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The day of the country declaring independence should be changed from July 4, 1776 to July 2, 1776 because on July 2, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia voted to approve a resolution for independence from Britain, not on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence was not drafted until July 4, 1776 after independence had already been declared. An number of sources could verify this fact. MimicThatThing ( talk) 01:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Not done:. The two statements in the text both refer to the date of issuing the Declaration of Independence. The statement in the infobox is headed "Declared", which also refers to issuing the Declaration. The events leading up to issuing the Declaration, including the July 2 date, are mentioned in Timeline of United States history, but this is too detailed for the present summary article. -- Stfg ( talk) 09:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The infobox lists the President, Vice President, Speaker, and Chief Justice as the leaders of the government on the basis (according to this page's FAQ) that all four are explicitly created as top offices by the Constitution. This makes sense. But it occurs to me that from the perspective of Constitutional power, it's not really the Vice President who belongs on this list, but rather the President of the Senate. Who are of course the same person. But I think it's an important nuance: Are we listing the heads of all three branches of government, and the second-in-command of one? No, we're listing the heads of the executive and judicial branches, and the co-heads of the legislative branch. To that end, I'd suggest that we change "Vice President" in the infobox to "Vice President (President of the Senate)".

A slightly more radical thought is to also mention the President pro tempore, who is listed along with the Speaker and Senate President at United States Congress. The PPT is the only individual office created by the Constitution that we don't list already, and when Congress speaks with one voice in ceremonial and procedural matters, it's through the Speaker and the PPT (see the text at the bottom here, for instance). —  PinkAmpers & ^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 14:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Really like adding the Senate President pro tempore to represent the upper body of legislature, and THIRD in presidential succession after Vice President and Speaker of the House. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 19:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed infobox language following Speaker of the House in line of Presidential succession, representing upper body of the Congress:

• Speaker of the House --- John Boehner ( R)
• Senate pres pro tem --- Patrick Leahy ( D) ----- TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:53, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Come on. Really? Designate ( talk) 22:52, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

You're going to have to elaborate a bit. Not being mind readers, we need a bit more... -- Jayron 32 00:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a summary of a 15,000-word article, one of the broadest and most written-about subjects on Wikipedia. Every word is precious. It doesn't require that kind of pedantry. We can say "U.S.A." and the readers are smart enough to understand that the periods might be left out sometimes. Any acronym with periods sometimes has the periods left out. We leave out the duplicate acronyms for the sake of writing a good article—even if the pedantic folks get grumpy about it. — Designate ( talk) 20:46, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

"Where does the corporate tax incidence in this graph come from?"

The Tax Policy Center attributes corporate taxes to owners, which is the most direct and least manipulative way to do it. Regardless, the beauty of this chart is that it shows the breakdown, so if someone wants to ignore corporate taxes and focus on...say...income and payroll combined, they can do so. The chart does a great job illustrating the section content, and is frankly one of the most educational visual aids on the page.

Oh, and I don't mind mentioning that corporate incidence is occasionally a subject of disagreement, but is there some way we can consolidate it into a note so the caption isn't overly bloated? It's not that relevant, since, as your own first source points out, corporate taxes are too small a share to significantly impact progressivity.

"I'm not sure who deleted this passage, but I would prefer to have it back: For 2012, the US ranked 21st on the Democracy Index ^[5] and 19th on the Corruption Perceptions Index. ^[6]"

They were deleted because those indices don't convey any useful information to readers, and because they look tacky and out of place attached to what's otherwise a section describing the structure of US government. Plus in a quick sample of other nation articles I checked, none of them even mentioned "Democracy Index" or "Corruption Perception Index". Why are they notable? An index is subjectively constructed, and "democracy" is too vague to tell you anything unless you actually take the time to look up what the internal components are, in which case one sees that it's just a bunch of stuff some British outfit happens to like, much of which has nothing to do with democracy per se, that excludes or underweights things plenty of other people do care about. Why is an opaquely delivered, subjective opinion from a British company notable? At least the Corruption Perception Index is narrowly focused in title, though, as its name suggests, it's just a bunch of surveys about perception, and isn't notable either. Even if those indices were notable, shoving them into that section instead of the info box or contemporary history section makes the article look trashy and hastily thrown together. — VictorD7 — continues after insertion below

Well I'm sorry if you find attempts at improvement to be tacky, but I think they look great and I hope that Wikidata moves them into all the countries so they don't have to be constantly updated some day. And I don't think four references looks bloated in a caption next to text with five in it. Also, I object to your choice of the terms "tacky" and "bloated" as loaded. Perhaps you meant "unconfortable to the deductions I am able to draw with my world view" and "erudite"? EllenCT ( talk) 03:34, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

No, definitely bloated. Would you oppose a note consolidation though? Those other sources you mention aren't crammed into a picture caption. And I don't find those indices any more "uncomfortable" than your political opponents' views make you uncomfortable (Ann Coulter, George Will, whatever). You didn't answer the question though. Why is a subjective opinion from some British outfit (or anyone else for that matter) notable, and why does it warrant inclusion in a section simply detailing basic government structure (not opinions about the structure, or, as it turns out, a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the section)? Who cares about the "Democracy Index"? What does the presented ranking even mean? One nation has "less democracy" than another (that would be a highly debatable topic to say the least; far more so than corporate tax incidence)? Clearly not, yet that's all the reader is presented with, and it might be the misleading impression that a low information person takes away. It's not focused enough to convey any useful information. Besides, if we include it we should add various other opinions too, including quotes describing the essential features of American government as outlined in the section, not just abstract number rankings that don't mean anything by themselves. We shouldn't cherry-pick a single political opinion. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

"I'm also not sure about "second highest median" household income, because Credit Suisse says the U.S. has nowhere near second highest median net worth. [1]"

Income and "wealth" are two different things. Plus the OECD is a major international government organization dedicated to economics, while Credit Suisse is a private finance outfit in Switzerland. That said, I've seen the Credit Suisse report for several years now and I've seen it criticized for fatal methodological flaws. Perhaps the main problem is that it's not PPP adjusted (serious international economic comparisons typically are PPP adjusted), meaning it's heavily skewed by currency exchange rate distortions. For example, the report says France's wealth per adult tripled(!) in value between 2000 and 2007, but acknowledges that "much of the pre-2007 rise was due to the appreciation of the Euro against the dollar." The are similar descriptions for many other countries. Unless you really believe that French people saw their wealth triple in a few years, this report is worthless. It also says France experienced a rapid rise in housing prices, "as a result of which property prices now account for two-thirds of household assets." That brings us to another salient problem with not adjusting for PPP, that the results are largely skewed by property values. If you take a typical middle class American house and drop it into Europe or Japan it'd be worth a fortune. More expensive real estate per square foot doesn't really make someone wealthier though. Buying a relatively cheap American home wouldn't do a European or Australian much good unless they actually moved there to live. From an investment standpoint rate of appreciation is obviously what matters, and, though there's a marginal bounceback from the US housing crash, it's not exactly a seller's market. So the unadjusted property value figures that heavily skew the results say little to nothing about living standards. PPP adjusted income and GDP figures do. There's a good reason prominent international government agencies like the UN and OECD use PPP adjustment in international comparisons. The Credit Suisse report has also been criticized for other stuff, like counting pensions in some countries but not others, missing key assets, etc.. It's really a shallow document, and a cynic might suggest its purpose is more to secure Credit Suisse free name advertising through news coverage than anything else. VictorD7 ( talk) 19:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The chart is from Peter G. Peterson Foundation not the Tax Policy Center. [2] There is disagreement that the incidence of corporate tax is on shareholders. The chart also omits other regressive taxes, such as sales and property taxes, which fall disproportionately on lower income people. TFD ( talk) 20:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If you follow the links you see the PGPF chart uses TPC numbers (and yes, I've confirmed the numbers match the TPC site before), and it's for federal taxes (the chart captions says "federal" tax rates). Sales and property taxes fall at the state and local levels (though other sources in the section deal with overall taxation). TPC attributes corporate taxes to shareholders, so there's no dispute about that. The only other outfit that does original, quality, transparent tax incidence breakdowns is the CBO, who doesn't do them regularly like the TPC, and doesn't have any similar charts available in the commons. They've traditionally attributed 100% of corporate taxes to owners too, though recently they adjusted their methodology to 75% investor/25% labor, which doesn't alter the results much. That said, as I said above, I'm fine with mentioning the corporate incidence question, though it might be better to do it in a note so the caption isn't overly bloated. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Corporate tax can also be seen as borne by the consumer, which would shift its incidence away from higher income earners. Also, it is not helpful to just have federal taxes, since it only tells part of the story. The U.S. will appear to have lower taxes than countries that do not have state governments and some smaller countries do not even have municipal governments. The article is after all about the U.S., not the federal government. TFD ( talk) 00:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Well the chart isn't an international comparison, so that isn't a problem, and most visual aids in the article don't illustrate every single thing discussed in a particular section. But most US taxes are federal, and the chart illustrates the various components discussed in a huge chunk of the section in an easy to understand, visual way. As for incidence, I'd actually point out that the same argument is often made for any tax. They all have ripple effects that impact people not directly taxed, but the TPC attributes corporate taxes to those most directly taxed, the owners of the corporations, which is the simplest, most straightforward, most consistent way to do it. That said, because it's broken down by component, someone who wanted to ignore corporate taxes could simply look at the income or other components rather than the totals. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

It provides a misleading impression of the progressivity of taxation in the U.S. by ignoring the incidence of regressive taxation and representing regressive taxes as progressive. What reason do you have for including this chart? TFD ( talk) 17:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The chart doesn't mention "progressivity" (that's not all this topic is about), and it's not uncommon to focus on federal taxation in US political discourse since state and local governments are doing their own, completely different things. The section called for a visual aid, especially since virtually every other section has one. There's nothing at all misleading about it. It's accurately labeled "federal" tax rates, and the illustrated components are obviously federal tax rate components. It's probably the most straightforward and honest tax chart I've seen on Wikipedia. Furthermore, as the section text itself gets into, overall US taxation, including state and local taxes, is progressive anyway, and is significantly more progressive than taxation in the rest of the developed world. If anything the current paragraph's opening cautiously understates the matter. It would be misleading to seek to obscure this salient distinction further. There aren't any quality charts showing overall tax rates on the Wikipedia commons, partly because it's difficult to measure across all those jurisdictions with precision, but the linked Tax Foundation source at the end of the middle paragraph does contain such a chart. The only one I know of in the commons is one from a few years ago created by a leftist lobbying group, but that doesn't break it down by component, its methodology isn't transparent, and its results for the federal portion are highly dubious since they're so out of whack with results from the TPC and CBO. The latter two use more transparent methodologies and closely track each other in overlapping years, enhancing their credibility. VictorD7 ( talk) 17:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

If it is not about progressivity then there is no need to break it down by income group. Why not have a chart showing total federal government taxation as a percentage of GDP over time? Perhaps add state and local tax revenues too. TFD ( talk) 20:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I said it's not just about progressivity, and doesn't explicitly mention the word, but the progressivity of federal taxes is a legitimate subject, as is the nature and breakdown of the various component taxes, and rates at particular levels (not necessarily the same as overall progressivity). Visualizing incomes, effective rates, and different types of taxes is useful because the section extensively deals with those things, and only once briefly mentions taxes as a percentage of GDP. While I'd say that's an important topic too, it's not more important than having a more informative chart covering the various aforementioned topics. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:10, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

If we are going to have a chart showing government taxation as a percentage of GDP over time, it should be federal, state, and local. Similarly, if we are going to have a graph showing tax incidence, it should include income, property, and sales taxes. EllenCT ( talk) 02:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

That'd be alright if there was a quality one available, but there isn't. And that's sort of like saying if we're going to have a picture of the Pilgrims by the Settlement section, then we also have to have a picture of Jamestown settlers, Spanish conquistadors, and the other items mentioned, and so on for every section. After all, the Debt chart just below only shows public debt, not total debt. None of the pictures show everything discussed. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

A picture of the Pilgrims wouldn't likely bias readers into thinking that there were no other settlers, but your Peterson Foundation graph makes taxes seem far more progressive than they actually are. The difference is that you are trying to select facts and figures to promote your preferred point of view, and you are clearly developing quite a reputation for it among the other editors here. EllenCT ( talk) 10:09, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Stuff the desperate ad hominem attack. We went through this a long time ago. Your CTJ/ITEP chart is from a lobbying group (ITEP is the research arm of Citizens for Tax Justice) that openly advocates tax hikes on "the wealthy". Their federal numbers dramatically contradict the TPC's and CBO's, both of which closely track each other in overlapping years. They're far less transparent about their methodology than those outfits are too. I doubt you could even answer your own question to me about their corporate incidence, though their differences are more than even corporate taxes would account for. When the two prominent tax incidence sources largely agree with each other and disagree with your lobbyist chart from a few years ago, CTJ/ITEP is the odd man out. The Tax Policy Center is a joint project of the Brookings Institute and Urban Institute, two left leaning think tanks, so it's not like they have a right wing agenda. You can't raise the same concerns and criticisms with that source that I can with CTJ. VictorD7 ( talk) 19:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

These charts ( [3], [4]) of total taxation from this piece critiquing the CTJ/ITEP figures would be closer to the truth, but, while the Tax Foundation uses TPC federal numbers it relies on ITEP state/local numbers to prove a point, so even that may be skewed since there's no reason to assume CTJ's state/local numbers are any more credible than its federal ones. Plus those charts aren't currently in the commons. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Effective Federal Tax Rate for the Top 1% in 2011

TPC - 30.4%

CTJ - 21.1%

That's a huge difference. Now the CBO doesn't publish effective tax rates pieces as often as the TPC does, but check out this historical chart (about halfway down the page). Note how they have the top 1% always around 30%, give or take a couple of points. In fact, as I've posted more in depth in the past, the TPC and CBO use different methodologies but independently come to similar conclusions, with their results closely tracking each other within a point or two over the years. CTJ is an extreme outlier, and, given its opaque methodology, aggressive partisan lobbyist nature, and the criticism its numbers have received (some of which I just posted), it can't reasonably be placed on the same level of credibility as the TPC and CBO. VictorD7 ( talk) 23:55, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Victor, your chart is not from TPC or the CBO. Stop trying to portray it as a product of those two groups. Lance Friedman ( talk) 20:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Lance, please read discussions and sources before interjecting into conversations. The numbers come from the TPC, as I've already linked to above. The PGPF helpfully created the chart. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:02, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Where does the desire to exclude a non-preferred point of view come from? Certainly not WP:NPOV. The correct solution is to weigh the evidence. EllenCT ( talk) 01:58, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Weighing the evidence is exactly what I did in the post you failed to respond to above. Instead of trying to ram through your ideological agenda by hook or crook, EllenCT, why don't you start by answering your own question to me about my source (which I answered), and tell me how your CTJ lobbying group attributes corporate incidence? Of course that's far from the only issue involved. Even if ZERO corporate taxes were attributed to the top 1% (which would be insane), TPC's 2011 tax rate for that group would still be almost two points higher than what your CTJ source has. Talk about POV. Ellen you're pushing original propaganda spiel from a far left lobbying outfit not only for inclusion, but for the prominent placement of a chart, and for a section that already has a picture, leaving it looking hopelessly crowded and ridiculously squeezed. In fact you've put so little effort into your editing here that you busted the existing chart twice, once even after I warned you about it, accidentally(?) replacing the image with red text, for which there's no excuse. The existing chart's numbers that I'm defending are also from a left wing source (albeit a far more reliable one with a transparent methodology), so it's hilarious that you're the one babbling about "POV" here and claiming that showing both of these (left wing) data sets would somehow represent balance in viewpoint. Dishonest partisan propaganda is unacceptable. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:44, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

You are deliberately trying to prevent readers from weighing the evidence for both points of view because you want to delete the one that doesn't agree with you. What would be hilarious would be to see you read your comment above to yourself in the mirror. EllenCT ( talk) 03:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

What points of view? You won't even answer the questions I asked or explain how the CTJ arrives at its numbers. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:45, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I strongly object to this deletion of balanced views and accurate description because otherwise readers will be misled into a false right-wing viewpoint. EllenCT ( talk) 03:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, EllenCT, are you claiming that the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institute and Urban Institute, is a "right wing" outfit?* And why do you insist that your CTJ numbers, which come from an admitted lobbying group (pushing a far left agenda) are "accurate" when you can't even explain how they get their numbers and when they dramatically contradict independently arrived at numbers from both the CBO and TPC? Of course you haven't even bothered to try to start explaining how the TPC "view" (by which you presumably mean their numbers) is "false" or unreliable.

