Study: The Average Americans Opinion Regarding the Economical Issues in the US

[Raidenx]

Kind of a bizarre poll given a) is already a reality, the U.S. just its implements socialism in very inefficient ways, largely because it seems to fear the very concept.

"Socialism" isn't a black-or-white idea that is mass deployed, it exists on a sliding scale. If your government is spending on health care or has implemented progressive taxation in some form, it's already present.

When you have guys like Warren Buffett begging to be subject to higher taxes, it might be a good clue as to what should at least be considered.

See my earlier videos about the American tax system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucoP4-06O7M pt.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5Gkox-1QY

Sorry if you dont like them for some reason. I would argue the points myself but its easier to watch other people better articulate my points as Im not a native speaker.

[Grummgug]

California is a model of what a leftist-run economy looks like. Sky-high tax rates, a massive state budget deficit, a fiscal crisis, and really no way out of the mess.

I'm willing to try democrat-run economy on a national scale...only when they prove it can work in California. That's a fair and reasonable demand. Europe clearly doesn't have the answer, either.

This eliminates going down the path of A.

B is eliminated because the current situation is not working either.

I'm not really sure what the scope of C is. Do you mean basically shut down all government regulation? I think there has to be some sort of specifics given there.

I have to go D.

I would wield government regulation as a stimulus tool. Cut government regulations to encourage businesses to invest and grow. Usually, when I propose this, I get the response that lack of regulation in housing caused the housing bubble. There is truth there. However, it is also true that cutting regulation is stimulative. We can cut regulation in other sectors to stimulate the economy, and then re-apply regulations after the economy gets moving again.

One idea is we have an oil boom, and lots of oil. So lets' eliminate regulations preventing drilling, like in ANWAR, to get the oil and sell it. This will create jobs and get the economy moving. Once the economy is going, we can look to hiking regulations on drilling again, to help protect the environment and prevent a bubble in the oil sector.

So you manage regulations to push the economy forward. You can do this sensibly without destroying the environment.

[Vulgrym]

Sorry if you dont like them for some reason. I would argue the points myself but its easier to watch other people better articulate my points as Im not a native speaker.

No need, I've actually watched him and debated the points before.

I won't belabor the issue, but balancing the budget is a tiny portion of what progressive taxation (which in and of itself is only one small part of 'socialism') is supposed to mean for a country. Of course baseline economic growth is most important, but again, lower tax rates aimed at promoting that growth is only a very small part of THAT equation.

The ideological discussion of the responsibility of individuals who approach that level of wealth, where they expend great energy to even give their money away philanthropically, is a broader one. Every country redistributes wealth to some degree, not just because they're trying to balance a budget

[Raidenx]

No need, I've actually watched him and debated the points before.

I won't belabor the issue, but balancing the budget is a tiny portion of what progressive taxation (which in and of itself is only one small part of 'socialism') is supposed to mean for a country. Of course baseline economic growth is most important, but again, lower tax rates aimed at promoting that growth is only a very small part of THAT equation.

The ideological discussion of the responsibility of individuals who approach that level of wealth, where they expend great energy to even give their money away philanthropically, is a broader one. Every country redistributes wealth to some degree, not just because they're trying to balance a budget

I just think people should be entitled to the money they earn as much as possible, and its immoral to use force to take it from them, even if its well intended (as hypocritical as it is). Progressive taxation, at least in this country, doesnt create much of an economic benefit so that's another reason why I am against it. Everyone should be taxed an equal percentage and success shouldnt be punished. I dont think its right for the majority to take from the minority just because they think they need it.

Rothbard wrote, Of all the patterns of tax distribution, the progressive tax has generated the most controversy. In the case of the progressive tax, the conservative economists who oppose it have taken the offensive, for even its advocates must grudgingly admit that the progressive tax lowers incentives and productivity. Hence, the most ardent champions of the progressive tax on “equity” grounds admit that the degree and intensity of progression must be limited by considerations of productivity. The major criticisms that have been leveled against progressive taxation are: (a) it reduces the savings of the community; (b) it reduces the incentive to work and earn; and (c) it constitutes “robbery of the rich by the poor.”

