People are calling for high taxes to reduce child support? Do you just put random words in a blender and dump out the results?

If more of the cost of raising a child is paid for by taxes then one might assume child support payments would go down.

In divorce, there is a settlement agreement. Once you are locked in no one is looking at the cost of living.

I know. I didn't know what to make of that one either.

I don't believe that's how the math plays out in most socialist countries, where uni often costs a few grand a year iirc.

The particulars of the current American system are a different story if we look at certain kinds of private colleges.

If the cost of those and impact of taxation varied at the same time and the same degree that would be no problem. But that has never happened. Given the state of our governmental problem-solving ability in the US all those numbers can do is diverge.

Pwned? You really think those problems are going to be solved in the near term? Given the state of our government?

The state of our government is in no small part due to people refusing to be taxed.

American tax rates are not outliers and spending as a percentage of GDP is historically high.

Irrelevant. The point being made originally was about legislative deadlock.

It's not irrelevant - you claimed that the reason legislative deadlock occurs is that people refused to be taxed more. What about the people who refuse to cut automatic increases to spending? Are they to be absovled?

Considering the context of this thread, which is about reasons to increase spending and the fact that this would never happen in a deadlocked legislature, the idea that people who refuse to cut spending would be to blame is sort of contradictory.

That's a fine observation, but unless it can be fixed in the aggregate it's still part of the intractability of the problem.

Or (more directly), you're not offering a solution, you're making a complaint.

It's a democracy. Thus, a complaint is the first step towards a solution.

Let me know how that works for you.

I'd rather not dispel your bubble of cynicism, thanks.