whether “deleted” and replaced or transferred is still your proportional allocation of funding.
This is real “I am very smart” vibes.
Same could be said about your post. It’s very “haha I have a gotcha” vibes.
Yes the government deletes money. And they also create money. That doesn’t mean they do or have to do the same amount of each. They can and do create more than they delete. They’re not funding programs and then making sure they delete the same amount in your taxes. That’s not how modern economics work.
Of course not. But none of that changes the fact that your taxes, in part, pay for what the government spends money on.
For state taxes, where the states don’t control monetary policy, it’s even less true. But it’s not really true for the federal government either.
Everyone who is paid in USD or pays in USD, in addition to people who pay taxes, pay for whatever we spend money on in one way or another.
It’s not a gotcha. Nothing was got. It’s just an absurd thing on the face of it. That while technically correct (in the sense that dollars are fungible) your dollars given in taxes will make up a percentage of total dollars spent this year by the federal government, and thus, you are paying for whatever they are doing. Along with other people.
the wikipedia page says:
MMT is controversial, and is actively debated with dialogues about its theoretical integrity, the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics. MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory and has been criticized heavily by many mainstream economists.
i don’t think your comment properly highlights how controversial MMT is. i’m not an economist, but i don’t think it’s fair to use language like “taxes funding things is a myth” and “technically nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void”, when those claims rely on such a controversial theory.
It’s not worth your time to refute one giving youtube link as a backing reference.
Yes this is all true, MMT is a theory. It’s in the name. Yes, it’s controversial.
But those points have nothing to do with the validity of the statements I made, including the ones you quote. It’s a very broad economic theory covering how things should be done etc etc.
My point is not founded on MMT, I referred to it as a “look this stuff up by starting here”. That’s why it’s only mentioned in the edit. The mere fact that this is an even remotely acceptable implies the statements I made is valid - otherwise MMT would fall apart at its seams.
Taxes funding things is indeed a myth, and they’re essentially a money void. Go read up on those specifics if you want to get into it. The video I linked has a literal explanation of this like 30 seconds later. When congress approves programs, they just allocate new funds to it, and move on. There’s no digging up taxes to point towards it.
You could begin making an argument it has implications for the validity and reliability of the sovereign currency, but it has no real relationship to taxes. That’s just not how modern economics work anymore.
Sorry about all the broken veterans with TBIs. We could have invested in better healthcare infrastructure, TBI treatment research even better armor and helmets for our troopers dealing routinely with IEDs. But instead we got experimental tanks with active camo, a shitty plane which we’re phasing out and aid to Israel to perpetuate their ancient religious genocide program.
It’s just that US soldiers are poor and expendible and people with money tell us who and what is important.
It’d be way more effective if the road pictured wasn’t absolutely perfect and pothole free
This isn’t a problem if your thought process is slightly more sophisticated than an 8 year old’s.
Someone can’t take a joke
Can’t imagine what about the subject matter would fill anyone with anything less than the giggles.
All children in Gaza are terriosts! Or potential terriosts! Isreal NEEDS to bomb ambulances, hospitals and water wells because that is where all the terriosts are! ya see?Any amount of infrastructure supports terriosism! Bombing is a nessecity!
It’s outright ghoulish.
Well, it‘s actually true that Hamas uses civil infrastructure and civilians as shields, you can’t deny that. Of course that doesn‘t mean that Israel can just bomb everything.
in an area where the population density is 5,300 people/km2 “human shields” is a quite weak argument. It is practically impossible to seperate civillian and military infrastructure in such densely populated areas.
For comparision the Netherlands has about 500 people/km2 and it is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.
There is a difference between the close proximity of military and civilian infrastructure because of a high population density and actively choosing hospitals as military bases.
You are right. Hamas is not acting responsible leave alone lawful in where they put military installations. But that is used by Israel to just bomb anything they feel like bombing, and for that it is a weak arguement. Especially since we have nothing but Israels pinky promise that there were military targets in whatever they bombed.