To evaluate these criticisms, let us turn to an analysis of the effects of the progression principle. The progressive tax imposes a higher rate of taxation on a man earning more. In other words, it acts as a penalty on service to the consumer, on merit in the market. Incomes in the market are determined by service to the consumer in producing and allocating factors of production and vary directly according to the extent of such services. To impose penalties on the very people who have served the consumers most is to injure not only them, but the consumers as well. A progressive tax is therefore bound to cripple incentives, impair mobility of occupation, and greatly hamper the flexibility of the market in serving the consumers. It will consequently lower the general standard of living. The ultimate of progression—coercively equalized incomes—will, as we have seen, cause a reversion to barbarism. There is also no question that progressive income taxation will reduce incentives to save, because people will not earn the return on investment consonant with their time preferences; their earnings will be taxed away. Since people will earn far less than their time preferences would warrant, their savings will be depressed far below what they would be on the free market.

Thus, conservatives’ charges that the progressive tax reduces incentives to work and save are correct and, in fact, are usually understated, because there is not sufficient realization that these effects stem a priori from the very nature of progression itself. It should not be forgotten, however, that proportional taxation will induce many of the same effects as, in fact, will any tax that goes beyond equality or the cost principle. For proportional taxation also penalizes the able and the saver. It is true that proportional taxation will not have many of the crippling effects of progression, such as the progressive hampering of effort from one income bracket to another. But proportional taxation also imposes heavier burdens as the income brackets rise, and these also hamper earning and saving.

A second argument against the progressive income tax, and one which is perhaps the most widely used, is that, by taxing the incomes of the wealthy, it reduces savings in particular, thus injuring society as a whole. This argument is predicated on the usually plausible assumption that the rich save more proportionately than the poor. Yet, as we have indicated above, this is an extremely weak argument, particularly for partisans of the free market. It is legitimate to criticize a measure for forcing deviations from free-market allocations to arbitrary ones; but it can hardly be legitimate simply to criticize a measure for reducing savings per se. For why does consumption possess less merit than saving? Allocation between them on the market is simply a matter of time preference. This means that any coerced deviation from the market ratio of saving to consumption imposes a loss in utility, and this is true whichever direction the deviation takes. A government measure that might induce more saving and less consumption is then no less subject to criticism than one that would lead to more consumption and less saving. To say differently is to criticize free-market choices and implicitly to advocate governmental measures to force more savings upon the public. If they were consistent, therefore, these conservative economists would have to advocate taxation of the poor to subsidize the rich, for in that case savings would presumably increase and consumption diminish.

The third objection is a political-ethical one—that “the poor rob the rich.” The implication is that the poor man who pays 1 percent of his income in taxes is “robbing” the rich man who pays 80 percent. Without judging the merits or demerits of robbery, we may say that this is invalid. Both citizens are being robbed—by the State. That one is robbed in greater proportion does not eliminate the fact that both are being injured. It may be objected that the poor receive a net subsidy out of the tax proceeds because the government spends money to serve the poor. Yet this is not a valid argument. For the actual act of robbery is committed by the State, and not by the poor. Secondly, the State may spend its money, as we shall see below, on many different projects. It may consume products; it may subsidize some or all of the rich; it may subsidize some or all of the poor. The fact of progressive income taxation does not itself imply that “the poor” en masse will be subsidized. If some of the poor are subsidized, others may not be, and these latter will still be net taxpayers rather than tax-consumers and will be “robbed” along with the rich. The extent of this deprivation will be less for a poor taxpayer than for a rich one; and yet, since usually there are far more poor than rich, the poor en masse may very well bear the greatest burden of the tax “robbery.” In contrast, the State bureaucracy, as we have seen, actually pays no taxes at all.[39]