• BTW, from 2003-2010 97.6% of political donations by Brookings employees went to Democrats and 100% of Urban Institute donations went to Democrats. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Victor, I am claiming that you are inserting a graph which the Peterson Foundation produced to make taxes look far more progressive than they actually are, and that you are removing a graph which shows total tax incidence from sales and property taxation instead of just the income taxes you want to show. What reason do I have to believe that you are not doing this to promote your favored viewpoint and censor the mainstream viewpoint about tax policy? EllenCT ( talk) 07:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The graphs from 2011 is probably OK, since it's sourced. I'll add that the Tax Foundation also supports a similar average tax rate for the top 1% [5]. That written, both are very dated. Tax law changes effective Jan 1, 2013 have lead to what the NY Times and the Atlantic have characterized as the most progressive tax laws since 1979. Also, it's easy to pick your graphs. The Tax Foundation has a chart that show net government benefits per federal tax dollar paid by income bracket. See [6] and That shows the bottom deciles getting a lot of benefits when compared to the top. Since the tax foundation allocated defense spending "benefit" by share of income, the top brackets are pumped up. Should we include this as well (without the comparison to proposed Obama tax changes)? It's very informative and relevant. Mattnad ( talk) 00:38, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Mattnad, that 2011 Tax Foundation figure is personal income tax, not total federal taxes. You can tell by viewing the other slides in that sequence and by comparing the 24% figure with the almost identical 24.6% TPC rate for income tax for the top 1% (shown as the blue in this chart [7]). It usually fluctuates around that level, give or take a couple of points from year to year. The CTJ/ITEP chart has no corroboration at all. But I appreciate your good faith contribution. The Tax Foundation is a quality source with a lot of good info. Here's a Tax Foundation piece criticizing the the CTJ/ITEP group that produced the 2011 chart. VictorD7 ( talk) 00:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Ellen, the PGPF is a mildly center-right source, but what difference does it make who drew the chart? Wikipedia users draw charts. What matters is what they show. The numbers are from the TPC, as I've proved with links and as anyone can confirm. And you're completely wrong about my motives. I'd prefer to feature a chart showing total tax incidence, but no good such charts exist. The only one is the 2011 chart from the far left lobbying outfit with totally uncorroborated numbers that are dramatically contradicted by the other existing sources, the (also leftist) TPC and the CBO, both of which are more reliable. It was clearly created for the purpose of showing US taxation to be less progressive than it truly is (their openly stated agenda being tax hikes on "the rich"), and isn't fit to be featured in a country summary article. Groups don't regularly measure state/local taxation with precision because there's so much variation. That's why the Tax Policy Center, a leftist source (as we've established), focuses only on federal taxation, not because it somehow has a secret right wing agenda. There's nothing wrong with a federal only chart as long as it's clearly marked. It covers more section information than most page pictures do, nicely encapsulating tax policy at the national level. It'd be silly to insist on either having the deeply flawed lobbyist chart or no image for the section at all. Instead of violating Wikipedia rules by baselessly attacking my motives, maybe you should look in a mirror and be honest about your own agenda. Do you share the lobbyist group's agenda?

Oh, and I would repeat some of my questions (like how does CTJ attribute corporate incidence?), but your history suggests you'd just dodge them again, so I'll hold off on that until after I've started a new section on this topic, probably this weekend. VictorD7 ( talk) 00:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

The lead should be more concise. It should be focused on introducing the modern nation to the general reader. It need not repeat expansive detail in the narrative. Proposed language for two lede historical paragraphs to be condensed into one:

In what would become the U.S., most European colonization came from England. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence established the United States of America, the American Revolutionary War secured recognition. The Constitution of 1787 has 27 Amendments, with the first 10 amendments named the Bill of Rights. A doctrine of manifest destiny led the United States to a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century. By the end, the U.S. abolished slavery and extended into the Pacific Ocean, expanding into the world’s largest economy. World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power, and it emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

This will cut the verbiage in half, making one paragraph of two. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 14:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

While a think we can afford to remove a few details for the sake of it not being too lengthy, I wouldn't suggest cutting it down by that much. I think two paragraphs does a good job of 1) briefly explaining America's roots and how it was established and then 2) briefly explaining how it got to be the superpower it is today. Since the actual History section in the body is the lengthiest one, its weight in the lead is justified.

I'm gonna go ahead and remove the following bold-faced details which I think are redundant or not worthy of mentioning in the lead. If someone objects we can discuss it here.

Paleo-indians migrated from Asia to what is now the United States mainland around 15,000 years ago. European colonization began around 1600, (changing to 16th century because US mainland could mean places like Florida which had Spanish colonies in the 1500s) mostly from England (redundant). The United States emerged from 13 British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and the American colonies led to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, delegates from the 13 colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States of America (redundant). The American Revolutionary War, which (changing to ensuing war) ended with the recognition of independence of the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain and was the first successful war of independence against a European colonial empire (I think its worth mentioning this singnificance as it set a precedent for future wars of independence). The current Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787; 27 Amendments have since been added to the Constitution (probably unneccessary, arguable). The first 10 amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.

Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century.[16] This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states.[16] The American Civil War ended legalized slavery in the United States. (In my opinion this sentence looks weird sitting by itself without mention of its significance other than ending slavery. Could it possibly be removed?) By the end of the 19th century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean,[18] and its economy was the world's largest.[19] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower.

Cadiomals ( talk) 03:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, in light of the fact that this page is one of the most popular on WP and has long gotten around a million visitors per month, it's high time it reach GA status, and FA shortly thereafter. I'm willing to give it a go-over and bring it through the review processes. I think one major challenge for this article will be de-politicizing the content. This is the big "overview" article, and there are probably more articles on English WP about the US than any other country, so there is a strong temptation to link to as many of them as possible and include as much of their content as can fit. I think it will be important to really condense and summarize the key points with links to the "next level down" articles (i.e. other large topic articles that go deeper into the analysis side and link to even more relevant articles) as well as some very key articles with narrower focus (like particular events, cities or individuals). There will also need to be a detailed copy edit for clarity, brevity, citation format consistency, general MOS, whether information is current, and the quality, relevance of references cited. I'd like to do this section by section. As each section gets cleaned up, discussion and recommended revisions could be discussed here before anything gets reverted, to avoid edit warring. I'd prefer this approach (copy edit first, discussion to follow) because it enables us to keep momentum on what could easily become a project that gets bogged down by disagreements about abstract proposed edits before we have the chance to see even a draft version on the screen. There are 50+ pages of archived discussion - plenty to get us going - and the discussions in the Article Milestones log provide a good sense of where to start. I've done country articles before, having brought Madagascar to FA and working with Amakuru to get Rwanda get to FA as well, and I've also worked on giant unwieldy "summary" articles, having been the GA reviewer for Rock music, so I'm confident we can get this article up to that level of quality too. Thoughts? Anyone want to co-edit and co-nominate with me? - Lemurbaby ( talk) 11:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow, good luck with this project, Lemurbaby. I've always found it a shame that many of the highest visibility articles are solid but not world class, which may have something to do with the large editor base those articles attract and resultant difficulty in getting the necessary coherent and concise prose for each section. The history section on Rwanda also had vastly too much material when I found it, but the reduction process was easier there because nobody else was active there at the time. I'll be very interested to see how this turns out! Thanks  —  Amakuru ( talk) 14:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not think this could ever be GA because there is a gap between how the subject is perceived in mainstream sources and popular U.S. conservative groups. TFD ( talk) 18:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Since this is the "top level" article for all other articles related to the United States, it's less a place for analysis (which is where different perspectives need to be represented) and more a place for presenting a neutral overview. If there are debates or disputes we would identify this, but the deeper exploration of the different perspectives would be covered in more specialized articles. It's important to keep in mind who is reading this article: not just the casual visitor to Wikipedia, but especially students writing reports and people who don't live in the US, including plenty for whom English is not a first language. Many of these use WP for information because alternative sources like books and particularly current encyclopedias aren't necessarily available where they are (especially in low income countries). I know this article has a history of edit warring, but if there can be an agreement to approach the improvement of the article with the intent of achieving an objective overview of quality, I think we can get there. Keeping it there will be a lot of work, but hopefully there are some dedicated members of Wikiproject United States who are willing to prune the hedges. Lemurbaby ( talk) 19:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that is how the article should be written. However if you look through previous discussions, you will find a lot of differences. Does America's high prison population require a separate section? Should we say that U.S. tax rates are more progressive and poverty less a problem than in other countries? Should we say that overseas possessions are part of the U.S.? Should we mention Deepwater Horizon? That's just recent disputes. TFD ( talk) 21:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

us-is the good thing . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.186.180.107 ( talk) 16:06, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

@Lemurbaby. Welcome. Much can be done without touching on those controversies TFD references. The style can be improved apart from substantive issues. Some elements are purely technical, i.e. aligning illustrations to meet WP:ACCESS criteria for the visually disabled. Some are compositional, such as my consolidating multi-images into the three-panel illustration of the three branches of government. Controversies are not necessarily driven by conservatives. For one instance, unsourced prejudice persists against calling islander-U.S. citizens with congressional representation a part of the American “federal republic” in the face of primary, secondary and scholarly sources.

Appeal to sources to include them carried a dispute resolution, but not for two active “unreconstructed” editors who would Wiki-secede islander citizens to exclude them from the Union. Is the unsourced prejudice among editors against U.S. citizen-islanders to be labelled Conservative, Marxist (they resist calls for independence despite the very best dialectics) or just racist? I'm not sure choosing a label for characterizations helps in a constructive collegial discussion. But the article certainly needs a stylistic reworking. Note the pushback on my proposed lede paragraph consolidation for the "history" topic. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 07:40, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

It's useful article but missing the future scenarios as in: i-America, SMART United States of America, SMART America — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mellon2030 ( talk • contribs) 07:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Would someone please review [8] for freedom from bias? EllenCT ( talk) 07:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The Smithsonian has published a comparitive review of the education systems of top-performing Finland and the US. [9] How much of it is appropriate to include in this article? EllenCT ( talk) 07:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

According to the article, the Finns are said to educate at 30% less per student than the U.S. Teachers are paid for graduate work qualifying them for state-paid salaries on a par with doctors and lawyers. Classroom sizes are limited to 23, with a qualified teacher and three assistants pursuing advanced education at state expense for each class equipped with smart boards and the computers and software to drive them to meet the national curriculum standards.

Finland supplies the employer’s salary of each woman for three years of maternity leave at the birth of each child -- and guarantees the position on her return? Each family has direct subsidy of $2,000 a year a child until they turn 17. Finland provides nation-wide childcare and preschool to 90% of the children. The state commits finances to ensure no child arrives for school hungry.

There are no "high stakes" tests, but the principle of each school selects on average 43% of the 9th graders to become the nation’s restaurant help, hospital and construction workers -- they attend the less expensive (?) vocational high schools. And the Finns are said to educate at 30% less per student than the U.S. How are the metrics to be comparable to what could go on in the U.S., a federal republic? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 12:20, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Ellen, have a look at the section here. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 16:33, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the Education in the United States international comparison. On the other hand, Ellen and I might agree after all on one comparison -- a school metric for physical education. My favorite soccer/futbol is less expensive per student than American football, and many more can participate at all ages -- without the debilitating injuries, either physically or neurologically, that American football incurs. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:25, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I do, too. I have another source that says Finland's average class size and average student-teacher ratio is very low, less than half of the US's, although their teacher salaries and per-pupil spending appear to be very much in line with the European average. I don't see how that is possible, so I am looking for more sources. EllenCT ( talk) 07:54, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

It is true that the U.S. spends more per capita than other OECD countries on educating students, yet has larger classroom sizes, lower teacher pay and lower outcomes. American taxpayers also spend more per capita on public health care, yet it is only provided to poor and old people. They are less efficient in providing services, except for prison services, whether the cost of each prisoner is much lower than other countries. TFD ( talk) 03:34, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

No sources for those remarkably dramatic TFD claims; probably too broadly condemning to find any references to back them up -- no public health care for military veterans or for disabilities in the US by TFD sources? The issue under discussion relates to comparable national data bases.

In Finland, each child has a national grant of $2000 a year from birth to age 17, noted in the Smithsonian article as contributing to Finland's education. The Finns nationally fund graduate study required for both the regular and special education classroom teacher in every classroom. How can we be sure that the OECD comparisons wrap in the Finn national child grants and teacher education for comparison to US per capita expenditure per child? There must be sources, which TFD is reluctant to provide in any discussion. TFD and I may be agreed that American football is an inefficient use of educational resources compared to soccer-futbol. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:14, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Child benefits are not educational spending. In any case, the U.S. also has child benefits. The Guardian says "The US has the highest health spending in the world.... And it's not all private - government spending is at $4,437 per person, only behind Luxembourg, Monaco and Norway." [10] And you are right, it is not just on poor and old people, but on some other classes of people as well. TFD ( talk) 17:06, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Historian, could you please say a little more about which of TFD's claims you found particularly questionable? After finding [11] I dug a little deeper on that site, and if it is as accurate as it seems to agree with other sources, they have other stories e.g. [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], etc. that solidly support TFD's characterization. Perhaps describing how the public school teacher to administrator ratio has changed over the past century would be helpful? EllenCT ( talk) 01:58, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Did you have a suggested language to contribute to the article? I note you provided some interesting clippings on classroom cheating, but no scholarship. Links are a start, and very superior to TFD output. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 07:39, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I plan to try to update, expand, and otherwise improve Education in the United States with this first, and then with luck I will have a sentence at least or a paragraph at most to try here. EllenCT ( talk) 05:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I look forward to your effort. Though generally, I'm always suspicious of data bases for systems comparisons in education. For example, of those attending on state test days, my 11th grade students scored their career highest for social studies consistently over my last decade teaching. Some few, and all gang members did not show on the day. Some attended one day in thirteen so as to qualify the family for food stamps, -- which I consider responsible at one level, playing by the rules as such--food stamps as a pro-family policy.

a) no-show zero scores were averaged into my aggregate performance rating for each class, b) if they are not in the seats, I can't teach. But school teachers strive to educate children of illiterate parents to read by direct instruction and subject courses for the sake of the children's future individual opportunity and mobility. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 07:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I added the "ambiguous" tag after "wealthiest Americans" in the following, recently added sentence in the Government finance section...

"Tax rates for the wealthiest Americans have declined by 40 percent, while tax rates for average Americans have remained roughly constant."

...and an editor simply reverted it without clarifying anything or giving a reason for the revert. Wealth isn't the same thing as income, and the source appears to be dealing specifically with the federal income tax. It's also unclear precisely what "average Americans" or "tax rates" mean in this context. The rest of the section deals in specifics. This sentence reads more like a low brow line from a politician's speech than encyclopedia text, and needs a significant upgrade in quality. Anyone want to help? VictorD7 ( talk) 22:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It's ambiguous and doesn't explain the term "wealthy" to any degree. JOJ ^Hutton 00:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

The graph in the first source clarifies the term "wealthiest", which is the top 0.1%. Open the source and search "This is illustrated in the figure below." Updated article where tag was. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 09:05, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I read that before I tagged it, but that wasn't the only issue. I went ahead and changed "wealthiest" to "top 0.1% of earners", for accuracy, and added "federal income" to "tax rates". We still need to clarify what "average" means (biggest remaining ambiguity problem), because it appears to be a colloquial use of the term rather than a mathematical one. BTW, that chart is extremely misleading. Note the blue line at the very bottom actually represents the bottom 80% of the population, and their tax rates have declined significantly since 1980. The green line second from the top represents 9/10ths of the top 1% (and therefore pretty much the top 1%), and note how its rate hasn't declined anywhere near what the top 0.1%'s has. In fact, as an edit I'm currently developing will note, the bottom 40%'s tax rate (which this chart doesn't show) has declined far more than the top 1%'s has. This underscores the disagreement over whether progressivity has increased or decreased in that time span, as sources I'll add will lay out, and why we'll have to change the preceding sentence to reflect that disagreement. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:56, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

An editor recently split off a single, short paragraph from the Law Enforcement section and made it a subsection titled "Prison population". Aren't we getting into some cherry-picked, niche topics at the section and subsection level? Seems like this short paragraph would be just fine folded back into the Law Enforcement section doesn't it? Thoughts? VictorD7 ( talk) 01:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Considering the US has the largest prison population and highest incarceration rates on earth I believe it deserves its own subsection.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 13:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The U.S. is an outlier in many areas, no reason to provide undue emphasis on this. TFD ( talk) 15:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Not even close to important enough to deserve its own section. Rwenonah ( talk) 19:30, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Any time you are NUMBER ONE in the world I believe that you deserve your own section. Einar aka Carptrash ( talk) 19:40, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

As TFD pointed out, the US is #1 in many categories, most of which don't have their sections. VictorD7 ( talk) 20:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

So far three editors oppose this topic having a separate section while two support. The only argument presented in favor of the section is that the US ranks #1, but, as multiple editors have pointed out, the US ranks #1 in many categories (e.g. Nobel Prizes, Olympic Medals, abortions, mean income among OECD nations, food security, litigiousness, cancer survival rates, corporate tax rates, car ownership per capita, etc.) that don't have their own sections and sometimes aren't even mentioned in the article, so that's not a valid argument. Does anyone have a rational, compelling argument for "Prison population" having its own subsection when such a short paragraph could easily be folded back into the Law enforcement section proper? VictorD7 ( talk) 20:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I continue to support the "Own section" perspective, but would not object to finding the information in another relevant (ie, Law enforcement) section. On the other hand it might be fun to turn some of the other firsts you mention into sections too. Sort of balkanize the whole article. Carptrash ( talk) 21:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

So you wouldn't oppose returning the material to the Law enforcement section where it originally was? VictorD7 ( talk) 21:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't just support keeping America's prison population as its own section, I think it needs to be expanded. We are talking about 2.3million people living under lock & key at great expense. And it is highly significant that we are not just #1 in prison population, we are actually exponentially higher than many other economically advanced countries that have much lower rates of violent crime. Lance Friedman ( talk) 21:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

50 million abortions have been committed over the past few decades (well over a million each year), and the US has more Nobel Prizes than the rest of the world combined in all three hard science categories over the past several decades. "Highly significant" doesn't necessarily mean "warrants own section". The article is filled with significant distinguishing characteristics that are lumped together under appropriate section headers. Even having the worlds' largest GDP only appears as a mention in the broader "Economy" section. The space program, where the US has had a longstanding dramatic salience, is only briefly mentioned as well. Why is PP so much more important than all those other categories? Unlike the Nobel Prize thing (which isn't mentioned in totality anywhere), the incarceration ranking was already mentioned in the LE section. It's too narrow a topic to warrant its own section. Creating a new header is frivolous, selective, and indicates POV agenda pushing.

