Posted on 07/05/2011 8:27:07 PM PDT by upchuck
Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better?
Take the test. 33 questions. It's not easy. Be sure to check out the table at the end of the quiz that shows the incredible spread between the scores of citizens and politicians.
Post your score below.
Enjoy!
Link.
I’m in the Founding Fathers club with you! :-)
If you fail this test, you may be selected to be on the jury for the next big criminal case.
Part of government spending is interest on the national debt. The premise of the question, that taxes are equal to government spending, tells you nothing about the size of the national debt, only that the interest expense is being covered.
Taxes equaling spending means that the debt is staying constant.
Taxes exceeding spending means that the debt is being paid down.
Taxes falling short of spending, our usual condition, means that the national debt is increasing.
Your argument for an alternative is incorrect, because in a progressive tax structure, while many will pay more than others as you correctly point out, many others will also pay less. Since this is not Lake Woebegone -- where all children are above average -- the statement average spending / person = average tax / person is correct. This is a purely mathematical question which has nothing to do with history or economics: if two functions have the same integral over the same interval, are they, on average, the same? [Hint: Yes.]
33/33...
28 for me as well.
I got 100%
If taxes equal spending, then the deficit is zero, not the debt.
The correct answer was tautologous with the question itself.
“Mathematically both must be true.”
Not so. You can’t determine anything about the size of the debt from the question or its answer.
Taxes simply have to equal all government spending, including interest on the debt, in order to balance taxes and spending. This has been accomplished exactly twice since the end of WWII IIRC.
Question: Which of the following fiscal policy combinations has the federal government most often followed to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?
Your Answer: increasing both taxes and spending
Correct Answer: decreasing taxes and increasing spending
I thought it was asking what the government *really* did, not what it *ought* to do...
Cheers!
That’s also Hayek all the way.
Missed only one about what govt. does during recession.
Still think I’m right; tax&spend
Nope. Not mathematically equivalent. Debt is accumulation. All the given statement allows you to say is current account deficit is zero.
“Your Answer: more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise.”
I’m betting that your answer was influenced by listening to Limbaugh and Hannity’s (confused) comments on supply side tax cuts, the Laffer curve, and related topics that they manage to routinely mangle.
Aint that the truth. And you may be defended by lightweights like Sean Hannity.
Someone should also tell Obama AND the Kucinich followers that the war powers resolution is unconstitutional.
30/33...one incorrect, the other two were vague.
32/33: same question, same wrong answer.
91% 30/33
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