This misconception of the incidence of “robbery,” and the defective argument on savings, among other reasons, have led most conservative economists and writers to overemphasize greatly the importance of the progressiveness of taxation. Actually, the level of taxation is far more important than its progressiveness in determining the distance that a society has traveled from a free market. An example will clarify the relative importance of the two. Let us contrast two people and see how they fare under two different tax systems. Smith makes $1,000 a year, and Jones makes $20,000 a year. In Society A taxation is proportionate for all at 50 percent. In Society B taxation is very steeply progressive: rates are ½ percent for $1,000 income, 20 percent for $20,000 income. The following tabulation shows how much money each will pay in taxes in the different societies:

Now, we may ask both the rich and the poor taxpayers: Under which system of taxation are you better off? Both the rich man and the poor man will unhesitatingly pick Society B, where the rate structure is far more progressive, but where the level of taxation for every man is lower. Some may object that the total amount of tax levied is far greater in Society A. But this is precisely the point! The point is that what the rich man objects to is not the progressiveness of the rates, but the high level of the rates imposed upon him, and he will prefer progressiveness when rates are lower. This demonstrates that it is not the poor who “rob” the rich through the progressive principle of taxation; it is the State that “robs” both through all taxation. And it indicates that what the conservative economists are actually objecting to, whether they fully realize it or not, is not progression, but high levels of taxation, and that their real objection to progression is that it opens the sluice gates for high levels of taxation of the rich. Yet this prospect will not always be realized. For it is certainly possible and has often occurred that a rate structure is very progressive and yet lower all around, on the high brackets and on the low, than a less progressive structure. As a practical matter, however, progressiveness is necessary for high tax rates, because the multitude of lower-income citizens might revolt against very steep tax rates if they were imposed on all equally. On the other hand, many people may accept a high tax burden if they are secure in the knowledge or belief that the rich pay a still higher rate.

We have seen that coerced egalitarianism will cause a reversion to barbarism and that steps in that direction will result in dislocations of the market and a lowering of living standards. Many economists—notably the members of the “Chicago School”—believe that they champion the “free market,” and yet they do not consider taxation as connected with the market or as an intervention in the market process. These writers strongly believe that, on the market, every individual should earn the profits and marginal value productivity that the consumers wish to pay, in order to achieve a satisfactory allocation of productive factors. Nevertheless, they see no inconsistency in then advocating drastic taxation and subsidies. They believe that these can alter the “distribution” of incomes without lowering the efficiency of productive allocations. In this way they rely on an equivalent of Keynesian “money illusion”—a tax illusion, a belief that individuals will arrange their activities according to their gross rather than net (after-tax) income. This is a palpable error. There is no reason why people should not be tax-conscious and allocate their resources and energies accordingly. Altering relative rewards by taxation will disrupt all the allocations of the market—the movement of labor, the alertness of entrepreneurship, etc. The market is a vast nexus, with all strands interconnected, and it must be analyzed as such. The prevailing fashion in economics of chopping up the market into isolated compartments—“the firm,” a few “macroscopic” holistic aggregates, market exchanges, taxation, etc.—distorts the discussion of each one of these compartments and fails to present a true picture of the interrelations of the market.

Please excuse the wall of text but I really think it's important,

[Fugus]

California is a model of what a leftist-run economy looks like. Sky-high tax rates, a massive state budget deficit, a fiscal crisis, and really no way out of the mess.

Comparing California to a socialist method is about like comparing a H3 Hummer to a world class economy car.

The socialized methods have proven to work great, many countries problems have came from how they were tied to the USA when we crashed and burned and we took them down with us.

The biggest problem we have with socialized methods is when we have others trying to manipulate it for personal gain, profit or to try and make them look bad to maintain or earn more profit (example: Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006) or due to some antiquated fear of some cold war commies.