Given how Israel extensively attacked civillian and ambulance convoys fleeing on the routes designated by Israel to flee to the south, as demanded by Israel, i cannot help the feeling that they are just shooting at random to instill more fear and destruction.
For that again i find it weird, how Israel was entirely unprepared for the terror attacks of Hamas on the 7. October but immediately claimed to know exactly where Hamas is having what installations in Gaza. I remember how the Russian preparations for the Ukraine invasion have been discussed for months and the question remaining was, whether Putin is that insane or not. Now with Hamas that question was moot, so how the fuck did Israel both know exactly where all of Hamas is, but didnt notice any preparations for the attacks?
I cannot shake the feeling that Israel has much less knowledge about Hamas positions than they claim.
Or, that they do know what’s going on, but let the attack happen because Israeli civilians are nearly as expendable as Palestinian civilians, at least to the people who profit from the war machine…
Israel does appear to value its civilians a lot more than Hamas. There have been prisoner swaps where Hamas will hold out swapping one Israeli until Israel agrees to literally hundreds of Palestinians.
Another great way of not getting your civilians targeted is to wear identifying uniforms.
It’s almost like Hamas doesn’t want to prevent civilian casualties.
Well that totally justifies killing everyone in sight
No, but it does justify telling all civilians to evacuate weeks before launching an actual full scale attack, increasing their odds of survival from 0% to 90%. War is ugly.
Somebody should tell Israel
“Anyone who runs is Viet Cong. Anyone who stands still is well disciplined Viet Cong.”
How can you shoot women and children?!?!
Easy, you just don’t lead them as much
Who said this?
Israel’s actions did
its a straw man, but only just, people more or less say this through implications when you hear “What else do you expect Israel to do”
a straw man
Whichever Hasbara the wheel lands on usually. Some are better than others though.
Said no one. Ever. Except you.
Love the false equivalence. Your city taxes can’t fix the potholes because your federal taxes pay for a military.
Those federal taxes cannot be allocated to state funds which cannot then be allocated to city funds to maintain roads?
Ain’t that the truth. Not to mention the Israeli children gutted and beheaded by Hamas back on Oct 7th. Our tax dollars didn’t pay for that, but they sure are going toward ensuring more kids and regular civilians are turned into worm food for some nonsensical war over a strip of land neither side really wants to be stuck with.
nonsensical war over a strip of land
I’ve struggled to understand why civilians on either side have wanted to continue residing in that specific zone after decades of clashes/violence. I know it’s not as simple as just uprooting your family to move elsewhere, but as a parent I know I’d rather any other option than living in constant fear of unbridled violence erupting at any moment in a highly volatile area.
Well, a part of it is that the people of Gaza are not allowed to leave.
There are only a handful of crossings out of Gaza and Israel controls all but one. The Egyptian crossing leads out into a desolate desert with no services.
Want to hop on a boat and flee that way? Israel will torpedo you. Want to walk up to the wall to see the boundary of your prison? Israel will machine gun you down, no questions asked, no warnings given.
A large portion of the population of Gaza started out as refugees, forced out of their homes and off of their land so that Zionist settlers could have it.
Even given the option, most if not all will choose to not leave. Since 48 the Palestinians have been chanting “from the river to the sea” and not taking lots of peace treaties offered by Israel and other nations, based on the premise that they’ll stay in their current 67 border.
Not to mention lots of Jews also don’t wanna live in a non-jewish state of fear of prosecution, pogroms and antisemitism, which you can see examples of happening right now in Europe.