On a side note the LE section does need some reworking, but the first order of business (after eliminating the frivolous subsection) should be either deleting the racial incarceration breakdown as misleadingly implying people are being jailed because of their race, or adding salient facts on the racial crime rate breakdown (e.g. blacks commit murder at more than 7 times the rate of non-blacks; BTW, racial differences are one of many reasons why US and "rest of developed world" comparisons are often misleading apples and oranges comparisons designed to push ideological agendas). VictorD7 ( talk) 23:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

That is correct, Victor, I have no problem with your moving the info. Carptrash ( talk) 23:41, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Victor and Cartrash can go on and on with dubious statements that other developed countries don't have "blacks" The reality is that the United States article should not be some publicity-stunt/commercial for the USA and should not attempt to hide or downplay controversial issues. Lance Friedman ( talk) 01:40, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Straw man city. Abortion is a highly controversial issue, far more so than prison population, and one could argue that US litigiousness, at insanely high levels compared to other nations (the rest of the western world having loser pay tort laws), impacts everything from the food industry to medicine to whether or not school kids are allowed to play ball sports at recess unsupervised or sing Christmas carols, and yet abortion doesn't have its own section and AFAIK the unusual tort structure isn't even mentioned. Neither do things setting the US apart that most see as positive like the space program, Nobel Prize dominance, or other items I mentioned. It's not about "controversial" or "commercial", but having a consistent, coherent, rational heading format that doesn't get absurdly specific in a skewed, POV way. Besides, frankly, outside of some fringe special interest activism, prison population is not a huge controversy in the US, as most people generally support tough sentences for criminals. By giving it an entire section you're elevating this "controversy" in importance. No one's saying the prison population stuff shouldn't be included. It just doesn't warrant its own section. There's no need for it when it's a single, short paragraph that fits just fine in the Law enforcement section. Different editors personally believe different areas are important, but section headers are supposed to be broad, neutral, and things that are typically replicated on other country pages. They aren't for you to push pet political agendas on niche topics. If every editor did that we'd have 1,000 sections. The overarching criticism of this article over the past year has been that it's already too long. Oh, and no one said "other developed countries don't have blacks". VictorD7 ( talk) 02:11, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Victor, U can introduce as many red herrings as U want into the conversation. Do other economically have as exponentially higher number of abortions compared to our prison population? Stop trying to turn this Wiki article into some kind public relations for the USA. Lance Friedman ( talk) 02:37, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Lance, please reread what's been written here and try again, this time replying with coherent sentences. If I correctly discern what you tried to say, the gap between the US and the rest of the world is even bigger on the space program issue and some others. And I'm not trying to turn the page into "public relations for the USA", which is why I've listed positive and negative items at least as notable as prison population that don't have and shouldn't get their own sections. However, your insistence on spewing that "public relations" straw man indicates that you're obsessed with turning the page into the opposite, a POV agenda that's inappropriate for Wikipedia. This isn't a venue for you to wage political crusades, even if you really care about a particular niche issue and want to draw attention to it, or if you just feel the US should be taken down a peg or two. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Please refrain from ad hominem attacks, Victor. Pot. Kettle. Black. EllenCT ( talk) 03:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Just explaining what Wikipedia is for and what's not for, and you're the last one who should be making statements like that, Ellen. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

It's for accurate summarization of accurate information, which means including differing points of view, not trying to censor the vastly more popular one you don't like. EllenCT ( talk) 03:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Ellen, please summarize what info the Democracy Index ranking (and only the ranking, because that's all that's in the text) conveys to a reader. Use as many sentences as you like for the summary. Besides, I'm not sure how popular the "Democracy Index" is. Most people haven't heard of it and it's not mentioned on other country pages. Regardless, Ann Coulter (for example) is an extremely popular, multiple best selling author, but popularity doesn't mean an opinion warrants inclusion in a section that's not about subjective opinions, does it? Or if you actually had in mind this section's topic, please explain why you feel the topic of Prison population is more notable (popular?) than the others I've mentioned, including abortion, the space program, car ownership, etc.. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:12, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

This section is about prison populations, where the U.S. is not only the first per capita, but has nearly twice as many people incarcerated per capita than any other country of comparable population: List of countries by incarceration rate. If you think that's not noteworthy enough to include, then I don't know what to say. In my opinion, omitting it is sadly trying to sweep a serious problem under the rug. EllenCT ( talk) 08:51, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The US incarceration rate is a major issue. Not sure if it needs its own section, but agree with EllenCT that it deserves more prominent treatment and could be woven into issues like the war on drugs, impacts on minority groups, and voting rights. Mattnad ( talk) 02:21, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Ellen, nakedly mischaracterizing what we've said is a sad debating tactic. As any honest person can verify, I explicitly said it's fine to include it. It already was included long before this recent change. This section isn't about inclusion, but whether this niche topic deserves its own section. Please struggle to stay honest and on topic. And the US has more than twice the space program accomplishments than other countries, and is an extreme outlier in other areas as well that don't have their own sections. That's not enough. VictorD7 ( talk) 00:51, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely worth including as its own section. The fact that the "country of freedom" has the highest per capita prison population in the world is notable and deserves attention. The section itself (which is actually a sub-section) is quite small, but I don't think it should be expanded by much, if any, so as not to give it too much weight and because it currently links to the main article, Incarceration in the United States. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 11:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Being notable doesn't mean such a narrowly focused, niche topic should have its own subsection, especially given what you acknowledge is its brevity and your opinion that it shouldn't be expanded (sections are expansion magnets over time). I'm not sure what you think the US being "the country of freedom" has to do with this. It seems like you're trying to make an ironic, opinionated political observation (POV), the relevance of which rests on highly debatable assumptions. For example, one could argue that the US having a higher incarceration rate simply reflects a higher crime rate, itself possibly a symptom of a freer society. Or it may also reflect that victim's rights are taken more seriously. Neither possibility is incompatible with freedom. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Using small subsections to introduce main articles is very common on Wikipedia and is what this section does. America's prison population is notable because it's such an outlier. The fact that per capita, the US has over 250% more people locked up than Iran, and over 500% more than Australia, another "western" country, is notable, whether you agree with it or not. The prison problem in the US has been reported on widely which gives it substantial weight. You need to watch your POV pushing when trying to minimize America's downsides, it hurts the overall content and trustworthiness of the article. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 08:01, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm the one saying that both things like prison population and the fact that Americans (per capita) have more than twice the living space as Europeans are notable, but that neither salient trait merits its own section header or the undue weight that would accompany it. I'm being consistent, "positive" or "negative". You need to watch your POV agenda pushing when trying to advance pet leftist crusades, especially if you're simultaneously trying to completely purge the article of at least equally notable info that you've indicated you feel challenges your political worldview. Heck, while you're misguidedly attacking the Heritage Foundation below, multiple portions of the Prison population paragraph are sourced by the Sentencing Project, an activist/lobbyist group with an aggressively pursued, openly expressed agenda on the topic. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:07, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The main thing you're consistent in is pushing your right-wing POV. Trying to compare things like how many citizens are locked up by their government to the size of someone's house not only doesn't make sense but shows me clear intention of trying to mask the seriousness of the prison problem in the United States. I attacked the Heritage Foundation because they are a propaganda machine, as I explained in the section below. Since you think the Sentencing Project source is unreliable then you need to take it to RSN and get their thoughts. I've added more sources to the section to shore it up. Since our discussion is becoming somewhat circular, I will wait to respond until someone other than yourself chimes in. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 09:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Except I'm the one treating niche issues like prison population and living space the same, while you're the one consistently pushing a one sided, left-wing POV, underscored by the fact that you just called the prison population a "problem". I didn't say the Sentencing Project is unreliable, but just used it to illustrate your over the top hypocrisy. In the below section I listed numerous other leftist propaganda outfits that you haven't "shored up" or started sections to attack. BTW, the other editors who expressed opposition to a Prison population section are left leaning, underscoring the absurdity of your posturing. I'll add that with the even more recent changes the Law Enforcement section is laughably POV and skewed with undue weight inappropriate for a brief summary in a country article, reading like a DNC pamphlet on gun control, and will need major reworking to approach any semblance of neutrality, probably with counterpoints about privately owned guns being used more to thwart crimes than commit them, analyses failing to demonstrate a causal empirical relationship between lack of gun control laws and higher crime, and certainly with racial breakdowns of murder/crime stats, the last already being warranted given the misleading racial incarceration breakdown and made even more necessary with the "south was the most violent region" crap (also devoid of any mention of the urban/rural breakdown). Such is the way sections blow up to huge size when editors (especially driveby ones) seek to turn an article into a vehicle for political propaganda and POV pushing rather than a neutrality worded, quality encyclopedia. VictorD7 ( talk) 18:38, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Do your stats on poor people with large homes take into account poor people living in prison cells? Do they include homeless people? TFD ( talk) 19:00, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

No. What percentage of the US population is currently incarcerated or homeless? Regardless, the article currently mentions all three topics as it should, though it spends the least amount of time on living space (despite that being the one describing the vast majority of the population), and none of the three topics should be given the skewed elevation of an entire section. VictorD7 ( talk) 19:38, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone provide a non-POV rationale for giving "Prison population" (or "Incarceration") its own section?

So far its supporters have described the issue as a "problem", and indicated that they're attempting to raise awareness of this alleged "problem" in hopes of sparking political changes. Of course that's not supposed to be what Wikipedia's about. Does anyone have a non-POV argument in favor of a niche topic like incarceration having its own section, while arguably even more notable topics like crime rate, abortion, the space program, child abuse, drug use, living space, car ownership, Nobel Prizes, frivolous lawsuits (only western nation without loser pay tort rules), school choice, Olympic medals, constitutionalism, and countless others don't? VictorD7 ( talk) 03:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If crime rate doesn't have its own section, then a section on incarceration will be out of context. Boneyard90 ( talk) 19:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, can you imagine a serious encyclopedia which didn't report on the crime rates of various regions, especially in famous places with outlying statistics? EllenCT ( talk) 23:59, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Boneyard90, you're comparing apples to oranges. There are millions of crimes committed every year (crime rate) that don't lead to incarceration. It's like saying why does this article have a Sports section (which it does) but not a Recreation section (which it doesn't); because crime rate is only one aspect that can potentially lead to incarceration. But our opinions are irrelevant. What is relevant is the weight carried by the material. The prison issue in the United States has been reported on widely because it is so unusual for a western country. ----- VictorD7, who in general has continually pushed his right-wing POV agenda, wants to remove anything that casts a negative light on the U.S., which not only violates Wikipedia's policy on neutrality, but misinforms millions of people looking for accurate information pertaining to the United States. At the end of the day, intentionally introducing non-neutral sources into the article from Mercatus and Cato [18] ultimately harms the Wikipedia project..... which is not a good thing. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 00:23, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

When we write about any country we tend to mention those things that make that country distinctly different from others, particularly if that characteristic for that country is at or near an extreme when compared with others. For the US, "Prison population" (or "Incarceration") is clearly one of those. HiLo48 ( talk) 00:51, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Well said HiLo48. I agree with both you and EllenCT in that the Incarceration section belongs in the article. --- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 01:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

But we report on a lot of stuff that doesn't get its own section. The space program, crime rate, living space, abortion rate, Nobel prizes, lawsuit structure, and a host of other things are equally or more distinctive US traits. Do they all deserve their own subsections too? If not, why not? VictorD7 ( talk) 02:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Of those, only the space program is special to the US. Perhaps it should have its own section too. HiLo48 ( talk) 06:42, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

The US has a significantly higher crime rate than other developed nations; indeed the Law Enforcement section already spends about as much time talking about it as it does incarceration, and way more than when the subsection was first created. That's even without the racial and urban/rural breakdowns that will have to be added at some point for some semblance of context and neutrality. Americans also have more than twice the living space of Europeans, the highest abortion rate in the developed world, the highest mean income in at least the OECD, have the most plentiful food and efficient agriculture in the world, have won more hard science Nobel Prizes than the rest of the world combined over the last several decades (not even mentioned in the article!), and the US is the only western nation that doesn't have loser pay tort rules. Far more people are impacted, directly and indirectly, by lawsuits than by incarceration, yet the extremely notable litigious nature of US society isn't even mentioned in the article. If we give a niche issue like "incarceration" its own section, why shouldn't each of these topics and many more have their own subsections? Do you see what kind of box that opens up? VictorD7 ( talk) 21:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Crime rate has been reported on far more widely than incarceration rate, so that's not a valid argument. And the think tank sources you listed were to improve issue coverage and the neutrality of a section (which the neutrality policy actually applies to, not sources; I've already educated you on that with policy quotes) using leftist sources like CBPP and liberal blogs, so your one sided ideological complaining marks you as a hypocrite, and, since I've just listed loads of "negative" topics more deserving of their own sections than incarceration (e.g. lawsuit abuse, abortion, lack of school choice, etc.), you're undeniably lying about my motives, projecting your own partisan POV agenda in the process. Between the two of us I'm the one who actually does sincerely care about not misinforming people. PS - You're overdoing the bolding. It comes across as angry shouting. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Ellen you do understand that no has said the incarceration rate shouldn't be reported on in the article, don't you? The crime rate doesn't have its own section, and yet it's reported on just fine. We should do the same with incarceration. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

WTF? Someone has completely screwed up the logic of this conversation by rearranging the indents. Please don't do that again. HiLo48 ( talk) 09:29, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Somedifferentstuff moved everything around for some reason. I tried to restore normal nest structure. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. VictorD7 wrecked the indents which I tried to repair. Have a look at the edit history. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 09:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

No, you divorced my replies from the posts they were responding to, as anyone can see from the edit history. VictorD7 ( talk) 17:40, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

An editor recently deleted a properly sourced sentence from the Income, wealth, and poverty section claiming it was "repetition", and that "the same assertion and exact same source is just 6 paragraphs in this same section". But he's wrong. Here are the two segments:

the one he deleted

1. Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as Europeans, and more than every European nation.

and a few paragraphs down

2. ...and the average poor American has more living space than the general population average in every European nation except Luxembourg and Denmark.

Those are two different points with explicitly different results. One is a topline stat about the entire population average while the other is specifically about poor Americans. Both are notable, and the combination isn't any more repetitive than breakdowns of other metrics and international comparisons for the poor and other subsets throughout the section and article. They do share a source but that's irrelevant since references can obviously source more than one thing.

When I reverted him and politely informed him that they were in fact different points conveying different information to readers, he reverted the material again and simply repeated his earlier, false claim, calling it "repetitious", and saying "You are making the same assertion".

Perhaps it's possible that he simply honestly misread my edit summary and the article text in question twice, but either way his error should be corrected. I'll do so if he fails to rationally defend his actions here.

PS - In my revert I did accidentally double post the restored section, but that obviously wasn't the "repetition" he was referring to, since he deleted the topline stat entirely. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:12, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Not only is it repetitious, I also think it is rather dubious to even throw this into this section at all. Someone can live in a gigantic dilapidated home and still be poor and have a lousy quality of life. Just as someone with a smaller home that is in good condition can be wealthier and have a better quality of life. All of this silly heritage foundation propaganda that weirdly asserts more square footage somehow means people are better off should be deleted from the income/poverty/wealth section due to its questionable relevance to the topic. Lance Friedman ( talk) 03:29, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

In other words, Lance Friedman's original research has convinced him that reliable sources espousing a conservative viewpoint must be purged from the article. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 03:33, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it it necessarily conservative or liberal. All that I am asking is does home size have any serious relevance to the topic of poverty/income/wealth? There is no original research involved. I can find lots of sources stating people are better off in smaller homes: http://realestate.msn.com/5-reasons-you-should-buy-a-small-house Lance Friedman ( talk) 04:23, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

We are supposed to include facts that are normally presented in mainstream sources. Adding facts in order to add a conservative view is against WP:WEIGHT. Similarly we should not present facts to bolster an anti-American viewpoint. TFD ( talk) 13:17, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course not--we should add facts because they're notable. LF wants to delete this sourced material not because it lacks notability, but because it's "silly heritage foundation propaganda". TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 14:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that was a sarcastic way of saying it was only notable to people who think like the Heritage Foundation writers. TFD ( talk) 14:53, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be deleted because it lacks relevance to the topics of the section, income/poverty/wealth Lance Friedman ( talk) 16:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Hogwash. One can add qualifications to every fact in the article.* Food and shelter are basic components of living standard, and a living space advantage of more than 2 to 1 over Europeans is highly notable. Indeed whether one sees it as positive or not, it's a salient, distinguishing characteristic of America. In an above section you've been arguing that a prison population of more than twice most other developed countries (but still a tiny percentage of the population) is enough to justify "Prison population" having its own section, and now you're trying to purge a mere sentence mention of something basic and notable that affects the population as a whole? Your stated reasoning for deletion was that it was "repetitious", but the segment about the overall country and the one about the poor are two undeniably different stats, as I've demonstrated. Regardless, the topline stat covering the whole population in the intro paragraph would be the more important one to leave in anyway. Since it's long established text deleted under the false pretense of "repetition" I'm going to go ahead and restore it. If you still believe it should be deleted for some reason, you can continue to argue for that change here.