Socializing the stuff that is critical and needed infrastructure and services makes it cheaper and much higher quality (when done correctly) as the free market can never work on thing that is critical and needed by their very nature and can never be a "For-Profit" venture as it WILL be exploited.

Socialized healthcare in America (as in paid for by taxes).... If you made ours a carbon copy of the Canadian healthcare model our annual costs on healthcare would drop by somewhere between 33-66% with massive increases in quality and companies could no longer cut employ hours to avoid paying for it and could no longer try and use insurance as a job perk.

Laissez-fair economist is a horrible idea, you will never have a populace educated and active enough in every area to make it effectively work which turns it into a disaster in waiting. Especially when the companies can most the labor to the cheapest areas while it is much MUCH harder for customers to import the goods and services from the same cheaper areas. You would need something that educated people as fast as the neural hookup in "The Matrix" to make sure everyone knew enough about everything to even hope to make it function properly.

Edit: And as far as taxes go, you should be taxed based on what percentage of the income you bring in. If you bring in 50% of the nations income, you are responsible for 50% of the nations taxes. Right now we have the top earners bringing in upwards of 93% of the nations income while paying only about 55% of the nations taxes which means the rest of us must drag their lazy, dead weight across the finish line come tax time.

Sorry, but if a tire worker pays upwards of 40% of their income in taxes, while Mitt Romney has to skip deductions to get his tax rate UP TO 13.9% and we have google paying 2.4% taxes and GE actually paying ZERO and getting money back. Sorry but the top earners aren't paying their fair share.

[draganid]

Comparing California to a socialist method is about like comparing a H3 Hummer to a world class economy car.

The socialized methods have proven to work great, many countries problems have came from how they were tied to the USA when we crashed and burned and we took them down with us.

The biggest problem we have with socialized methods is when we have others trying to manipulate it for personal gain, profit or to try and make them look bad to maintain or earn more profit (example: Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006) or due to some antiquated fear of some cold war commies.

Socializing the stuff that is critical and needed infrastructure and services makes it cheaper and much higher quality (when done correctly) as the free market can never work on thing that is critical and needed by their very nature and can never be a "For-Profit" venture as it WILL be exploited.

Socialized healthcare in America (as in paid for by taxes).... If you made ours a carbon copy of the Canadian healthcare model our annual costs on healthcare would drop by somewhere between 33-66% with massive increases in quality and companies could no longer cut employ hours to avoid paying for it and could no longer try and use insurance as a job perk.

Laissez-fair economist is a horrible idea, you will never have a populace educated and active enough in every area to make it effectively work which turns it into a disaster in waiting. Especially when the companies can most the labor to the cheapest areas while it is much MUCH harder for customers to import the goods and services from the same cheaper areas. You would need something that educated people as fast as the neural hookup in "The Matrix" to make sure everyone knew enough about everything to even hope to make it function properly.

Edit: And as far as taxes go, you should be taxed based on what percentage of the income you bring in. If you bring in 50% of the nations income, you are responsible for 50% of the nations taxes. Right now we have the top earners bringing in upwards of 93% of the nations income while paying only about 55% of the nations taxes which means the rest of us must drag their lazy, dead weight across the finish line come tax time.

Sorry, but if a tire worker pays upwards of 40% of their income in taxes, while Mitt Romney has to skip deductions to get his tax rate UP TO 13.9% and we have google paying 2.4% taxes and GE actually paying ZERO and getting money back. Sorry but the top earners aren't paying their fair share.

i really dont get the fear americans have with "socialism". are the average citizens really that brainwashed to think it would be so bad? canada isn't as lefty as europe but we are miles ahead of america. if people could get their heads out of their asses and stop screeching about socialism and how its the end of the world and point to a couple small countries in europe that arent doing so well and instead look up to us and see it aint all that bad.

