Quote Originally Posted by Midas View Post
In theory at least I don't think Pauli's that far out with the 5% figure, at least if we moved over to full free market capitalism. There are a huge number of jobs and projects which our taxes currently fund which could be done equally well, if not far better, and far less wastefully, by the private sector. This would free up huge amounts of money all of which would flow within the economy and become far more useful than being tied up within the public sector.

Pauli or perhaps one of our American members might know, but I'm sure that some years ago the team behind Harry Browne, when he was considering running as a Libertarian Party candidate in the US elections, carried out some very significant research into this and came up with the 5% figure.
I agree, but the problem is whoever is in power will only find something else to spend the money on rather than give it back to the people. I'll be honest I think to be totally fair indirect taxation is the best option. Those with more money spend more, thus they contribute more, those with less money, spend less and thus contribute less, but equally as a proportion of their available money.

It might also encourage people to save more too, this would then give the banks more funds to loan out to Business and keep the economy ticking over.