-*For example, "relative" poverty and social mobility are extremely dubious metrics for international comparison, since a nation like Poland or North Korea can rank "higher" than a much more prosperous nation. Yet the article still dwells on those topics and general "inequality" extensively, complete with sourcing from an array of leftist references that includes dated fringe blogs and angry student editorials in some cases. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The source for the material is the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank which is not a reliable secondary source. See WP:RS. There are some places they can be used as a primary, but definitely not when it's regarding anything to do with welfare or poverty. If the material you want to re-insert is applicable, you will be able to find it in a major news outlet or scholarly journal. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 08:23, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Somedifferentstuff, nothing in the guidelines says think tanks aren't reliable sources, and there's certainly no ideological prohibition on sources. In fact as your own linked page states, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." The non-POV rule applies to how we edit the article,* not (necessarily) the sources we use, which is good since it's easy to demonstrate bias with virtually every source used, most of them on this page probably left wing. Bias can be taken into account when accuracy is in dispute, but in this case the data comes from government sources and isn't in dispute. Furthermore, the segment in question (the one previously deleted) isn't about poverty, but the population as a whole. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

-*An example of ridiculous, neutrality violating, POV pushing is this article text in the Income section's last paragraph, replete with skewed opinion: Between June 2007 and November 2008 the global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value.[396] Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth is down $14 trillion.[397] At the end of 2008, household debt amounted to $13.8 trillion.[398] By some measures, the U.S. has more millionaires per capita than any other nation, ranks in the top 14 in billionaires per capita,[399] and has more billionaires and millionaires than any other nation and all of Europe, most described as self-made, though there's dispute to what degree. Some consider the entire idea of a self-made man to be largely a myth. The second wealthiest man in the United States, Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying: “I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.” According to the 2013 Forbes Magazine ranking of American billionaires, six of the ten wealthiest billionaires came from just two families and the source of their fortunes is inherited wealth. According to United for a Fair Economy, 35% of 2011's 400 wealthiest Americans came from poor or middle-class backgrounds. They also say the myth of “self-made wealth is potentially destructive to the very infrastructure that enables wealth creation.”[400][401][402][403][404][405]

VictorD7, your point is that mainstream academics and media ignore facts and use incorrect comparisons, which has been pointed out by right-wing think tanks. However adding info from them skews the article away from the mainstream and is therefore undue weight. TFD ( talk) 16:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

But surely POV from angry student editorials can be excised to bring a more neutral point of view to the article. I sort of like think tanks like Heritage, Brookings and Wilson for background information -- I like to read all three before forming a personal opinion -- sorry to see them preemptively excluded generically as reliable sources for an article aimed at a general international readership. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:36, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of partisan thinktanks is to present views that they believe are not adequately presented in mainstream sources. However our task is to present views in proportion with how they are presented in mainstream sources. If you think the project should provide more weight to right-wing, left-wing or any other views than the mainstream does, then you need to change policy. What btw are these sources written by angry students? TFD ( talk) 17:57, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I had in mind this piece off the top of my head ( [19]), but after closer inspection it's an angry editorial by a paid employee of a university affiliated journalism trade magazine, though it reads like it was written by a student and gets torn apart in the comments section. Here's an angrier editorial (and current section source) that lambasts "the black heart of the entire right-wing worldview". This source is an opinion piece from 2004 ("Social Security Isn't Broken: So Why the Rush to 'Fix' It?") written by someone I've never heard of that's apparently arguing against social security reform, though it's unclear if it's available for online viewing. That last one is used to support the matter of fact claim in Wikipedia's voice that "the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly". There's currently no mention in the article of social security's own trustees declaring in recent years that the entitlement program is "unsustainable" ( [20] [21]). I could go on and on. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:37, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

TFD, I reject your implied premise that conservative sources and/or think tanks of any stripe (and there are plenty of leftist ones in the article) can't be "mainstream". Wikipedia guidelines say that even Facebook posts can be legitimate sources, if the author can be verified as an expert in the pertinent field. The Heritage Foundation is one of the nation's most prominent think tanks, and is therefore pretty mainstream. More importantly, the piece in question is well referenced and the facts come from government sources. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

IOW the views expressed in Heritage Foundation studies are the same as those expressed by the vast majority of news and academic sources. Then why not just use mainstream media and academic views? TFD ( talk) 04:05, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

First, I strongly reject the premise that conservative sources should be replaced for some reason when the numerous leftist sources peppering the article are just fine (and I just disputed your premise that Heritage isn't "mainstream"; indeed it's far more prominent than many of the obscure academic and other fringe sources on the page). Second, Heritage isn't being used to support "views", but facts, facts it took the lead in bringing to light for mass popular consumption (and their work has been roundly copied and commented on, with the various liberal outfits attacking it, at least one of which is currently also used as a source, not disputing the facts presented, but just engaging in whiny spin), so it's fitting that it serves as a source. That said, I have since added the government sources too (for the poverty appliance inclusion), though they aren't ideal alone since Heritage performs the basic (and easily verifiable) arithmetic to convert the listed data into article text friendly percentages. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:48, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

You are using it to present facts that they consider important and are ignored by the mainstream in brief descriptions of the U.S. That is the same as having a section on prison populations because someone thinks it is important to provide extensive coverage of the facts about that topic. Just because there is left-wing content in the article that should not be there, does not mean right-wing content should be added. I do not see any left-wing sources btw, so perhaps you could identify them. BTW you need to distinguish between rs and weight. Just because something is true does not mean it should be put in. TFD ( talk) 05:06, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

To what "mainstream in brief descriptions of the U.S." sources do you refer? There is no external country article template. This article has a unique combination of size and scope. Editors decide what to include based on notability, hopefully with good faith and fair judgement. Both prison population and living space are salient, distinguishing characteristics of the US, and are therefore notable, though neither deserves or requires its own section based on standard page layout practice on other Wikipedia country articles and a reasonable desire to avoid skewing with logically undue weight (I'm familiar with both concepts, btw, and haven't conflated them in any way). The living space inclusion only consists of a sentence and a half, so it can hardly be claimed it's receiving too much emphasis given all the far more obscure, niche details peppering the article. You may not want to acknowledge the rest of the article, but it can't be ignored in a page layout discussion. Context matters. Deleting something as basic and relevant as living space (a concept discussed frequently in every type of media) should only come after a massive pruning that sees many less relevant segments removed first, especially if there's an ideological agenda motivating the one sided deletion that leaves a skewed, POV article. As for leftist sources, for a small sample in the section see my above reply to your reply to TVH. VictorD7 ( talk) 06:06, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Ryan Chittum is the deputy editor at the Columbia Journalism Review and previously was a staff reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Sara Robinson is an editor at AlterNet and has a degree in journalism and a graduate degree. Doug Orr is a professor of economics at Eastern Washington University. None of them are "angry students." Whether or not their writings should be used is another issue, but please do not misrepresent their qualifications. You say "there is no external country article template", but policy says we can use tertiary sources in order to determine weight. Do you think that a standard reference book of countries of the world would cover your talking points? I think there was agreement that we should say that Americans have larger living spaces, but no reason to say that poor people have larger living spaces than poor people in other countries (presumably so do rich and middle income people), except to present the view that mainstream sources wrongly overstate U.S. poverty, i.e., to balance mainstream views with your partisan views of one side. TFD ( talk) 07:48, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Alternet is a low brow leftist propaganda outfit whose very name (a play on "alternative" media) is a boast about its non-mainstream status. Ryan Chittum has a degree from the University of Oklahoma (presumably in journalism, though I'm not sure), and it's unclear why he should even be considered an expert on economics, though I didn't mention qualifications much less misrepresent them (I already self corrected the "student" part earlier, but the "angry editorial" description is completely apt). The topic was ideology, and I clearly illustrated the leftist agenda being pushed hard by the sources cited above. I could follow it up with many, many more examples. You provided no examples of an external country template that should serve as an overarching guide for what we should include in this article. "Standard reference book" isn't good enough. You still seem to be defining "mainstream" as that which agrees with your own partisan views, a circular argument. Wikipedia must not be a vehicle for one sided propaganda. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:46, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Try typing in "countries of the world" in Google books. [22] BTW facts are not "angry" or "left-wing", they are true or false. But the relevant policy is not rs but WP:WEIGHT, i.e., which facts to include. TFD ( talk) 04:58, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm familiar with a diverse array of books about "countries of the world". You didn't cite an example we should use as template. I never said "facts" are angry or left-wing, but editorials certainly can be. I agree with you that accuracy is relevant regarding facts. Nothing in the undue weight section you linked to (which primarily deals with allowing all significant viewpoints in proper proportions when facts are in dispute) indicates that a mere sentence and a half, factually undisputed comparative living space inclusion is somehow undue, especially in a section featuring such obscure and pointless segments as the "Legatum Prosperity Index" sentence, a sentence dedicated to a one time study on children's "well being" based on highly subjective and misleading factors, an opinion in Wikipedia's voice about the "effectiveness" of the US welfare state, etc.. VictorD7 ( talk) 05:13, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Justification needed for usage of Heritage Foundation source

As I stated before, the source for the material is the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank which is not a reliable secondary source (they can be used in certain instances as long as attribution is given). Heritage's primary purpose is to influence public policy using right-wing ideological based "research". They form conclusions from this "research" and then use it to try and sway politicians/public opinion. They are the ULTIMATE pov pushers. To make this clear, I'll discuss this source which VictorD7 recently stuck back in the article. First, the material doesn't even hold up to scrutiny. Their argument is that standard of living is better with more living space, but it's completely devoid of context. According to this line of reasoning, living in a 2000 sq. ft. home in high-crime Compton would be better than living in a 1000 sq. ft. home in low-crime Reykjavik. That isn't an argument, it's nonsense. They also fail to mention that Europe is much older than the US and living in smaller quarters is not unusual. There are thousands of articles, books, research papers, etc. that can be used in this article. Relying on the knowingly biased Heritage Foundation is not only unnecessary but harmful. If the material you want in the article is worthy of including, then find a reliable secondary source verifying the claims. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 10:01, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you take it to RSN? TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 13:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

First, your false claim that "right-wing" sources can't be used without attribution has already been corrected. I even quoted the guideline line from your own link ( WP:RS in a reply that you failed to directly respond to: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." Since they're only being used to source undisputed government stats, and not their own opinions, simply calling them "pov pushers" isn't a valid argument against the source.

Second, no conclusions are expressed in the segments, though, all things being equal, more living space is generally seen as better than less living space, as demonstrated by property values in apples to apples comparisons (especially within the same region). No variable tells the whole story, which is why so many different ones are mentioned, including crime rates, income, etc.. You've offered no reason to exclude living space while retaining others. In your hypothetical, it would be one area where the Compton dweller would have a leg up on the Iceland dweller. If that offends one's prejudices then perhaps one should reexamine them with an open mind.

Third, regardless of our opinions of how "positive" or "negative" large living space is, the fact that Americans have more than twice the living space per person as Europeans is a major distinguishing characteristic, just as the high prison population is (which many can argue is a good thing to the extent it means criminals are being locked up), and is important for people to know if they're looking for info on what sets the US apart. Big homes. The half sentence spent on the living space of poor Americans is necessary lest people falsely believe that the average is skewed by some very large houses on top rather than being a general population phenomenon.

Fourth, do you plan to start sections demanding defenses of leftist sources, including think tanks like the CBPP, Brookings Institute, Economic Policy Institute, and Urban Institute, lobbyists like Citizens for Tax Justice, activist professors on crusades like Smeeding or Saez, partisan bloggers on sites like Alternet, The New Republic, and the Huffington Post, or partisan editorial columns on sites like CJR and Psychology Today (and all of those come from just the Income section! And, unlike Heritage, many are being used to source their own opinions and/or original, unverifiable research.), or is your effort here entirely one sided and partisan? VictorD7 ( talk) 03:46, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

First, user:VictorD7 conveniently left out some material from WP:RS. It states, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are good sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Biased sources are, however, more likely to be unreliable than neutral sources." A little further down it states, "Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs."

Second, I've already explained why living space is a somewhat meaningless term regarding quality of life. Another user discussed this previously. So the question remains; if this material carries enough weight to be included in the article, then why haven't you provided any other source which supports it ??? When discussing issues like poverty, taxes, homelessness, etc., there are usually multiple sources discussing it. Yet for some unknown reason, the material presented by The Heritage Foundation appears nowhere else; but it's worthy, because user:VictorD7 says it is. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 20:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Somedifferentstuff didn't answer my question about whether his focus on political sources is entirely one sided (given the numerous leftist sources used to support even originally developed material, only some of which I just cited in a long list), or explain why living space (the general concept of which is discussed all the time in a variety of sources; check home listings some time) isn't notable when (as I already explained) your argument about it not necessarily telling the whole living standard story is true of every metric in the article (why we don't just cite one fact). Your expanded quote from the RS page isn't relevant unless you're disputing the accuracy of the claim. As has already been noted, the facts supported by the transparently referenced Heritage piece in question come from government sources, and some direct government sources have already been added to the article. The piece and its material have been widely commented on in conservative and liberal circles, with the latter trying to put a predictable spin on it but not challenging the info's accuracy. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:29, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

EXACTLY. You've been asked to provide ONE SOURCE backing up the material from The Heritage Foundation and YOU CAN'T DO IT, proving that it doesn't carry significant weight to be included in the article. ---- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually I don't think you directly asked me to, but just asked why I hadn't, so I was busy rejecting your premise that I needed to. That said, here are several sources discussing the US/European living space contrast, including a Swedish study and a British government agency survey: [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29] And it's common to see discussion of living space generally as important to living standard, like in this Guardian piece. VictorD7 ( talk) 03:24, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

The first source you provided is from 2004; later we have thecommentator.com (not-rs); another is apartmenttherapy.com (not-rs and it states that both Denmark and France don't have half the living space of the US......... Germany, Norway, and Sweden aren't even mentioned); then there's econlib.org which mentions nothing about actual living space; then there's this opinion piece ( http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/25/what-really-is-poverty/) which in part states "writes Heritage Foundation welfare expert". --- You need to specifically source (back up) what is stated in the article. Do you understand what that means??? -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 08:22, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I provided multiple sources independently commenting on the living space issue (certainly more than you have on prison population), mostly regarding international differences and larger US homes, to address your misguided "weight" comments. That the Swedish study is from 2004 just confirms that this is a long standing phenomenon and not something invented by Heritage. The BBC piece is from 2009, and it gives very similar ratios for each country as the Heritage piece. The specific Heritage commentary is also repeated elsewhere, as I showed. Their piece is well referenced, citing these EU and US DOE sources: [30], [31]. Even the leftist sources attacking some of the Heritage piece's conclusions, including at least one that's used as a source in the article (a blog on the liberal New Republic website), don't dispute the actual facts or even really take issue with living space being an important component of standard of living. After all, the poor have significantly less living space than the wealthy. You also haven't supported any of the "not-rs" claims you keep throwing out, not that they're relevant since this is just a talk page. For example, policy guidelines state that even facebook posts are are usable as article sources if they're by a pertinent expert. Apartment Therapy is clearly written by professionals in the field. "According to Forbes, Apartment Therapy is "one of the most influential interior design sites on the Web"". Furthermore, if you were sincere about any of this you'd be focusing your efforts on the numerous segments sourced by leftist sources (including blogs) that are actually unverifiable and/or hotly disputed (like the CTJ/ITEP chart you support). And you're still overusing bolding and other histrionic devices. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

• File size: 1022 kB
• Prose size (including all HTML code): 208 kB
• References (including all HTML code): 33 kB
• Wiki text: 289 kB
• Prose size (text only): 96 kB (15453 words) "readable prose size"
• References (text only): 2586 B

This article has gotten huge. Looks like we are trying to talk about everything here. Need to do lots of trimming. Could start by simply incorporating with much less details the sub section like "Prison population" and "Comic books" - not sure this has any real value to our readers in this overall topic. What do others think of the size and sub sections like food that could easily be handled in the culture article? -- Moxy ( talk) 21:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree, particularly about the Prison population and Comic books sections being frivolous, not to mention creating an undue weight skewing. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:36, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I would rather cut sports and comic books than lose focus on the incarcerated proportion. EllenCT ( talk) 01:51, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ellen about not losing focus re: incarceration. Subsections are a common way to introduce main articles on wikipedia. The sports section is the largest but isn't an issue in my opinion. Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 09:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Sports is a very broad category that consumes a major portion of cultural energy across the population and appears in other country articles. By contrast, only a tiny percentage of Americans are incarcerated, and they're incarcerated for criminal activity. Clearly Prison population and Comic books are overly niche topics that should have their headers removed, with the key material (a line or two) folded back into the appropriate sections. Two editors here, Ellen and Somedifferentstuff, have described US incarceration as a "problem", indicating a POV agenda. Wikipedia isn't the right place for pet issue crusading. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Incarceration sub-section (under Law enforcement)

Both the Sports sub-section and Comic books sub-sub section fall under the Culture heading and neither are an issue in my opinion (Comic books is a tiny section and the mention of Superman (1938) is culturally relevant.) The Incarceration sub-section, which falls under Law enforcement, is also quite small. The fact that the United States leads the world in per capita incarceration is notable, both because it's been well documented in numerous sources and because it's highly unusual for a western country to have such a high incarceration rate. Comparing its weight to Sports or Comic books is like comparing horses to microphones, they are completely different subjects in different parts of the article. --------- VictorD7's best argument so far amounts to " I don't like it", which of course isn't an argument. The truth of the matter is that all 3 sections combined contribute very little to the overall length of the article and they all have merit. If you really think it's necessary to remove Comic books then you should start another section discussing that specifically, but I'll continue to be in agreement with EllenCT regarding the Incarceration section. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

To be honest the whole section "Law enforcement" is a bit odd on a main country article. Comic books and incarceration should be no more then one sentence each at best. When it comes to the food section (that should be called cuisine)... I also think its way to much for this overview article (why is there a need to name companies at al) . If there is any hope of reaching GA or FA level the size point will have to be dealt with..... that said the other problems that I have seen you guys talking about here on this page (like verifiability) are much more pressing. -- Moxy ( talk) 23:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Not exceptionally unusual. See these sections for the United Kingdom....... Italy....... Norway....... Sweden. ---- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 00:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

None of those examples have an "Incarceration" subsection, btw. And no, actually the argument by me and several other editors disagreeing with you on this is that countless equally or more notable facts don't get their own section. This isn't about notability, but undue, cherry-picked, skewed emphasis being given to a niche issue you've singled out. In an article that's already widely seen as too long, this sets a very bad precedent and will logically lead to a proliferation of subsections like the hypothetical examples I listed elsewhere on this page. VictorD7 ( talk) 02:13, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