Sweet Photoshop champ.
poor poor “palestinian” cinnamon rolls, never did nothin to nobody
awww cry me a fucking river, guess instead of having all those islamofascist muslim nations vote against israel time and time again, they should have gotten egypt to invade gaza sooner, through it’s land crossing in raffah, to root out hamas, pij, and all the other terrorists who attack israel. what is that you say, the united nations islamofascists don’t mind when muslim terrorists attack israel and kill jews, only when jews respond with force in their defense?
you don’t say
Gaza was given to Arabs for self rule and determination in 2005, all Jews left Gaza, even Jewish graveyards were dug up and moved, it was theirs to do with as they liked.
They’ve spent the last 18 years making into a terrorist Disneyland with a dozen Islamofascist terrorist organizations with the stated goal of killing Jews and destroying the state of Israel, they’ve fired hundreds of thousands of missiles into Israel indiscriminately targeting civilians, and launched countless cross borders attacks against Jewish civilians, including one that caused the largest loss of Jewish life in any single day, anywhere, since the Holocaust on October 7th.
They were given Gaza to live in freedom and self determination, they used it to kill Jews. They were warned. They chose to ignore the warnings.
These acts of terrorism were perpetrated by the entire Gazan community, they voted for Hamas, and allowed Hamas to rule their government for the last 17 years, Hamas and all the other Islamic terrorists in Gaza are not outsiders, they were born in Gaza of Gazans, they were raised in Gaza, they were educated in Gaza, they married and had children of their own in Gaza, their Parents, teachers, mosques, hospitals, are all in Gaza, from which they use to hid and store weapons to attack Jews, Hamas, PIJ and all the other Islamic terrorist in Gaza ARE Gaza, there has been no uprising in Gaza, there have only been attacks on Israel. This is what Gazans have supported and sacrificed for in every way they possibly could.
And now it’s here. I do hope they enjoy what they’ve worked generationaly to achieve.
There will be no ceasefire this time.
Just saying you might want to look closer into Hamas’ election. It was a razor thin over Fatah and fewer than 50% of the vote. Then Hamas decided to not hold elections anymore for the past 17 years. Hamas is not popular at all anymore with 70% of gazans wanting the palastinian authority to take over the strip from hamas in a 2023 poll. Hamas saw the writing in the wall and decided to task Israel with creating a whole new generation of grieving and pissed off people which they are quickly doing.
Joey Ramone would be disgusted with you using his face for this proganda genocidal apologist bullshit.
Israel is so kind to have slowed Palestinians to use a small section of the territory they used to occupy entirely less than 100 years ago to create an enclave with some of the highest population density in the world, truly they’re great benefactors!
You know who really fucking sucks? Hamas. You know who else really fucking sucks? The Israeli government.
Look everyone, a pro-Israel propagandist with a bunch of easily refuted ‘talking points’ (lies). I’m always surprised they bother with places like Lemmy.
Colonizers and apartheidists really are the scum of the earth.
“Your tax dollars help protect innocent people against terror”
Terror like bombing civilians in refugee camps?
Not that I’m pro one side or the other, but what should be done when hamas tells civilians to stay, and then hides behind them? That leaves hamas alive to stage another attack on… civilians.
Like, I get that there should have been a better solution than what was done after ww2, but we can’t go back in time and the Israelis aren’t leaving.
So… what? Hamas doesn’t seem to care that their avilians die, and actively use them as shielding so they can kill more Israelis. It’s fucked.
Sounds like a good time for a ceasefire
This “human shield” propaganda is so biased. By Israel’s extremely broad definition, every Palestinian is a human shield.
If you were to apply this sick “human shield” logic to both sides, most of the innocent civilians killed by Hamas on Oct 7th would be acceptable military targets.
The IDF has military infrastructure near schools, malls, and hospitals. Why are they hiding behind human shields?
If you were to apply this sick “human shield” logic to both sides, most of the innocent civilians killed by Hamas on Oct 7th
There were no military hiding among the party goers, or among the people living in their homes. The military personnel killed, was stationed at separate military installations that Hamas also targeted.
You also support Russia over Ukraine?
