<story><title>America&apos;s Growth Ponzi Scheme</title><url>https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>noad</author><text>The complete failure to imagine an alternative to property&amp;#x2F;sales taxes and development fees during this crisis has been one of the most disappointing failures of politicians everywhere. We keep being told we need to suffer more and more with deeper cuts while living in the wealthiest country that ever existed by a wide margin.&lt;p&gt;This is absurd. There is plenty of money, we could tax something like 5% of stock buybacks and completely rebuild our entire society from the ground up.&lt;p&gt;Instead our leaders just keep telling us to toughen up and get stronger while flying jets overhead in meaningless salutes. They seem to be very bad at their jobs.</text></comment>
<story><title>America&apos;s Growth Ponzi Scheme</title><url>https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>treis</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m getting a bit tired of seeing these bizarre and unsupported screeds from strongtowns.  The idea that infrastructure is bankrupting the american city&amp;#x2F;town is totally unsupported.  Spending on things like roads is a small percentage of government.  As a random cite, the Urban institute puts it at 6%:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.urban.org&amp;#x2F;policy-centers&amp;#x2F;cross-center-initiatives&amp;#x2F;state-and-local-finance-initiative&amp;#x2F;state-and-local-backgrounders&amp;#x2F;state-and-local-expenditures&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.urban.org&amp;#x2F;policy-centers&amp;#x2F;cross-center-initiative...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>