No other country has a prison population sub-section because no other country has imprisoned such a large amount of their population per capita. The fact that the United States has such a large amount of it population imprisoned compared to other countries is highly notable and needs a sub-section because of that notability. Lance Friedman ( talk) 02:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Well said Lance. More " I don't like it" from VictorD7. This material has significant weight because it has been widely reported on. Our opinions are irrelevant (yes, that includes everyone's). The reason none of the articles I listed above touch on incarceration is because the United States is an outlier, as discussed by another editor here. --- I agree with EllenCT, HiLo48, C.J. Griffin, and Lance Friedman in that the Incarceration section belongs in the article. There is definitely not consensus to remove it. --- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 03:43, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

People should look at GA and FA articles for examples of what we are looking for when it come to size of main country articles and the topics they should cover under separate sections (we try to reduce them as much as possible see Canada and Nauru for FA examples. This article has had lots of additions lately that are simply undue weight to the main topic. I would say there is lots of over kill and much can be incorporated into other sections. @ Somedifferentstuff can we get you to read over WP:SHOUT - as your points are valid and should not be dismissed because of a shouting presentation. -- Moxy ( talk) 03:54, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There wasn't consensus to create the recent addition in the first place, since I, TFD, Moxy, Boneyard90, and Rwenonah disagree with you. Instead of continuing to lie about the arguments we've presented, I wish you'd answer the question about whether other widely reported on, niche topics, some of equal or greater distinctive salience, like the crime rate, space program, abortion rate, unique tort setup, constitutionalism, living space, Nobel Prizes, etc. merit their own subsections too, and if not why not? Until you do, it would be more accurate to describe your position as "I just like it!". VictorD7 ( talk) 04:01, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

According to this source [32] 0.6% of the adult US population is incarcerated. With all this talk about percentages, I figured it'd be useful for someone to actually give the percentage, just to keep things in perspective. Many of the topics I just listed significantly impact a much vaster percentage of the population. VictorD7 ( talk) 04:20, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

VictorD7, you need to stop using distraction as a form of argument; it's both disruptive and time consuming. For example, you mention crime rate and abortion rate. From a global perspective, there is nothing unique about the U.S. abortion rate. [33] There is also nothing unique about the U.S. crime rate. [34] Off the top of my head I think the Space Program would have been deserving of its own section many years ago when we first landed on the moon, but not today. Living space has not garnered significant weight in either the MSM or academia. We can discuss Nobel Prizes if you want to. The prison issue in the United States carries significant weight both because it has been widely reported on and because it is so unusual. I won't respond here further. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 00:39, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Prison issues in the United States do not carry much weight overall to the main topic of the country especially by non Americans who will be reading this. What we are looking for is an article that talks about the MAIN significant issues of the country internally and externally (Gun policy over incarceration is what outsiders see a debate on). Incarceration rates could be mentioned but a whole section on a topic is simply a bit much. I also think the food section is overbearing - most organized articles cover these types of topic in the culture article. Look at Canada - Canadians - Culture of Canada for how all the stuff in this one article could look separated by its main topics. The main Canada FA article talks about the main topics about the country then in the GA Canadians article we talk more specifically about topics about the people like with sections on religion, demographics etc..and then in the B level Culture of Canada article all the subtopics of Crime - food - media are covered. Trying to add all this here in one article will lead readers to say "Too long; didn't read; topics all over the place" Got to make articles that complement each other over one article that tries to cover ever topic-- 17:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Somedifferentstuff, as Moxy points out, prison issues don't carry enough weight to justify their own section in a country summary article. In fact incarceration isn't a very controversial issue, with even most Democrats claiming to be "tough on crime". It's mostly fringe activists who discuss it and see it as a "problem", and this article shouldn't be hijacked for fringe activist purposes. I didn't cite other issues to "distract", but as comparisons to logically expose the inconsistencies in your position. You haven't supported your claims. I posted more media coverage of the living space issue than you have about incarceration. Apollo wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but US space program dominance is illustrated today by things like the long lasting Mars rovers, cutting edge space telescope technology, or the still functioning Voyager probes recently becoming the first man made craft to enter interstellar space (one did, the other soon will). Then there's the growing private space field. No other nation is close. As for abortion, many of the article's comparisons pit the US against the rest of the developed world, and America having the largest abortion rate in the western world, and twice the rate of some western European nations, is extremely notable. It certainly impacts a much larger percentage of the population, and is more controversial than incarceration in the US and around the world. You didn't address the unique US tort setup or other notable things I mentioned. The point isn't that these things should all have their own subsections too (though some do merit more mention than they currently receive), but that they're at least as deserving, and, in an article that's already too long, it'd be foolhardy to open up the Pandora's Box of niche issue section headers. Why is it worth doing so when incarceration can easily be discussed within the main Law enforcement section like the crime rate is? You haven't even begun to build an argument why it needs special treatment, simply repeating that it's "notable". All these topics are "notable", but none of them need their own sections, at least in this article. On other, more topically dedicated articles it might be a different story. VictorD7 ( talk) 19:56, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

In this recently added segment...

The federal income tax is the largest source of federal revenue.[292] However, the federal income tax accounts for only 27% of total government taxation in the United States,[293][294]...

The "27%" figure is sourced by a blog on the Economist site (the CBPP link doesn't mention the figure) written by someone named "D.R.", but the blogger provides no reference for his claim. I haven't deleted the text because it wouldn't surprise me if it's in the ballpark of being accurate, but, given the specificity of the claim (a precise number), doesn't this need better sourcing than an unverified blog that used no references? Can anyone provide a corroborating source? We can do better than this, people. VictorD7 ( talk) 20:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The Economist is considered a reliable source on Wikipedia (including its blogs). -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:35, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Blogs from news agencies are considered reliable sources. Blogs from Joe Blow down the street are not.-- JOJ ^Hutton 22:41, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you seriously considering The Economist to be a "Joe Blow down the street", lol. ---- Either way, it's an issue you need to take up at RSN, not here. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you turned it around. I was agreeing with you. The Economist is reliable, Joe Blow is not.-- JOJ ^Hutton 23:02, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Pleases no...a blog is a blog. It does not go through any peer review or fact checking, it reflects only its author's opinions that can be intentionally simplified to entertain the readers. The only advantage of the blogs hosted with a respectful media organization like New York Times is that we should not worry that the blog is hosted by an imposter. Thus, blogs can be used to source a personal attributed opinion of a notable blogger. TO put it simply t if reliable published sources do not include the information that you have found at a blog, then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include or may be an opinion -- Moxy ( talk) 00:40, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

While I've read many articles in The Economist, searching the net doesn't bring up that number. This source [35] for 2010 shows it at 42%. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 02:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Moxy, R U sure about what you are saying? You seem to be making a pretty broad statement. You are talking as if everything that calls itself a blog is exactly the same. I suspect many major news organizations and periodicals fact check everything they publish regardless of whether they call it a essay, blog, feature, or editorial, or whatever, particularly when it comes to stats within the article. Somedifferentstuff, the 42% stat is for federal taxes only. The 27% stat is for total U.S. taxes. It should be noted that the federal income tax share of overall taxation will shrink even further in 2013 due to the expiration of the 2 year payroll tax cut. Lance Friedman ( talk) 13:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The whole section is to complicated for this overview article (all this time should be spent over at the main article) - that said if we cant find a second, third etc source for "27% of total government taxation in the United States" then we have a problem dont we? -- Moxy ( talk) 20:07, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The section isn't that complicated, it just currently has a lot of redundant over-emphasis on the federal income tax. Lance Friedman ( talk) 03:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

So at this point we should remove the statement as we have sources that say something very different - give it 24hours see if anyone can get real ref for this - I cant find one. -- Moxy ( talk) 22:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not about whether a source is "reliable" in all situations, but whether this particular fact is verifiable. A blogger just tossing out the number out of thin air without saying where he got it needs better sourcing. The problem is its precision. Like Moxy, I haven't been able to find that number anywhere else. If we can't confirm it then we should delete it. I also agree with Moxy about the section (and probably the whole article) being too long, but I'm about to make it slightly longer by adding balance to the most recent addition to improve the section's neutrality. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:45, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Article protected

• I've just protected the article for three days due to the ongoing edit warring. Please discuss the matter instead of continually reverting. Mark Arsten ( talk) 21:57, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Why did you do this immediately after a partisan editor did an absurdly one sided revert? I clearly am discussing the matter here, while the guy you let skew the section mostly hasn't bothered. VictorD7 ( talk) 22:12, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to the WP:WRONGVERSION. -- Golbez ( talk) 14:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Ha Ha, I was mostly just getting it on record that admin wasn't taking sides, but thanks for the timely contribution, Golbez. VictorD7 ( talk) 18:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I protected the current version when I got to the page, per the usual practice. Unless there's a clear consensus or copyvio/BLP issues I don't pick sides when protecting. Mark Arsten ( talk) 22:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

VictorD7, your edit here [36] was inappropriate and reverted by both myself and another editor. You violated WP:OR by stating, "Those numbers are disputed by" when the sources you provided don't even specifically address the preceding material. The long part of your edit sourced to Forbes was in violation of WP:CLAIM. On top of that, the material was too detailed for a general country article such as this one. If you want the material to stay you need to post it here and see if you can convince some other editors that it belongs in the article, otherwise it's just you pushing your POV and the material won't last. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:25, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

This is why this article, of utmost importance and one of the most visited on the site, will never get a good article title, let alone be a featured article. In the general country article, I wish neutral general information about how the economy and government functions would be used instead of adding specific disputed numbers and claims.

For example, something as specific and trivial as "There is disagreement over whether the U.S. tax system has become more or less progressive over the past 50 years. Federal income tax rates for the top 0.1% of wealthiest taxpayers (highest income earners) have declined by 40 percent, while tax rates for average Americans have remained roughly constant.From 1979 to 2007 the average federal income tax rate fell 110% for the second lowest quintile, 56% for the middle quintile, 39% for the fourth quintile, 8% for the highest quintile, and 15% for the top 1%, with the bottom quintile moving from a tax rate of zero to negative liability. Despite this, individual income tax revenue only dropped from 8.7 to 8.5% of GDP over that time, and total federal revenue was 18.5% of GDP in both 1979 and 2007, above the postwar average of 18%" is just fine staying put in Taxation in the United States, at least in my opinion.

A simple explanation of how taxation works in the country and the rates at which people are taxed (all things which are neutral and can't be disputed) would have sufficed in this overview article. That's why despite being saturated with information, it will never be halfway decent or unbiased. We ought to follow the example of articles like Canada, Australia, and Germany which have managed to attain featured article status for being both informative and relatively unbiased. Cadiomals ( talk) 03:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Well said Cadiomals; we should simply state undisputed facts. We should provide the bigger picture while noting things that make America unique. From the section you quoted above, user:VictorD7 provided every sentence except for one. [37] He has demonstrated over and over again that pushing his right wing POV is his main goal here and will throw knowingly biased sources into the article. Nevertheless, he is just one editor here. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 10:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

That's laughable, since you're the one trying to suppress reliable sources disputing your Left Wing POV pushing, Somedifferentstuff. I only added those (accurately, properly sourced) sentences after this misleading garbage you support was added to the article: Over the past 50 years, the U.S. tax system has become less progressive. Tax rates for the wealthiest Americans have declined by 40 percent, while tax rates for average Americans have remained roughly constant.[283][284][285] Aside from being skewed and disputed, it's not even worded accurately (highest income recipients, not "wealthiest"), and "average" still isn't defined (doesn't appear to be mathematical). I also suspect Cadiomals would be fine with deleting the recently added lines at the end.... According to Citizens for Tax Justice, when one looks beyond the progressive federal income tax to U.S. taxation in its totality, the American system flattens out and becomes much less progressive with the average American paying between 25 percent and 30 percent of their income regardless of their federal income tax rate, far above the rate of many well known American millionaires and billionaires.[295][296] ...which is absurdly biased and poorly constructed, as I showed earlier. You just want to shove partisan talking points into the article without allowing counterpoints. While I've showed that strong refutations and/or counterpoints exist for everything you want to say, I'm fine with deleting that whole paragraph (are you?), and having a neutrally worded, quality encyclopedia with an appropriate level of detail for a country summary article. I'm fine either way, but turning this page into a forum for one sided propaganda where only leftist talking points are allowed is unacceptable. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Wrong again, Somedifferentstuff. The Tax Foundation source directly critiqued the CTJ analysis used as the basis for the preceding segment, and the TPC and CBO sources showed very different numbers than CTJ. The disagreement is over how "much" flattening there is, and Wikipedia's voice currently embraces the skewed, lobbyist outlier without any mention of the dispute. The "millionaire" segment you supported was just sourced by a short CNN article merely covering Buffet's personal opinion (not notable) about him paying a higher federal rate than his secretary, and yet the comparison in Wikipedia's voice there is with total taxation (apples and oranges). The sentence's other source, the Klein blog, briefly mentions "Romney", but is forced to admit in a correction that it made a mistake with his tax rates and that it doesn't know what his total tax rate is, merely guessing that it's "likely" lower than a typical American's (it's not, btw). Of course both men's opinions totally ignore corporate taxation, as the Forbes piece I added (which specifically disputes Buffet by name) points out. That whole segment is garbage. In fact, I mostly agree with Cardiomals that the whole paragraph should be deleted as too detailed for this page. But, if it remains, we'll have to work to upgrade the closing segment's accuracy and neutrality through clarifying counterpoints or revisions. I was about to make a streamlined, neutrally worded edit consolidating the last few lines into an accurate description of how progressivity declines when total taxation is considered (though that's already mentioned earlier in the section), mentioning there's a disagreement over how much (keeping the relevant sources from both sides), when the block came down. VictorD7 ( talk) 06:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The Tax Foundation source (which any editor can look at) never once mentions CTJ, which puts you in clear violation of WP:OR. -- I won't waste any more of my time debating you. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 10:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it AGF or civil to make that aggressive a statement here? Can you cool down a bit?-- Mark Miller ( talk) 11:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey Mark, I've toned down my previous comment. [38] -- Discussions are highly frustrating when meaningful debate is not an option. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 12:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Somedifferentstuff. I know these discussions can be very frustrating. I very much appreciate where you are coming from. This article is very difficult to discuss since so much of it is in contention so often and in ways we often question.-- Mark Miller ( talk) 12:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

CTJ is part of ITEP, Somedifferentstuff. The latter conducted the analysis in question while the former publishes it. This is from the WSJ story proudly hosted on ITEP's own site: "Yet wealthy people bear a bigger share of corporate income taxes, which are ultimately borne by individuals. "All taxes have to be paid by somebody at some point," says Steve Wamhoff, legislative director at Citizens for Tax Justice, the liberal lobbying arm of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group. "The corporate tax is paid by the owners of corporate stock and business assets.""

Furthermore, each site lists the other as its "partner organization" ( [39] scroll over "About", [40], [41]). I've already posted and explained all this for you before. Indeed your own blog source attributes ITEP's analysis to "Citizens for Tax Justice" (the very analysis critiqued by the Tax Foundation). Discussions are frustrating indeed when you keep ignoring facts and posting falsehoods. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

This article includes a long list of exceptional statistics which seem like puffery in some ways. Huffington Post has compiled a list of 15 less flattering indicators by which the U.S. stands apart from other nations. While that particular blog is not considered a reliable source as I understand the present situation, I believe many if not all of the linked article's sources are, and I suggest including some or all of their statistics would add needed balance. EllenCT ( talk) 02:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

There is some notable information in there. -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 22:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Characterizing items as merely positive (or "flattering") or negative is simplistic, and editors who set one or the other as their goal risk falling into a POV pushing trap. The goal should be to accurately provide notable, verifiable information for the purpose of basic topline survey education, not shape opinions, appeal to emotions, or push pet political crusades. If the salient facts make the US or any other topic look relatively "good" or "bad", then so be it. VictorD7 ( talk) 23:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not some teenager's fashion game or politician's window dressing, it's about being accurate, current, and relevant. For example, US infrastructure spending is down 30% in the past decade. You could blame filibustering of the roads and bridges bills. Would that be neutral? EllenCT ( talk) 00:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Neutral and concrete, as in watching the bridges fall down. It shows a dramatic shift in national priorities, bi-partisan over the last decade. Sort of like noting the minimum wage, despite nominal increases over the years, has the same purchasing power as 1966, a bi-partisan decision of over half-a-century -- clear unmistakable sustained national policy which can be compared to other nations. Wait, although the average stay on food stamps is under a year, eligibility for children is about to be cut to "balance the budget" and avoid rewarding idleness. But child labor laws are still in place. aarrrrgggghhh. ---

I suppose we have to retreat (edit) to salient facts according to Victor. Should we begin by limiting word count in a technical section, or numbers of statistics cited, or should multifaceted comparable data be displayed in a chart rather than in a narrative? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 12:34, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you tried to say with your first sentence, but the issue here would be the level of detail. Remember this is an article that doesn't even mention the fact that social security and medicare's own trustees have declared that those massive entitlement programs are "unsustainable". Many would argue that, along with the larger fiscal crunch spurred on by record federal spending and debt accumulation, is an even more relevant issue than infrastructure spending. How should we pick and choose which topical issues to highlight? I don't think a liberal blog like the Huffington Post should be our guide.

