Comments on: Learning from what works

By: Aretae

Aretae — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:44:24 +0000

I am concerned that mandatory service ends up understating the amount various folks spend on military service. Since Switzerland has mandatory service, it doesn’t have to spend as much in Francs as our system does.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:35:23 +0000

Certainly spending 5 percent of GDP on defense versus spending 1 percent is a significant difference, but how much does it explain, when all levels of Swiss government combined spend roughly as much — 20 percent — as either our state and local governments or our federal government?

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:13:14 +0000

I’ve always been impressed with Switzerland but I think this article ignores the huge defense expenditures we have vs. the Swiss. I think that has been a big reason for Federal taxation being so high in the US. Plus, once the dollars start rolling in to the USG to fund defense, the politicians can come up with all kinds of neat ways to spend it on other things.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:12:32 +0000

Aretae,

I don’t think I followed through and read Sumner’s original post before. Thanks for the prodding. Now I’ll have to think up some semi-deep thoughts.

By: Aretae

Aretae — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:29:34 +0000

Isegoria, Have you seen Scott Sumner arguing something similar, some time back? My comments His comments