[obdigore]

i really dont get the fear americans have with "socialism". are the average citizens really that brainwashed to think it would be so bad? canada isn't as lefty as europe but we are miles ahead of america. if people could get their heads out of their asses and stop screeching about socialism and how its the end of the world and point to a couple small countries in europe that arent doing so well and instead look up to us and see it aint all that bad.

McCarthyism.

[Fugus]

i really dont get the fear americans have with "socialism". are the average citizens really that brainwashed to think it would be so bad? canada isn't as lefty as europe but we are miles ahead of america. if people could get their heads out of their asses and stop screeching about socialism and how its the end of the world and point to a couple small countries in europe that arent doing so well and instead look up to us and see it aint all that bad.

Some really are that far off from reality but much of it comes from the fact that our politics is still dominated from 60 year old men who still wants to equate it to the cold war and to parody "The 300". The disinformation the US has been fed about it will blot out the sun.

US Healthcare is complete dog shit compared to other first world nations but most people still use the TV news channels for most of their information and do not actively read online or travel so they have been led to believe that our healthcare is one of the better ones and if you went to Canada, even if the healthcare is free you might be stuck waiting for critical surgery till you died waiting months in line or that it costs you huge amounts of money even when you pay a fraction of what we do for better service and no major waits for anything beyond elective surgery's like a nose job. And two of the Canadian's biggest issues with their healthcare system is the hypochondriacs who come in for every cough and us Americans who come up there to leech of it illegally.

[Hastings]

I voted a, for socialism response.

However, what needs to happen, is the government needs to realize where tax money is being wasted.

1 - Politicians get paid WAY TOO MUCH for the little work they do, on top of their amazing benefits and pension. Cut this shit down by like, oh, say, 50%?
2 - Military spending needs to be chopped severely, however I think soldiers (both enlisted and officers) should be paid more with better benefits.

I'm sorry this is 3 pages past, but your statement about politicians and the statement that they do little work irks me. Sure, Congress may only meet every once in awhile, but the average Senator's working day (including off official business hours) seems to be around 12 hours give or take a little depending on the day.
Yeah, their benefits are good, because they work their asses off for them. Just because you don't see them convening in Congress all the time, doesn't mean they aren't doing something else, such as local things for their constituents, meetings, etc.
Here's an average day for an Idahoan senator:
http://www.crapo.senate.gov/about_mike/DayInTheLife.cfm

Anyways, to answer the op's question:
I chose D, though A was appealing until I saw it included controlling the profits of companies, no I don't like that, high taxes on large corporations? Yes, but never controlling the profits.
I don't like C, because Laissez Faire doesn't work as evidenced by the Great Depression which was in part, caused by very little regulation of the economy by the government

Now, I do advocate for higher taxes, or at least getting rid of all tax-write off's, and making it to where people would pay a flat % of their total gross income (the % could be higher or lower, depending on the tax bracket) as their income tax (If what I'm thinking is right, then this would equate to more taxes, yes? Don't remember much from my economics class last summer).

And make socialized healthcare happen in the U.S., similar to Britain's (It's the one I know most about). And guess what, with socialized healthcare, no more need for medicare and medicaid, they'd already be covered! Now the only thing to do is tackle Social Security...Lastly, gtfo of the middle east and let them deal with their own matters, I'm sure they would appreciate it, and if we did that, our military spending could be reduced without causing much actually harm to the military itself (I like a good, strong military, so I would prefer to just leave the middle east which would enable us to cut spending without much harm).

TDLR, more regulation, don't control profits, more taxes, better control of where the money goes, lower military spending by getting out of the middle east. And socialized healthcare.

[orderschvank]

im picking D because im not an economist, i have no idea what will make our economy better.

[Hothgor]

And seeing as the Eurozone recently fell back into a recession, I don't quite think their system is working.

The right answer is C. Let the free market do it's job. The US Federal Reserve is illegal (monetary policy is the job of congress) and not working. Bernanke has created each bubble (housing and mortgage bubbles) and both have popped and caused drastic drops in the economy. On top of that the US government has too many regulations. The US government taxes far too much and spends even more than what the steal from the people. The $17 Trillion isn't the scary part; the $227 Trillion worth of interest that those loans will accrue is scary, and our generations and those of our children and our children's children will being paying for these mistakes.