Update: That said, I finally clicked on your link and most of those items already are mentioned in the article, some, like "inequality", are discussed extensively. In fact I personally added the one about education spending per student (but not results; wouldn't oppose that but I'm not sure how fair snapshot comparisons through tests like PISA really are). Some items the Huffington Post assumes are "bad" I see as neutral or even positive (like less government interference with businesses), with such opinions depending on one's ideological worldview. It's unclear why you started this section. VictorD7 ( talk) 07:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

EllenCT must answer for herself, but just in case any of the preceding was talking to me, the GDP increases now, so even with debt ceiling level slightly increased this year, the percent of indebtedness is declining during the second Obama administration, trending below 70%. I personally would like it down to 50% of GDP so the next generation does not pay taxes on loans they did not vote for, but my wife and I have a personal loan on a house for 400% our combined annual income, --- so we cannot judge the USG in that way. Though we have responsibly made timely 100% payments for over twenty years --- we are not as trustworthy as the full faith and credit of the United States of America, for over two-and-a-half centuries -- and 87 Republicans in the House proved that to be true this very year once again in an unbroken chain of faithfulness, making our founding fathers proud of this Congress, for that alone we could say so.

EllenCT suggested adding infrastructure decline, I suggested not raising purchasing power of food stamps for half a century as a notable national policy, and I suggested, not Ellen, perhaps presenting these kinds of data on a comparative chart as more economical in the article than straight narrative. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

My earlier reply addressed Ellen's comments. While it's hard to imagine the founders being proud of much about a federal government at record levels of size, spending, and involvement, regarding debt I'll quote the recent CBO report:

Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. If current laws generally remained in place, federal debt held by the public would decline slightly relative to GDP over the next several years, CBO projects. After that, however, growing deficits would ultimately push debt back above its current high level. CBO projects that federal debt held by the public would reach 100 percent of GDP in 2038, 25 years from now, even without accounting for the harmful effects that growing debt would have on the economy (see the figure below). Moreover, debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely......With such large deficits, federal debt would be growing faster than GDP, a path that would ultimately be unsustainable.

Click the link for charts and details. Perhaps the founders would have been prouder if Congress had attached some meaningful strings to the debt ceiling hike. VictorD7 ( talk) 20:39, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

In the 1970s, Congress had the balanced budget enacted into law jointly sponsored by William Proxmire (D-WI) and Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (I-VA); -- but as the people are sovereign, one Congress cannot bind another. The pride is in Congress maintaining the full faith and credit of the USG. Federal government employees (excluding states employees) are the smallest number since the LBJ administration, and shrinking.

The budget deficit from two ten-year wars waged without tax increases, corresponds with the retirement aging of the babyboomers, but retirement is offset or rather delayed by unregulated banking collapses eliminating investment accounts and extending their working lives.

The report you reference did not have access to 2012-2013 data as we do now, showing the decline from 73%. It seems we are agreed that indebtedness at 70% of GDP is too high, but your tone makes it difficult to make out what your point may be. We are agreed here as elsewhere in the past. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The CBO report was published a little over a month ago, and predicted that debt would decline somewhat compared to GDP over the next several years, before rising sharply again in an unsustainable fashion, so I'm not sure why you feel a short term snapshot report is relevant to the long term fiscal crisis. I'm also not sure what "tone" you're referring to, but your edit summary described it as "combative". I think you're projecting. Despite you mentioning me by name in your initial response to Ellen, my subsequent reply to Ellen didn't mention you or address your post. Frankly I wasn't sure what your point was. You responded to me anyway, adopting a defensive posture, and making an off topic point praising congressmen (especially Republicans who broke ranks) for rubber stamping a debt ceiling hike, and claiming the founders would have been proud. Since the founders were men who fought a violent revolution against their government over principles, I'm not sure they'd be go with the flow types who are more concerned with getting pats on the back from a pro big government media than with preventing near future fiscal catastrophe, but maybe we'll have to agree to disagree. There would have been no shutdown if Congress had put party politics aside to tackle the salient issues. We also may have to agree to disagree on whether the fiscal crunch owes more to "two wars" and "tax cuts" (the huge debt explosion occurred after Iraq had pretty much wound down, and the "cost" of tax cuts is debatable to say the least), or to entitlement time bombs activated when there were 12 workers for every retiree (more like 2 or 3 and shrinking now), an economic downturn brought about by massive government intervention encouraging irresponsible behavior on a variety of fronts, the worst economic recovery in US history (exacerbated by a war on business, costly regulatory expansions, tax hikes, soaring energy prices, the Obamacare fiasco, etc.), and record spending (including an ineffective "stimulus" package that cost more than the entire Iraq War). I also don't think number of federal employees is the definitive metric for domestic scope and cost of government, especially if that decline includes military personnel, but at least we agree there's too much debt. VictorD7 ( talk) 10:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Very well, aside from the article, the next question since a) the banks are again secure with regulations requiring sufficient solvency requirements, and b) energy prices are declining and natural gas coming online will end oil imports within the decade, is --- c) how to grow the economy to cover the costs of the babyboomer retirement, --- which will solve itself over time by mortality and the subsequent lower US birthrates. In the interim, how to develop a jobs strategy to increase the numbers of contributors to social security fund, worker's compensation, etc., to hold at 2 or 3 workers for each retiree, -- as near 1:1 seems unsustainable based on the industrial nation experience in Europe. The first step for over a trillion dollars additional revenues over the next ten years is a pathway immigration policy which is supported by American business. The second would be to continue an immigration policy to keep the US the youngest industrialized nation in the world. More children maturing into the legal (taxable) economy means more social security taxes... TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:28, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

While you may be right about long term energy thanks to innovations like fracking and shale exploitation, I'm not sure how "secure" the finance industry is, given the federal government is already moving to repeat some of its past mistakes in pushing lending to poor people (along with the firmly established bailout precedent), and the economic chaos from the feds essentially seizing control of over a fifth of the US economy has been suppressing hiring for years and will continue to have a variety of negative ripple effects. I'm also not sure letting in millions of unskilled immigrants, at a time of low taxes and inflated government benefits for those in the lower quintiles, will bring about fiscal stability or be a boon to (current) Americans already dealing with stagnant wages, high unemployment, and a continuously falling median income. I suppose simply waiting for babyboomers to die off decades from now can be characterized as a "solution" of sorts, though the CBO and other analysts project dire long term trends as far as the eye can see without significant changes. An alternative solution might be to kill stifling regulation, reform a messy, inefficient, and increasingly uncompetitive tax code, stop waging a war on coal and business generally, reform the entitlements driving the long term fiscal crunch, facilitate oil drilling on public land rather than fighting it tooth and nail, and restrain general spending, all of which would go a long way toward restoring business confidence, hiring, expansion, economic growth, and tax revenue. VictorD7 ( talk) 18:59, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I’d say national policy should innovate platforms to assist small business because the greatest engine of local economic growth is small business, not international corporations. 1) Tort reform, 2) an end to corporate welfare and 3) substantial public investment in infrastructure (again, we may be agreed in some degree): --- roads, rail, bridges, ports, airports, electrical grid, oil and gas pipelines, sewer and water --- would create US jobs here, and long term efficiencies that would pay dividends for generations.

Imagine emergency route traffic lights powered by solar so they never fail in a storm, school-roof solar panels cutting education costs, all high-tension wires now losing 50% electricity buried in new insulators, etc. with off-the-shelf technology, not government funding of unproven breakthrough technologies. Those will follow when private industry sees a persistent market in infrastructure developing, such as superior asphalt with recycled glass (fewer potholes).

Deporting US-educated children to “home countries” simply increases their relative competitive advantage against the US, assuming gangs, rebels, terrorists or government hit squads do not assassinate them as ‘Americanized’ first. Every doctorate, business degree, GED and high school diploma awarded in the US should have a green card stapled to it; US private economy and government funding improve when taxable immigrant businesses start here. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

And, what about my comparative chart idea to display economic data/US characteristics that the article cannot support in extended narrative? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:34, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

You make the government sound so wonderful and efficient. I thought the silver lining to the trillion dollar "stimulus" boondoggle would be an infrastructure upgrade, since that's what it was largely sold as. So much for that. It was a scattershot giveaway to partisan special interests and corrupt kickbacks, with little to no long term economic benefit. I'm all for appropriate and necessary infrastructure spending, but with more rigorous oversight and less corrupt bill construction. Our problems go far deeper than infrastructure though, and there's plenty of bloat in the almost $4 trillion dollar federal budget to have significant net spending cuts while addressing legitimate needs. While government R&D Funding can be useful in targeted, practical situations, when tossed in scattershot manner toward non-existent or impractical technologies such projects can become a black hole for tax payer dollars. If innovation best came from government the Soviets would have won the Cold War. Achievements often cited by big government advocates as supposed examples of central planning/statist superiority often forget that. The Apollo program merely concentrated resources produced in the private sector for a targeted, realistic objective with a relatively well understood theoretical basis. The internet gave computer networking technology a boost, but, like most government research projects, was for defense/academic purposes and wasn't designed with economic feasibility for consumers in mind. That the occasional government project gains tangential private sector traction doesn't mean we should adopt an approach of throwing enormous funding at the wall and see what sticks. Like infrastructure spending, I'm not opposed to government funding some research in theory (and I support the space program), but let's not put all our eggs in that basket hoping for a magic bullet, and let's not get too carried away with it. I'm not sure what percentage of immigrants get doctorates or even college degrees, but I'm all for legal immigration. I'm less enthusiastic about millions of illegal immigrants screwing over legal immigrants (talk to some; they're some of the most pissed off about this) and natives alike by undermining national sovereignty, cutting to the front of the line, getting away with identity fraud and other crimes Americans would be prosecuted for, and driving down wages at a time of already high unemployment and falling income. One problem is the aforementioned tax/benefit set up. The vast majority of illegals are in the bottom quintile, and the bottom two quintiles don't pay federal taxes apart from payroll, which (inadequately) funds their own future benefits. In the meantime many are drawing expensive current benefits, at net cost to the country.

I'm not sure what your chart proposal is. Are you saying we should have a lot more charts? Did you have specific ones in mind? VictorD7 ( talk) 19:50, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

TVH, you're a smart, educated guy. Have you been paying attention at all to what's been going on with the article? I'd like to hear your thoughts on Cardiomals' idea of streamlining and depoliticizing content. VictorD7 ( talk) 23:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Stimulus proposal was gutted to 'save the banks' which of course had to be done first, and with urgency (ref. New Deal), hence US recovery is now strongest of industrial countries. --- Now on to infrastructure with its jobs in some fashion. Healthcare for bottom 15% allows job relocation for the individual and frees small business of less than 50 employees from health insurance expense in their competition with a) the big corporations and b) internationals subsidized with national healthcare regimes. --- I like Cardiomals ideas and suggestions to start, I have supported his proposed deletion of a redundant chart below which is held at a linked support article. --- A chart/table here might be used to consolidate economic statistics narrative to avoid densely worded wonky 'my-eyes-glaze-over' text, but allowing highlights of one or two statistics from each supporting article. And, btw although I have long-standing interests in politics and history and I've made many substantive contributions, I am relatively new at the next level of WP article-crafting. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 09:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

"Stimulus" was over $800 billion, so it was hardly gutted, and the recovery is weakest in US history (revisit 2010 "Recover Summer" fiasco, where admin. predicted 500k net jobs per month only to see net job losses every month). To the extent some nations are doing even worse, that likely owes more to having an even more interventionist underlying structure than the US has lurched toward so far in recent years, and doing counterproductive things like raising capital gains tax rates (UK). I'm not sure what your healthcare point is in response to, but so far more people have lost healthcare coverage due to Obamacare than gained it, and drastically higher premiums for the middle class due to less market flexibility, while businesses feel artificially compelled by regulation to reduce hours and employees to boot, is not a recipe for economic health. I'm glad you support the streamlining idea, though I'm not sure we need more charts. Charts are big. They consume space and give exalted visual prominence to whatever's being shown, making it more problematic if the material is controversial. Though they can also be informative and look nice, so I'd oppose or support one on a case by case basis. VictorD7 ( talk) 19:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, unless you see it, you cannot buy it. Just a suggestion in the event you and Ellen (jointly) think too much data here gets deleted from the narrative. I think the sections Cardiomals wants to edit need paring. I see below a wild discussion, not to say unhinged, where editors cannot accept my go-to scholarly sources for discussion, Brookings, Heritage and Wilson, just because they are think tanks? These three are rated as most influential in the Congress; speculation on instant Maoist think tanks is nonsense, disruptive. Maybe I misunderstand. But if Huffington Post and Fox News daily blurbs are reliable sources versus scholarly documented, larger scope considerations by think tanks, it is not-good for the encyclopedia. This contretemps reflects a fundamental structural problem with this country article at Wikipedia, -- a disregard for scholarship for short term currentism. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 21:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Aim for concise, easy-to-navigate, and easy to understand summaries that give a general explanation of the subtopic with only the most pertinent facts and statistics, while leaving out extra details with questionable bias that could potentially cause disputes and edit wars. We have to remember that all the extra info can be found in the main articles of each section, but that as a country article we should aim to give general and fairly weighted summaries of all the aspects of a country without delving too much into a specific subject.

The sections I consider to be far too detailed (for a general country article) and have serious issues with bias and disputed claims are "Government finance" and "Income, poverty, and wealth" as well as "Health" though to a lesser extent. These sections, the first two especially, need to be cleaned up and shortened, without details that look like they are better off staying in the main article. In my two years of only making small contributions to this article from time to time, I have noticed the "Income, poverty, and wealth" section almost double in size and have been too complacent to actually look at that added info to see if it belongs here.

I was looking at a few "Featured" country articles such as Japan, Australia, Canada, and Germany for comparison and inspiration and noticed commonalities among them, including that all the sections are weighted fairly and equally, all with well-detailed yet straight-forward information, and no section seems much more heavy than the others. I understand that the United States, as a world superpower, has a lot more baggage than these countries, but I hope these issues can be fixed without constant disputes, otherwise it will never come close to even being labeled a "Good Article" --- Cadiomals ( talk) 04:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Though I've contributed some to that length, my additions have mostly been to add some balance to skewed segments or correct claims made by editors who didn't accurately comprehend their own sources. I'm fine with heavy pruning as long as it's done neutrally. Unfortunately such sections are magnets for some driveby editors who see Wikipedia as a venue for stacking up often poorly constructed partisan talking points. I've frequently thought about just streamlining such sections to a few non-controversial basics, though such a move likely would have been resisted. PS - Add the Law enforcement section to that list. VictorD7 ( talk) 07:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Once this article comes off protection I will go through the above sections and present the info I think would be better off being left out of this article and reasons why, and then replace them with more straight-forward summaries with only the most pertinent statistics. I'll focus mainly on Government finance; Income, poverty and wealth; Law enforcement; and Health, which I think are the problem areas too saturated with unnecessary info. I also think the History section looks very heavy, though its size is quite daunting to tackle and I may have to look at it at a later date. If there are objections and some people believe certain details should be left in, of course we are free to discuss it here. A lot of the recent disputes could have easily been avoided if people understood the overall purpose of this article and didn't add extra (politically-skewed) weight to certain sections. Cadiomals ( talk) 07:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The history section needs reclaiming. First two History sections have taken on the flavor of an elementary school text of American history, describing how profit seeking settlers learned bird calls from the Original Americans (Native-Americans) to attract prey. What happened? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 12:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The first and last couple of History sections are the worst. I'm not sure we even need a "Native American and European contact" section. The final sections degenerate into listing modern presidents and citing an event or two during their tenure, and lack thematic coherence. The Settlements through World War sections are alright but could be improved. The Industrialization section reads more like a pamphlet of special interest grievances than a section actually discussing industrialization or the broad trends impacting most Americans' standard and nature of living. VictorD7 ( talk) 20:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It might be better to run such a sweeping revision by the Talk Page first for input, just to be on the safe side. Side note: I don't know your thoughts on this, but I have a problem with treating indices as sacred, objective, or necessarily important. All indices are inherently subjective in construction, and therefore essentially just represent someone's opinion about something. Useful ones are narrow enough in scope and title, preferably with variables that are individually objective (though subjectively chosen), that their name and a ranking actually conveys information to readers. But the article is peppered with random, pointless indices. For example, people have no idea what the Legatum Prosperity Index is, and a close examination of the internals shows they aren't missing anything. The Democracy Index (currently sitting in the Government section for some reason) is equally vague and meaningless; essentially a 60 item long laundry list of things a particular British outfit likes and doesn't like (many of which have nothing to do with democracy), as judged by a secret panel, apparently without even publishing the details of nations' internals or precisely why they rank where they do. VictorD7 ( talk) 20:18, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

That's what I was planning to do. I am going through the sections right now, and will be copy-pasting them shortly to a new section and bolding the text I feel can be removed with reasons. Then, as long as there are no major objections, the changes will be made tomorrow when this comes off protection. Cadiomals ( talk) 20:52, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you should try to rewrite too much of the article all at once. We should concentrate on the government finance section. I agree that it is too long mainly because it spends too much time discussing a single tax: the federal income tax. I don't think there is much wrong with the law enforcement section. My only problem with it is that it discusses abortion which is not a law enforcement issue. The topic of abortion should ether be in the family structure sub-section and/or the history section. I agree with Virginiahistorian that the first couple sections of the history section are too long. Lance Friedman ( talk) 21:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The Income and Law Enforcement sections are the most bloated. We don't need a whole "Incarceration" subsection. The Gov. Finance section mainly just needs the frivolous, recently added third paragraph removed, along with the disputed lobbyist CTJ/ITEP chart. VictorD7 ( talk) 21:58, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not going to "rewrite" sections as much as I am simply removing a lot of excess detail, much of which can and should only be found in the main articles linked just below the section titles, and leaving only straight-forward information with only the most pertinent statistics which most country articles have. My planned removals can now be found below. Cadiomals ( talk) 22:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

A discussion is ongoing about the lead to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution article. Please help form a consensus at Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution#Proposal for lead.-- Mark Miller ( talk) 13:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Below is the info I plan on removing (bolded), under the reasoning (italics) that much of it is excessive detail that does not belong in a general country article, and delving too deep into a particular topic. As such this creates a lot of potential for disputes and edit wars. Once we remove this extra info the problems sections will go back to carrying a fair amount of weight relative to other sections. Another problem area others pointed out and which I don't have time to cover right now is the History section. Please feel free to voice specific objections and reasons why certain details should be left in. Otherwise, I will be bold and make these changes tomorrow.