I’m not talking about all Palestinians. I’m talking about the ones who are talked into staying where they are by hamas despite a warning ahead of time from Israel (and b4 you come in with “24 hours isn’t enough time,” I agree with you, but it’s something. It’s an attempt. The ravers were given zero warning, on purpose.)
Those Palestinians are, literally, being used as human shields, and trying to brush that off as deceptive propaganda is ignoring the evilness of hamas.
Being near something is different from hiding behind them. Hamas is IN civilian schools, sitting with the students, and IN the malls, standing among the shoppers, and IN the hospitals, betting on the fact that when Palestinians die, more people will back their agenda. They want them to die because it garners sympathy.
Thank you
If I’m going to fund at least one side it sure isn’t going to be the terrorists
Both sides are terrorists.
TIL defending yourself from terrorists makes you a terrorist
Bombing hospitals and ambulance convoys makes you a terrorist
Not when those targets are occupied by terrorists.
If a killer hides in your house, is it right for the whole house to be bombed? Or are you now a terrorist by virtue of proximity?
If there’s a criminal hiding in a crowd, how many people can a cop shoot through to make sure the criminal doesnt get away?
That specific ambulance was taken from the people of Gaza by hamas. Not only did hamas use it for transporting their terrorists they also robbed the people of gaza of said ambulance
Do you not think the innocent Palestinians are terrified?
Justify the killing of innocent people by saying they killed one man makes you no better than the terrorists that started this latest conflict.
Before you inevitably bring up that well Hamas are the ruling power, therefore the people must support them. Remember that the vast majority of people weren’t even alive when Hamas took power, and even then it was a narrow win.
I find you abhorrent for trying to defend any kind of terrorism, even if you believe in the cause. No life is worth more than any other, you sick fucks.
The issue is that hamas purposely is using their civilians to shield themselves. Isreal can only do so much to try and hit only hamas members, but war isn’t that clean, no matter how much we wish it was. Yup, lots of evil all around, and there are some sick fucks in the IDF. But they’re not using their own civilians and shields. Like, forcing them to stay in place so they’re assured to die.
No, we can condemn both sides without calling it all terrorism. That’s just plain stupid. Terrorism is a specific tactic and just because you don’t like what a conventional military is doing doesn’t make it terrorism. It’s worthwhile to maintain our definitions.
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims
Open season on hospitals, refugee camps and journalists seems it’s fits.
Glad we agree :D
50% of Gazans are children
In a place with the living conditions of Gaza, one has to wonder who is stupid or evil enough to have so many children.
Isn’t this a photoshop? Boring Dystopia is a lot more poignant when the content it shows has some reality to it.
While the point the image is trying to make does have quite a bit of reality behind it, the shopping is to its detriment.
Just put the babies in the potholes.
Baby bones don’t have a high enough density and material integrity for that to be an appropriate solution.
You’re not using enough. You’ve gotta re-pack the hole once compacted a bit.
Exactly. It’s like he has no idea how to build a road at all.
Financially the US is gaining from it all, like she is from the Ukraine war. The point is good, but Israel buying weapons systems from the US means less potholes.
They aren’t being bought. It’s being freely given. All profits go to weapons manufacturers.
Please, not fixing potholes have been around longer than the current Palestinian/Israeli and also a completely stupid reduction of the complexity of this whole fucked up situation.
There’s nothing complex about it. Israel imprisons an entire people and every time the UN tries to do something about it the US vetoes it.
The “it’s complex” excuse is used to have people look the other way by turning it into a hopeless situation.
If there were some psychopaths that were insanely dedicated to killing you wouldn’t you want there to be a fence between you and them? It’s indeed not all that complex. Israel built a fence as a barrier between them and the psychopaths Palestinians elected to be their government. Seemed a better option than sending in the IDF to attempt a regime change. But apparently the fence wasn’t effective, so not many options left other than regime change now.
Hamas has always been the problem. How would you protect people from these psychopaths?