So does socialism work? No. Does the current US system work? Hell no. Does Keynesian economics work? NO! And Bernanke is a student of the Keynesian philosophy and has failed over and over again. The Austrian school of free market economics seems to work as the school has predicted every bubble and following failure of the economy. Free Market/Laissez Faire is the way to.

And whoever said the free market leads to monopolies is silly.

I dont know if I should laugh or cry at this response. Bernanke did not cause nor create any bubble: Alan Greenspan did. The Federal Reserver CAN print money, they were created by the government in 1913 and told to do just that. The US Government DOES NOT TAX TOO MUCH. We are taxing people at an EIGHTY YEAR LOW. This is a common argument used by people who are too economically illiterate to know better.

The past 30 years has been nothing but 'cut cut cut'. We cut the taxes, then we feign surprise that we run a deficit. My gosh, imagine that! Take in less revenue and you cant cover your expenses! Then its always the same: we need to cut spending so we can cut the deficits. Republicans storm office, then suddenly deficits don't matter. This is followed by 'cutting taxes increases job creation, and actually raises revenue'. How the heck can that happen? You take in less...so that means you take in...more?

If tax cuts create jobs, why did W have a net loss of jobs created over his 8 years in office? If raising taxes stifles job creation, why did Clinton do just that an reside over an increase of 23 MILLION new jobs in his 8 years in office? Shocker alert! Taxes have nothing to do with job creation or the lack there of.

Keynesian economics work: the US has spent nearly $1 Trillion in stimulus spending, and our economy is growing. 'Socialist' Europe has cut nearly $1 Trillion in budget austerity, and is in a recession. And please don't talk about deficits unless you know what you are talking about. Of the $16 Trillion in debt we have, only about $3.5 trillion is owed to anyone other than ourselves. And I don't even know where you got the $227 Trillion figure...is that derivatives? 80 years of expected government expenditures?

If you have a purely capitalistic economy, the ONLY outcome is a mega monopoly. How can you possibly believe otherwise? The companies that do better outperform their competitors. The market becomes saturated, and the only way to 'grow' is to gobble up your small competitors. This process repeats until only one remains. Just look at the Telecommunications industry to see this: Two big players, 2 medium players and 2 small players remain. And they service 330 million people. Most European countries have FORTY telecoms, not 6.

[dantian]

Our greatest periods of growth were during low taxation free market periods.

The expansion of the industrial revolution was enabled by technological advances more than economic policies. I'll counter your example with the growth and sustained prosperity from the 40s to the mid-70s. Tax rates then were ridiculously high, and it didn't stop growth. The notion that taxes (especially the piddling increase Obama proposes) are growth killers is just false.

Eisenhower had consistently 90%+ tax rates for the top bracket (before deductions, the effective tax rate was nowhere near that, but still much higher than today) and he also supported unions. I say we bring the general back and make him president again.

Also, why should anyone bother watching your youtube links? Are you going to watch any severely partisan videos a liberal links? I doubt it.

[Juno86]

You can't get the average Americans opinion here since there's a heavy leftist bias here, and non Americans can take the poll.

A major problem with your video is it cut's out the biggest example of the gov't spending money to create jobs during the Great Depression, which, combined with WW2 and War Profiteering from American corporation's before entering the war, it worked. If the money had never been spent and the massive infrastructure had never come along, all the economic growth afterwards, never could have happened.

[Baiyn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucoP4-06O7M

You're right about the fed though. It needs to go. Central planning is bad but congress would still be way better than the unaccountable federal reserve.

Late reply, but meh. I wasn't particularly suggesting using increased taxes to improve the economy, more using taxes as a source of revenue over foreign borrowing, meaning that budget would be more of an exclusively internal problem.

