re: On a dollar basis, taxation does not hurt nor benefit an economy

quote:

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How do you know that the people who had the money orignally are better at allocating it than the people who will receive the tax money? (NOT government, but gov workers, etc.)

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The reallocation is costly, first off. Efficiency (economic or otherwise) is very low on the priority list for government spending. This alone is easily sufficient to falsify the thread title.

But on top of this, a great deal of our spending is on happens to be on things that hamper investment. That necessarily implies lower long-term growth. Again, this is not controversial. It is undergrad macro.

ETA: it should be obvious why the second paragraph shows that the costs of taxation are huge (as they are compounding and their effect is therefore self-sustaining) while the consumption benefits you tout are not- they must be continually funded, or the consumption boosts stop when the consumption subsidy stops. But the effect on growth (via investment) has a permanent effect.