Government finance

Since the image that would be on the right is disputed, it is best for it just to be removed.

Taxes are levied in the United States at the federal, state and local government level. These include taxes on income, payroll, property, sales, imports, estates and gifts, as well as various fees. In 2010 taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.8% of GDP.[266] During FY2012, the federal government collected approximately $2.45 trillion in tax revenue, up $147 billion or 6% versus FY2011 revenues of $2.30 trillion. Primary receipt categories included individual income taxes ($1,132B or 47%), Social Security/Social Insurance taxes ($845B or 35%), and corporate taxes ($242B or 10%).[267]

U.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world.[272][273][274][275][276][277] In 2009 the top 10% of earners, with 36% of the nation's income, paid 78.2% of the federal personal income tax burden, while the bottom 40% had a negative liability.[276] However, payroll taxes for Social Security are a flat regressive tax, with no tax charged on income above $113,700 and no tax at all paid on unearned income from things such as stocks and capital gains.[278][279] The historic reasoning for the regressive nature of the payroll tax is that entitlement programs have not been viewed as welfare transfers.[280][281] The top 10% paid 51.8% of total federal taxes in 2009, and the top 1%, with 13.4% of pre-tax national income, paid 22.3% of federal taxes.[276] In 2013 the Tax Policy Center projected total federal effective tax rates of 35.5% for the top 1%, 27.2% for the top quintile, 13.8% for the middle quintile, and −2.7% for the bottom quintile.[282][283] State and local taxes vary widely, but are generally less progressive than federal taxes as they rely heavily on broadly borne regressive sales and property taxes that yield less volatile revenue streams, though their consideration does not eliminate the progressive nature of overall taxation.[284][274]

There is disagreement over whether the U.S. tax system has become more or less progressive over the past 50 years.[285][286] Federal income tax rates for the top 0.1% of wealthiest taxpayers (highest income earners) have declined by 40 percent, while tax rates for average Americans[ambiguous] have remained roughly constant.[287][288][289] From 1979 to 2007 the average federal income tax rate fell 110% for the second lowest quintile, 56% for the middle quintile, 39% for the fourth quintile, 8% for the highest quintile, and 15% for the top 1%, with the bottom quintile moving from a tax rate of zero to negative liability. Despite this, individual income tax revenue only dropped from 8.7 to 8.5% of GDP over that time, and total federal revenue was 18.5% of GDP in both 1979 and 2007, above the postwar average of 18%.[286] Tax code changes have dropped millions of lower earning people from the federal income tax rolls in recent decades. Those with zero or negative liability who were not claimed as dependents by a payer increased from 14.8% of the population in 1984 to 49.5% in 2009.[290][291] The federal income tax is the largest source of federal revenue and accounts for 27% of total government taxation in the United States. [292] [293][294] According to Citizens for Tax Justice, when one looks beyond the progressive federal income tax to U.S. taxation in its totality, the American system flattens out and becomes much less progressive with the average American paying between 25 percent and 30 percent of their income regardless of their federal income tax rate, far above the rate of many well known American millionaires and billionaires.[295][296] This is where a lot of the section's unnecessary weight and detail is. I also question some of the extra details in the preceding paragraph. There is only one sentence here which I think is appropriate enough to stay and can be merged with the last paragraph of the section.

During FY 2012, the federal government spent $3.54 trillion on a budget or cash basis, down $60 billion or 1.7% vs. FY 2011 spending of $3.60 trillion. Major categories of FY 2012 spending included: Medicare & Medicaid ($802B or 23% of spending), Social Security ($768B or 22%), Defense Department ($670B or 19%), non-defense discretionary ($615B or 17%), other mandatory ($461B or 13%) and interest ($223B or 6%).[267]

Income, poverty, and wealth

Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD nations, and, as of 2007, the second highest median household income, behind only Luxembourg.[372][23] According to the Census Bureau real median household income was $50,502 in 2011, down from $51,144 in 2010.[373] In 2012, the state of Maryland had the highest median household income, $71,221, Mississippi had the lowest at $37,095 — nearly half that of Maryland's.[374] There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s.[375] The Global Food Security Index ranked the U.S. #1 in food affordability and overall food security in March 2013.[376] Not necessary Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as Europeans, and more than every European nation.[377]

The U.S. economy is currently embroiled in the economic downturn which followed the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, with output still below potential according to the CBO[378] and unemployment still above historic trends.[379] As of February 2013, the unemployment rate was 7.7% or 12.0 million people, while the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the part-time underemployed was 14.3% or 22.2 million. With a record proportion of long term unemployed, continued decreasing household income, tax hikes, and new federal budget cuts, the U.S. economy remained in a jobless recovery.[380][381] Half of the U.S. population lives in poverty or is low-income, according to U.S. census data.[382] According to a survey by the Associated Press, four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.[383] Census data and methods is objective and enough

While inflation-adjusted ("real") household income had been increasing almost every year from 1947 to 1999, it has since been flat and even decreased recently.[384] Extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, doubled from 1996 levels to 1.5 million households in 2011, including 2.8 million children.[385] In 2011 16.7 million children lived in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels, though only 1.1% of U.S. children, or 845,000, saw reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at some point during the year, and most cases weren't chronic.[386] The USDA Economic Research Service states that 14.5 percent of American households were food insecure during the year 2012.[387] The last sentence on food insecurity is enough

There were about 643,000 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in the U.S. in January 2009. Almost two-thirds stayed in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program and the other third were living on the street, in an abandoned building, or another place not meant for human habitation. About 1.56 million people, or about 0.5% of the U.S. population, used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009.[388] The U.S. welfare state is one of the least extensive in the developed world, reducing both relative poverty and absolute poverty by considerably less than the mean for rich nations,[389][390][391] though combined private and public social expenditures per capita are relatively high and Americans face much lower consumption taxes than poor Europeans.[392] More extra details and comparisons to other countries that are inherently not objective

While the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly,[393] it provides relatively little assistance to the young.[394] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in 21 industrialized nations, based on factors like income relative to each nation's own median, self-reported risky behavior, and family relationship quality, ranked the United States next to last.[395] After being higher in the postwar period, the U.S. unemployment rate fell below the rising eurozone unemployment rate in the mid-1980s and has remained significantly lower almost continuously since.[396][397][398] From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3% compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7.[399] At the same time, unions are losing their strength in the United States, while they have retained more of their clout in Western Europe. Low-skilled immigrants to the U.S. have been competing for low-wage jobs, which allows employers to keep a lid on wages.[400] The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has had a significant impact on income inequality,[401] leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations,[389][402] though incomes have risen across the board in that time and individuals' incomes have increased significantly with age.[399] The median American family had almost twice the purchasing power in 2011 that it did in 1960.[403][404] The post-recession income gains have been very uneven, with the top 1 percent capturing 95 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2012.[405] Over the last two decades income inequality has been increasing to the point of becoming permanent, reducing social mobility in the US.[406] Rising inequality is also hastening the decline of middle-class neighborhoods.[407] This kind of info is what is better off staying put in main articles but not spilling over into the general country article

Poverty in the U.S. has been increasing as median incomes have declined. Median income has now fallen for five consecutive years.[408] Analyses using a common data set for comparisons tend to find that the U.S. has a lower absolute poverty rate by market income than most other wealthy nations, although starting in the 1980s relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations.[409] Over 80% of poor American households have air conditioning, three quarters own at least one automobile, about 40% own their homes, and the average poor American has more living space than the general population average in every European nation except Luxembourg and Denmark. Most of them have a refrigerator, stove, microwave, telephone, and television. About half have computers and less than half have internet service.[377][410][411] The population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods rose by one-third from 2000 to 2009.[412] People living in such neighborhoods tend to suffer from inadequate access to quality education; higher crime rates; higher rates of physical and psychological ailment; limited access to credit and wealth accumulation; higher prices for goods and services; and constrained access to job opportunities.[412][413] As of 2013, 44% of America's poor are considered to be in "deep poverty," with an income 50% or more below the government's official poverty line.[414] More info that delves too deep and which does not belong in this particular article

Wealth, like income and taxes, is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share among developed nations.[415] In 2013 the United Nations Development Programme ranked the United States 16th among 132 countries on its inequality-adjusted human development index (IHDI), 13 places lower than in the standard HDI.[416] For the year 2012, the United States ranks 12th on the Legatum Prosperity Index.[417] Since much info is being removed a lot of the remaining info can be merged into one or two paragraphs, creating much more straight-forward summaries with relatively objective statistics

Between June 2007 and November 2008 the global recession led to falling asset prices around the world. Assets owned by Americans lost about a quarter of their value.[418] Since peaking in the second quarter of 2007, household wealth is down $14 trillion.[419] At the end of 2008, household debt amounted to $13.8 trillion.[420] By some measures, the U.S. has more millionaires per capita than any other nation, ranks in the top 14 in billionaires per capita,[421] and has more billionaires and millionaires than any other nation and all of Europe, most described as self-made, though to what degree is disputed. Some consider the entire idea of a self-made man to be largely a myth. The second wealthiest man in the United States, Warren Buffet, has been quoted as saying: "I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned." According to the 2013 Forbes Magazine ranking of American billionaires, six of the ten wealthiest billionaires came from just two families and the source of their fortunes is inherited wealth. According to United for a Fair Economy, 35% of 2011's 400 wealthiest Americans came from poor or middle-class backgrounds. They also say the myth of “self-made wealth is potentially destructive to the very infrastructure that enables wealth creation.”[422][423][424][425][426][427] This paragraph can be entirely removed from this article as it is another example of delving too deep, and since when is the opinion of one man considered encyclopedic, objective information?

It can easily be seen that this section was the biggest problem area in terms of having excessive details. I think what started it all is one user adding a piece of somewhat slanted information and then other users coming in trying to counterbalance it with more information, resulting in this section going too deep into one particular subject for a general country article.

For the sake of transparency, I'll say I've been meaning to add this line after the first paragraph's Maryland/MS sentence: Since 2000 North Dakota and Wyoming have experienced the largest increases in median income, while the District of Columbia and Michigan have experienced the largest declines. [42] Though I wouldn't bother doing so if that preceding MD/MS sentence was deleted. Also, the line about productivity is problematic because it's apparently based on extensive personal research of "unpublished" government data by a guy at the EPI, a liberal think tank, and I'm not sure it's verifiable. The sentence was only added recently by an editor as an ex post facto excuse to change the section image to a chart featuring "productivity", a word the section had previously not mentioned, and is additionally problematic because it ignores significant growth in benefits as a proportion of employee compensation in recent decades (I can dig up sources if anyone doubts such growth). I'd delete that line and replace the "productivity" chart with the previous, more up to date one focusing on median income. VictorD7 ( talk) 00:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Law enforcement

I plan on changing the title to Crime and law enforcement due to some of the info here

Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties.[317] At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as certain appeals from the state criminal courts. Federal law prohibits a variety of drugs, although states sometimes pass laws in conflict with federal regulations.

The smoking age is generally 18, and the drinking age is generally 21. The school leaving age is set by states and is usually in the range 16-18. The driving age in the U.S. is generally 16, younger than in most other countries. Abortion on demand is legal throughout the U.S., owing to Roe v. Wade, an 1973 landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. Abortion remains a highly controversial political and public issue. The U.S. is one of few developed countries to retain laws against adultery. Adultery remains illegal in 22 states, although these laws are rarely enforced and are largely believed to be unconstitutional. This info is simply laws, has nothing to do with actual law enforcement and therefore has no place in this section

In 2011, there were 4.7 murders per 100,000 persons in 2011 in the United States, 14.5% fewer than in 2000 (5.5), and 19.0% fewer since a recent peak of 5.8 in 2006.[318][319] Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[320] In 2009, the United States had a homicide rate that was more than double the Canadian rate and more than quadruple the homicide rates of Australia, France, Germany, Italy & the United Kingdom.[321] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher."[322]

According to 2012 FBI statistics, the south was the most violent region in the United States, accounting for 40.9% of all reported violent crimes even though it has only about a quarter of the population. Tennessee was the state with the most reports of violent crimes per capita in 2012.[323][324] Southern states also are a significant source of guns that are used to commit crimes in other states.[325] Somewhat biased air against the south, extra detail not directly relevant

Gun ownership rights continue to be the subject of contentious political debate. By itself, not directly connected to law enforcement

Capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and used in 32 states.[326] While there are 32 states which include capital punishment within their sentencing statutes, some states (such as New Hampshire and Kansas) have yet to execute anyone since 1976, as demonstrated by the lack of any executions by these states out of the 1317 total executions which have taken place as of December 5, 2012.[327] No executions took place from 1967 to 1977, owing in part to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that, under appropriate circumstances, capital punishment may constitutionally be imposed; since the decision there have been more than 1,300 executions, a majority of these taking place in three states: Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma. Five state legislatures in the modern era have abolished the death penalty, though two of those laws (in New Mexico and Connecticut) were not retroactive. Additionally, state courts in Massachusetts and New York struck down death penalty statutes and their legislatures took no action in response. In 2010, the country had the fifth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen.[329]

I think the extra details in that last paragraph are better off staying in the main Capital punishment in the United States article.

Incarceration

I plan on getting rid of this separate section and just merging it with the rest of the preceding section since it doesn't have enough info to stand alone.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and total prison population in the world.[330][331] At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[332] The prison population has quadrupled since 1980,[333] and is over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[334] African-American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[335] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in sentencing guidelines and drug policies.[336] In 2008, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate, and Maine the lowest.[337] Despite Louisana having the highest number of its citizens imprisoned, the FBI's crime report for 2012 listed the state as having the highest rate of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in the United States.[338] Excessive detail.

Health

The United States has life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990, ranks it 50th among 221 nations, and 27th out of the 34 industrialized OECD countries, down from 20th in 1990.[465][466] Increasing obesity in the United States and health improvements elsewhere have contributed to lowering the country's rank in life expectancy from 1987, when it was 11th in the world.[467] Obesity rates in the United States are among the highest in the world.[468] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[469] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[470] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[471] The infant mortality rate of 6.06 per thousand places the United States 176th highest out of 222 countries.[472]

In 2010, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, and traffic accidents caused the most years of life lost in the U.S. Low back pain, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, neck pain, and anxiety caused the most years lost to disability. The most deleterious risk factors were poor diet, tobacco smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, physical inactivity, and alcohol use. Alzheimer's disease, drug abuse, kidney disease and cancer, and falls caused the most additional years of life lost over their age-adjusted 1990 per-capita rates.[466] I think this can be categorized under "excessive detail" though it's debatable. I might just leave it in

U.S. teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are substantially higher than in other Western nations, particularly among blacks and Hispanics.[473] In 2010, the maternal mortality rate was 21 deaths/100,000 live births, the U.S. occupying the 136th place among world countries (first place being the highest mortality rate - Chad in 2010). The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is higher than in most Western countries.[474]

The U.S. is a global leader in medical innovation. America solely developed or contributed significantly to 9 of the top 10 most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five. Since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than the rest of the world combined. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe.[475][476]

A comprehensive 2007 study by European doctors found the five-year cancer survival rate was significantly higher in the U.S. than in all 21 European nations studied, 66.3% for men versus the European mean of 47.3% and 62.9% versus 52.8% for women.[477][478] Americans undergo cancer screenings at significantly higher rates than people in other developed countries, and access MRI and CT scans at the highest rate of any OECD nation.[479] People in the U.S. diagnosed with high cholesterol or hypertension access pharmaceutical treatments at higher rates than those diagnosed in other developed nations, and are more likely to successfully control the conditions.[480][481] Diabetics are more likely to receive treatment and meet treatment targets in the U.S. than in Canada, England, or Scotland.[482][483] Delving too deep into details on cancer survival rates, and more comparisons to other countries.

The U.S. health-care system far outspends any other nations, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[484] In 2008, the U.S. spent more on health care per capita ($7,146), and as percentage of GDP (15.2%), than any other nation. Health-care coverage in the United States is a combination of public and private efforts, and is not universal as in all other developed countries. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditures, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.[485]

In 2010, 49.9 million residents or 16.3% of the population did not carry health insurance. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.[486] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.[487][488] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[489] In 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcy blamed medical expenses. About 25% of all senior citizens declare bankruptcy because of medical expenses, and 43% are forced to mortgage or sell their primary residence.[490] Federal legislation passed in early 2010 would ostensibly create a near-universal health insurance system around the country by 2014, though the bill and its ultimate impact are issues of controversy.[491][492] Too much detail for this article

Cadiomals ( talk) 22:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed deletions

While I wouldn't have done things precisely the same way across the board,* in the interest of consensus building I can support these changes.