And relating to taxes/growth, there are so many factors that go into the state of the economy. One could easily argue against the points made in the video by looking at the effectiveness of trickle-down. Champions of the free-market assume that if people are taxed less, they feel they have more money to spend on risky enterprise or business expansion. But, the very nature of business in the free market is oriented around maximising profit. Less taxes on businesses does not mean that they are necessarily more likely to create new jobs. They might prefer to keep their business at its current size and reap the benefits of a bigger profit margin, seeing expansion and hiring more workers as too risky or generally not worth it.

I feel austerity fails to encourage growth, on both the demand and supply sides of the economy, because it makes people feel less secure about taking risks and spending, because an investor who is contemplating throwing their life-savings into starting up a new enterprise may feel less inclined to do so, if the risk of failure means that unemployment benefits are too low to afford bankruptcy. Same with consumers, they may feel spending lots of disposable income is reckless if they perceive their being a lack of safety net in the form of welfare.

(Not articulated that particularly well, but hopefully my point comes across at least partially.)

[Bergtau]

Given that it's still regulation (and innately harmful all its own) they're opting to fuck themselves in the ass gently with lube... as opposed to what the government did with cigarettes which is akin to anal rape with a pineapple.

The government could always step up their threat to the insertion of a hot needle into the urethra in order to get businesses to opt to sodomize themselves with pineapples.

[shocktopuslol]

I am not american but one thing i think would benefit the USA a lot is a PAYG tax system, where you claim back what you overpaid at the end of the year, instead of a system where you are not taxed all year and then you have a big bill at the end of june. I have heard that in some states, some 50% of people don't pay their taxes (don't quote me on that), it is impossible to do them all for tax evasion.

Another thing that i think would be beneficial is a state sponsored healthcare system like the one in my country, but im not sure on the economic consequences of something like that.

[Bergtau]

I am not american but one thing i think would benefit the USA a lot is a PAYG tax system, where you claim back what you overpaid at the end of the year, instead of a system where you are not taxed all year and then you have a big bill at the end of june. I have heard that in some states, some 50% of people don't pay their taxes (don't quote me on that), it is impossible to do them all for tax evasion.

Another thing that i think would be beneficial is a state sponsored healthcare system like the one in my country, but im not sure on the economic consequences of something like that.

You can opt to do either route here. I know my mom was doing the kind where it was taken out of her pay automatically and then she got refunded at the end of the year for the difference between her taxes paid and her taxes owed.

[ripponesan]

It is for school?

Fine, BUT teachers wont like this approach.
- non americans can "vote"
- You wont even know the nation of a single the voter, you cant validate it
- This is a gaming forum, with chances of trolls around 99%. There will be dudes picking abnormal options just to mess up your "study"
- people can vote as often as they got accounts here
- people not knowing of this site are excluded from the vote since they will never see it
- Therefor your vote just goes to gamers and affiliates, so in the end it would mean "what the typical gamer thinks regarding american ecenomy"

Not beeing offensive, and not wanting to be a prick, but honestly, your teacher will shove that directly into the trash bin and pick an according note.

[Laize]

The government could always step up their threat to the insertion of a hot needle into the urethra in order to get businesses to opt to sodomize themselves with pineapples.

Yeah, but without impetus from the public, that's unlikely to happen. So self regulatory groups do just enough to keep the majority of the public happy so they don't go rocking the boat.

[SirRobin]

Concerning the current economical state of the US, what can kind of method can the government employ in order to adress the crisis in a more efficient manner.

Since the "internet" tends to be a more liberal region, I think we can take it for granted that option A will win in this poll. However, while I think that would be the wisest response, among the listed options, the chance of it actually happening are minimal to none. Nowhere near the political or social will exists to implement it at this point. What should happen is a return to the setup we had prior to the stagflation of Nixon and the deregulation of Reagan. I don't want bigger government or smaller government. I want better government.