-*Since the Health section would retain segments about healthcare spending and infant/maternal mortality, I'm not crazy about losing the four sentence paragraph on actual healthcare. Broadly accessed scans and heavy pharmaceutical use are salient, distinguishing traits of the US healthcare system, and vastly more people are impacted by cancer, hypertension, and diabetes than by infant mortality. Also, the Law enforcement section, while vastly improved by your edit, would still invite expansion and/or edit warring by retaining the following lines and international comparisons: Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[320] In 2009, the United States had a homicide rate that was more than double the Canadian rate and more than quadruple the homicide rates of Australia, France, Germany, Italy & the United Kingdom.[321] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher."[322] Briefly mentioning that the US has a higher homicide rate than other developed nations is fine, but homicide is a tiny percentage of crime, and the US actually has a significantly lower overall crime rate than many other developed nations (about half that of Canada and the UK, and less than a third that of Sweden, per the same UN source). Firearm homicide is a smaller subset yet, and, given the section's skewed emphasis on gun crime, it would be hard to justify excluding a future addition seeking to balance it by, for example, citing research showing that privately owned guns are used more frequently to thwart crimes than to commit them. It might be better to avoid that by trimming further and deleting the niche gun crime stuff. If the expanded murder comparisons remain, then at some point it'd be fair to add a brief segment on overall crime rate that includes comparisons with some of the same nations mentioned. Also, the racial incarceration breakdown should be deleted, or it logically demands a racial crime rate breakdown addition at some point. VictorD7 ( talk) 23:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I will take your comments into consideration, leaving those Health sentences in, removing some info in Law enforcement, etc, if those are only going to cause further disputes and are also not vital. I'll be making these changes tomorrow as long as there are no major objections or suggestions from anyone else. Cadiomals ( talk) 04:02, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Cadiomals, regarding your proposed changes to Government Finance, I oppose you removing the ITEP chart and everything else related to the ITEP data. There are at least 3 editors who disagree with Victor's reasoning for disputing the ITEP data. Also, there is already very little regarding state and local taxes and U.S taxation in its totality in this section. The title of this section is not Federal Taxation. We should keep this portion of description of state & local taxes: "but are generally less progressive than federal taxes as they rely heavily on broadly borne regressive sales and property taxes" Also we should keep this last sentence: "When one looks beyond the progressive federal income tax to U.S. taxation in its totality, the American system flattens out and becomes much less progressive with the average American paying between 25 percent and 30 percent of their income regardless of their federal income tax rate, far above the rate of many well known American millionaires and billionaires.[295][296]"

In the Income, Poverty, and Wealth section, the most disputed has been this questionable factoid from the Heritage Foundation: "Americans on average have over twice as much living space per dwelling and per person as Europeans, and more than every European nation.[377]" It should be deleted due to its questionable relevance to the section and politically biased nature of the source.

Regarding the law enforcement section, I support the name change. But I disagree that it is showing any kind of bias towards anyplace by simply stating highly notable FBI and ATF data about regions and states inside the U.S. Also, the dramatically higher murder and incarceration rates in the United States is highly notable and should continue to have the relatively small amount of space they currently have in the article. For these reasons I am against deleting this: "According to 2012 FBI statistics, the south was the most violent region in the United States, accounting for 40.9% of all reported violent crimes even though it has only about a quarter of the population. Tennessee was the state with the most reports of violent crimes per capita in 2012.[323][324] Southern states also are a significant source of guns that are used to commit crimes in other states.[325]" and this "In 2008, Louisiana had the highest incarceration rate, and Maine the lowest.[337] Despite Louisiana having the highest number of its citizens imprisoned, the FBI's crime report for 2012 listed the state as having the highest rate of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in the United States.[338]" I'm also opposed to Victor's most recent desire in the talk section to delete this well sources portion of the article ''Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[320] In 2009, the United States had a homicide rate that was more than double the Canadian rate and more than quadruple the homicide rates of Australia, France, Germany, Italy & the United Kingdom.[321] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher."[322]" The current law enforcement section definitely does not have a skewed emphasis on gun crime. Gun crime is only mentioned in two sentences.

This last bit in the health section also should stay due to notability: "In 2010, 49.9 million residents or 16.3% of the population did not carry health insurance. The main cause of this rise is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance.[486] The subject of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a major political issue.[487][488] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate universal health insurance.[489] In 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcy blamed medical expenses. About 25% of all senior citizens declare bankruptcy because of medical expenses, and 43% are forced to mortgage or sell their primary residence.[490]" Lance Friedman ( talk) 04:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The living space segment is an extremely notable topline stat impacting the general population and the facts aren't disputed. Heritage simply relays government stats from these US and EU sources ( [43], [44]). Independent Swedish and British studies corroborate the general findings. By contrast, the CTJ/ITEP chart is from a partisan lobbyist, its numbers are totally uncorroborated, it's disputed by multiple reliable sources like the Tax Policy Center and CBO (as laid out across this page with links), and its methodology is directly criticized by the Tax Foundation. That three posters have supported it in the past isn't decisive. Wikipedia is not a democracy, which is good since otherwise articles would be at the mercy of a small cluster of trolls, sock accounts, or dishonest partisan hacks. Material so disputed by the sources shouldn't have the exalted prominence of being a section image. As for the rest, it sounds like you want to keep a lot of deal busting partisan talking points in, including the poorly sourced and constructed "millionaire" material I tore to shreds higher on this page. One of your sources simply covers Buffet's personal opinion on his own federal taxes (not notable), and yet your text uses that in a comparison with total taxation (including state/local) for "average Americans". I posted a piece from Forbes pointing out (among other things) that Buffet wasn't counting corporate taxation, and you reverted it without giving a rational reason. Your other source is an Ezra Klein blog that briefly mentions Romney and has to admit with a caveat at the end that it's comparing his federal tax rate (which Klein got wrong to begin with) with an average person's total tax rate, and that it doesn't know his total tax rate, but guesses that it's "likely" lower than typical Americans' (it's not, btw). This is the unnecessary garbage you're insisting on keeping in, Lance Friedman? That's an unreasonable position, and will guarantee significant future counter editing. You didn't even make a real argument for keeping this stuff, but just asserted that you wanted it. Wikipedia isn't an appropriate venue for pushing a partisan agenda. As for biased sources (which aren't prohibited per se), I've used sources from across the political spectrum, while I've seen nothing but low quality partisan blogs and leftist think tanks from you. Look to the plank in your own eye. VictorD7 ( talk) 06:21, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

My reasoning for removing this info is not just for bias and slant, but mostly because a lot of the info is excess detail that does not belong in a general country article, and is best elaborated on in the main articles linked below the section headings, including the pieces you want kept. It is important to discern which details are better off being left in those main articles. For example, it is worth mentioning that the US has above average levels of crimes among developed nations, but breakdowns by state and region are better left in Crime in the United States. Mentioning that gun violence in the US is high compared to XX nation and XX nation when it is just one aspect of overall crime, is info deliberately slanted towards the gun control crowd. Also, specific statistics on who owns health insurance and why certain people can't afford health insurance is not notable in this particular article, but can be elaborated on in Health insurance in the United States. What is notable is giving a general explanation of how the health insurance system works in the US. If you guys want to have heated debates on these topics in Crime in the United States and Health care in the United States, feel free, but I'm trying to keep intact the quality and neutrality of this article alone.

I am not siding with Victor, you, or anyone else on these issues, I am trying to prevent drawn-out disputes such as the heated debates above that very nearly approach personal attacks and edit wars by leaving in only the most pertinent, uncontroversial facts. Mentioning "notability" seems to be code for "I think this should be kept because it propagates my view on a certain subject." Since the figure from ITEP (which, I will be totally honest, I have never heard of until now and know nothing about) is obviously a point of contention (with whom, I don't know/care) so why not just remove it altogether? Are people having issues with the graph on the left too? Because that can also be removed. The point is that few general country articles delve very deeply into a nation's tax system in the first place. I will additionally be removing the line "and is among the most progressive in the developed world" to prevent people from trying to counterbalance that claim with statements that claim the US isn't as progressive as it seems. You can battle it out in Taxation in the United States, not here.

If you want I would be open to suggestions on more details I can remove to preserve neutrality and keep the sections as straight-forward as possible, but at this point I believe I have very good reasons for removing the above info. In fact, I am also going to remove the line on "living space" as it is clearly another source of contention, because it is not a vital piece of information, it once again makes the biased habit of comparing the United States to Europe as if it were a competition, and because few country articles make any mention of a nation's "living space" unless it has to do with an overpopulation crisis. Cadiomals ( talk) 07:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

If you're deleting the segments on food affordability and living space, salient, distinctly American traits impacting the entire population, and the lower segment covering basic living standards for those the Census defines as "poor", can we delete the sentences on homelessness and "food insecur(ity)"? It's threatening to turn back into the "extreme poverty" section. Only a tiny fraction of a percent of Americans are homeless (many temporarily so), and I doubt most readers even know what "food insecurity" means (hint - it's not hunger). It's a nebulous term cooked up by bureaucrats that's not particularly meaningful but sounds scary. Also, how about losing this sentence? "While the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly,[393] it provides relatively little assistance to the young.[394]" "Effectively"? Does someone's opinion merit inclusion? The source for the first half is a 2004 opinion piece that I don't think is available for online reading, but that context clues suggest was arguing against social security reform. As for the second half (is this the welfare section?), it's sourced by a 2008 opinion piece in the liberal magazine The American Prospect. While it's true that kids don't receive social security or Medicare, poor ones do receive Medicaid, and all kids have access to free (well, tax payer funded) education, school lunch programs, etc., so it's a debatable point. Regardless, I'm not sure why it's more relevant than the broad metrics describing some basic living standards for the whole population.

As for the progressive line, did you mean you plan on deleting just that clause or the whole sentence? Either way I'd ask you proceed cautiously. I don't think anyone has complained about that in a while, and neither the larger sentence that US taxation is progressive or the international comparison is really disputed. It's sourced by references from across the political spectrum. Even the liberal outlier CTJ/ITEP source admits that overall US taxation is "progressive". In fact the international comparison is cautiously worded, since the US has the most progressive taxation in the developed world. It's not like it's irrelevant, niche, or excessive detail either. There's still that international comparison of wealth distribution near the (new) end of the Income section, so it's not like you're purging all such comparisons. VictorD7 ( talk) 10:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I will keep the sentence The Global Food Security Index ranked the U.S. #1 in food affordability and overall food security in March 2013 and can agree to keep the "living space" info only if you can find a source other than the Heritage Foundation. Since you say HF only relays government statistics, it is up to you to find those statistics directly from government websites, and not via a right-wing think tank. The sentence "While the American welfare state effectively reduces poverty among the elderly,[393] it provides relatively little assistance to the young" can be removed along with the rest of that paragraph. I would not have known how to reintegrate that with the remaining information. As long as we can provide straight-forward stats, we don't have to tell the reader how to interpret them. Also, I planned on deleting just the clause "the most progressive in the world" because I saw that it often prompted people with a political agenda to add information on why it isn't "as progressive as it looks". We ought to just leave the general info on who is taxed and by what percent and let the reader come to their own conclusion or read more about it in Taxation in the United States. Cadiomals ( talk) 17:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

As I already posted above, the Heritage stats are verifiable and come from this US Department of Energy source and this EU source (just requires converting square meters into square feet, which anyone with a search engine can do). The current inclusion is worded vaguely enough that I was also thinking about adding these sources corroborating the general findings, a Swedish study and British study covered by the BBC. Though the Swedish study relies on older data and the British study is more recent and focused on new homes being built, the ratios they show are very similar to what the Heritage piece does. While I'm fine with adding sources, I do oppose removing Heritage as a source. The article is still peppered with leftist sources, and purging a source simply for being conservative would set a disastrous, one sided precedent. I've never argued that a source should be removed simply for ideological reasons. Sources should be evaluated on a case by case basis, depending on what the proposed inclusion is, not banned across the board simply for their political views. Heck, the very next sentence, currently marked for retention by you, is sourced by the leftist think tank CBPP. The later line..."Half of the U.S. population lives in poverty or is low-income, according to U.S. census data.[382]" is sourced by the Huffington Post. VictorD7 ( talk) 18:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

You can re-add the living space statement with sources from the European findings. Also, I was actually already concerned with the sentence Half of the U.S. population lives in poverty or is low-income, according to U.S. census data, but I hesitated removing it because it said "US Census data". The wording itself looks deliberately skewed to make the US appear poorer than it is, saying that "half" of Americans are "poor or low-income" when the percentage below the national poverty line is 16% and the percent below the international poverty line is less than 1%. I wouldn't call HuffPost a reliable source any more than Heritage is, so unless a direct govt/census source can be found with their definition of "low-income" (and not relayed by HuffPost) it will be removed too. The fact that 16% of Americans are below the national poverty line should be sufficiently straight-forward. Cadiomals ( talk) 19:19, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit: I will actually change the wording of that sentence to "48% of the US population earns $45,000 or less per year" based on this source [45], which is based on the Census definition for "low-income" -- this sounds much more objective than using that vague, arbitrary term. Cadiomals ( talk) 19:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

After rereading it I noticed the 2004 Swedish source actually cites an older Heritage piece as a reference, so I figured I'd be upfront about that lest someone later accuses me of trying to pull a fast one. I left it in anyway to show that the living space differences are robust over time (uses data sets going back to the early 1990s). The 2009 BBC piece is entirely independent, based on US Census info and data from selected foreign nations. Of course I also added the US/EU government sources used by Heritage in the more up to date piece. VictorD7 ( talk) 01:25, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Comprehensiveness

I strongly disagree with these deletions, especially the ones marked "too much detail". I added many of the passages proposed for deletion, and I think that they need to be in there because Wikipedia is supposed to be WP:COMPREHENSIVE. EllenCT ( talk) 08:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Comprehensive, but to what degree? At what point is "comprehensive" allowed to evolve into "excessive detail" that is not fit for a general article that is meant to give fairly weighted overviews of every aspect of a country? If we were to take all the information from every main article linked in this one and merge all of them into one extremely long "super-article" about the United States, from History down to Sports, would that not be considered as comprehensive as possible?

WP:COMPREHENSIVE talks specifically about information that is censored or suppressed because it may be deemed "illegal, immoral, unethical, or potentially harmful". As such, it does not directly pertain to this article. In your section "Room for Improvement" you proposed that the solution for balancing information you called "puffery" was by piling on more and more information I will call "counter-puffery"... not only is that not an effective solution, it will create even more problems down the road as people debate non-stop the information that is being added and this article devolves into a forum for political advocacy and more edit-warring as can already be seen in many of the discussions above.

Also, because some information you took the time to add is being removed, you might feel you have a stake in this and that you've been personally wronged, but of course I wasn't discriminating against you or anyone else, and I feel the removal of the information above is in everyone's best interest and in the best interest to the quality and true comprehensiveness of this article, in which "comprehensive" means giving straight-forward, unbiased information and fair weight to all sections of the article, and not allowing certain sections to become an outlet for any sort of political advocacy. If there are no limits, there will only be more chaos. Cadiomals ( talk) 09:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Cadiomais, I feel like you are making a lot of these deletions simply to cater to the POV of one overly argumentative wiki editor, VictorD7, in a misguided hope that he will stop his edit warring. You were not even going to edit the law enforcement section until VictorD7 demanded it. I fear many of these proposed deletions will compromise the straight forwardness, comprehensiveness, and accuracy of this article. For example, our sky high murder rate is not just one aspect of overall crime, the same as a burglary or a fist fight. Murder is the most serious crime that a person can commit. For accuracy sake it needs to be said that American murder rate is multiple times higher than virtually all comparable countries. The stats for this are from the World bank and no one is disputing the accuracy. Gun violence in the United States also is not simply one aspect of crime, the same as a mugging or a bar fight. Peer reviewed medical journals say it is the driving force behind America's exponentially higher murder rates. These are highly notable and important facts from neutral sources. Again no one is questioning the accuracy of these facts, you are just deleting these important facts because VictorD7 threatens to engage in an edit war if they are not deleted. His modus operandi is to call every source leftwing and to use anything as an excuse to add repetitious rightwing talking points to the article. He will likely continue this behaviour regardless of what changes are made to this article Lance Friedman ( talk) 14:55, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Did you even read the information I was planning to remove and keep, based on the bolded/non-bolded lines? I was planning on keeping In 2011, there were 4.7 murders per 100,000 persons in 2011 in the United States, 14.5% fewer than in 2000 (5.5), and 19.0% fewer since a recent peak of 5.8 in 2006.[318][319] Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[320] In 2009, the United States had a homicide rate that was more than double the Canadian rate and more than quadruple the homicide rates of Australia, France, Germany, Italy & the United Kingdom.[321] A cross-sectional analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2003 showed that United States "homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that were 19.5 times higher." This perfectly explains the crime you were talking about and I wasn't going to get rid of that anyway, so I'm not sure why you raised that specific issue.

The information in Law enforcement I was going to get rid of were details on crime in the South, a breakdown on the number of executions and by which states, and mentions of abortion, and the drinking and smoking ages, which have nothing to do with crime and law enforcement.

"for accuracy sake it needs to be said that American murder rate is multiple times higher than virtually all comparable countries." That statement itself is not even accurate. The murder rate of most Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries is much, much higher than the US. I think what you meant to say is the US murder rate is higher than that of most other developed, first-world countries, which is exactly the information I was planning on keeping.

And why are you accusing me of "catering" to to VictorD7 when much of the information I plan on removing was added by him, such as the tax info and tax graphs? That info is unnecessary for a general country article, delves too deep, and is obviously a point of contention. No Featured or Good country article that I've looked at says any more than a few sentences on a country's tax system, let alone a full analysis of who is taxed and how progressivity has changed over time. That is only appropriate for Taxation in the United States. I didn't discriminate based on who added the information, I discriminated based on whether I thought the information was appropriate or better left for the Main article of the topic. If he or anyone else continues to edit war, the people involved will be warned or banned, this article will be protected again, and it will stay low-quality until we can come to an agreement on the information within it. It's really that simple. He or anyone else isn't above Wikipedia law.

Do you have any other suggestions on info I should remove or keep in? Cadiomals ( talk) 17:29, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Please have a look through the reader comments. People who didn't find what they were looking for are overwhelmingly asking for more detail, and people who did are never complaining that there is too much detail, as far as I can see from sampling a few dozen. The WP:NPOV policy is about balance, and the best way to achieve such balance in an article about a top-famous country with hundreds of millions of people is to summarize as much as possible. EllenCT ( talk) 10:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)