"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." - Thomas Sowell "Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race." - Bastiat Human flourishing absolutely depends on allowing individuals to reveal their preferences via opportunity cost decisions. Choosing whether we spend our time/money on X or Y is how we ensure the efficient allocation of limited resources. Therefore, taxpayers should have the freedom to choose which government organizations they give their individual taxes to. Here's a roundup of some of the best pages on the topic... Your Money, Your Choice by Cait Lamberton. Democracy Journal. 2012 We, The People by Jack C. Haldeman II. ANALOG. 1983 What If Taxpayers Could Decide How Their Money Is Spent? by Daniel Indiviglio. The Atlantic. 2010 The Solution? Earmark Your Taxes by Russell Baker. The Gainesville Sun. 1990 Why Can't I Earmark My Taxes? by the Potter Political Pickle. 2010 For a comprehensive list of pages on the subject please see my blog entry...Choose Where Your Taxes Go.
Its hard enough to get 535 people to agree where the money to be spent, and it will be even harder to get 190 plus million taxpayers to agree as well. It is a nice utopian thought, but it will not work here or anywhere else.
Thanks for sharing that quote. If you truly believed that piece of advice, then you could only support the land value tax, because it is the only tax which does not burden consumers in any way. From the consumers viewpoint, a land value tax would be the end all taxation; for them it would be like all taxes were abolished, even the indirect burden of other taxes would be gone.
Ugh, wouldn't it be a terrible world if we all agreed? You're a taxpayer...I'm a taxpayer...why would we have to agree on where our taxes should be spent? When was the last time we agreed on buying Numero Uno pizza? When was the last time we agreed on buying Dr. Pepper? When was the last time we agreed on buying membership to 24 Hour Fitness? Yeah...maybe someday I'll get paid for product placements in my posts. So...somehow...even though we don't know each other...and we've never agreed on buying a single product/service in our lives...somehow...somehow...there are adequate levels of the products/services that we value. How is it possible? Well...it's called the invisible hand...and there's nothing utopian about it. What in the world would happen if we applied this invisible hand concept to the public sector? Oh noes!? Public goods are fundamentally and substantially different than private goods! Except...a long long time ago our bff Bastiat busted this myth... Three cheers for Bastiat! Ummm...you're not cheering. Maybe because you think congresspeople are supremely qualified to spend our money. Let's see what our bff had to say about that possibility... Another myth busted! Unless they happened to show you their titles? Naw...they aint got no stink'n titles. Actually...they just ended up with the responsibility of spending our money because nearly 1000 years some barons were fed up with how the king was spending their money. So they took the power of the purse from the king. The king only had the power of the purse in the first place because people believed he had divine authority. And here we are now...1000 years later...congress is still spending our money...and it's simply a vestigial trait. Like saying "bless you" after somebody sneezes. That's ridiculous. We look back now and think it's ridiculous that people believed that the king had divine authority just like future people will look back and think it's ridiculous that we allow 538 congresspeople to spend 1/4 of our nation's revenue. When will the ridiculousness end??? It will probably end after I learn how to be a better communicator. So...it might be a while. "No text is worth permanent brain damage". Have you seen that commercial? For some reason it seems a lot like exploitation. I wonder how effective it is. Errr...the commercial...not exploitation. In a pragmatarian system I wonder about government organizations paying for commercials. How many government commercials would we be subjected to? Too many? Too many commercials trying to persuade us to spend our taxes on national defense, public education, public healthcare, food safety, environmental protection? The thought of government organizations competing for our taxes gives me goosebumps. C'mon you government organizations! Persuade me! Convince me that you'll give me the most bang for my buck! Show me charts! Show me graphs! Show me scantily clad women! Errr...hmmm...*awkward* I suppose you probably want another awesome passage from our bff. Yeah? Yeah! A point on the road that must not be passed? Oh, we passed that a while ago. Our individual foresight has long since been destroyed when it comes to what the government does. Let's review...our bff challenged parliament...aka congress...to show us evidence of their superiority...yet he's a big fan of individual foresight. What's so great about individual foresight? Well...we do all have unique perspectives. That means we all see problems from different angles. We're like blind men touching different parts of an elephant. We all have access to some truth. But when government foresight replaces individual foresight...it's like one of the blind men declaring that he's got a monopoly on truth. That's how we end up with all sorts of problems. Every taxpayer should be able to contribute their unique foresight to the distribution of public funds. Contrary to popular belief...voting does not sufficiently convey individual foresight. When a taxpayer is given the opportunity to spend their own, hard-earned taxes...that's when the individual foresight abounds. But is it fair that people pay different amounts of taxes? Sure, because when I paid for my Numero Uno pizza, Dr. Pepper and 24 Hour Fitness membership...I was voting with my dollars for the taxpayers that represent some portion of my interests. What I spend my money on is a reflection of my interests. Therefore, the taxpayers that have to pay the most taxes...are given the opportunity to do so because they earned our money. Did congress earn the right to spend my money? Not even close. No worries if they earned the right to spend your money. In a pragmatarian system you'd still have the opportunity to give them your taxes as usual. The amount of taxes that taxpayers give congress would reflect just how well they are doing their jobs. Let...the revolution...begin!
Given public and merit good provision (coupled with asymmetric information and bounded rationality), a recipe for disaster. Misrepresenting economic analysis into private goods won't be helpful!
From a purely experimental perspective I think it'd be interesting so long as the option on whether not to spend the money wasn't optional. I'm curious what tax payers would "choose" to allocate resources towards. My guess, entitlement spending would plummet since so many people still believe in the "welfare queen", I'd expect spending on education to rise however particularly as the number of female voters increased, not sure which way military spending would go. It would do two interesting things, first it'd increase transparency and awareness of the federal budget and second, since your concerned about where your dollars go and if this was done in conjunction with elections, I'd anticipate much higher voter turnout.
In terms of experimental economics you'd get corruption based on free riding and skewing according to bounded rational attitudes over equity. It gets worse in terms of repeated games. Then all sorts of silliness can occur, with aspects of retaliation and status quo building
The issues with equity was why I anticipated a gutting of entitlement programs (wonder if the same would occur in Scandinavian countries). I also wonder how the outcome would change if each person had the same amount to spend, I don't think any of these tweaks would result in desirable outcomes, but from a purely inquisitive perspective I'd be interested to see what the results looked like. True, I suppose there's no incentive to be wise or prudent even if it is your money since you have no choice but to spend it, and as you say rationality is bounded and so the "wise or prudent" choice may be neither.
You could try and apply Rawl's veil of ignorance Its much better to punish those that one deems deserves it
Good quote. That is why all broad-based consumption taxes like the "Fair"Tax are inherently wrong-headed. The only ultimate purpose of all economic activity is to enable consumption. To tax and discourage consumption per se is therefore antithetical to economic reason on the most fundamental level.
In your land value tax system...once the taxes are collected...who determines what they are spent on?
How long did it take you to write over 20,000 posts here? If you believe that congress can truly know how your taxes should be spent...then why can't they truly know how your time should be spent? If you have such confidence in the oracles...why don't you climb the mountain and ask them whether writing another 20,000 posts here is truly the best use of your limited time? Or you could just ask Lil Brudder. I've heard that he has the heart of a champion.
So this is what happens in the non-profit sector? Maybe it would be a good idea to force PETA donors and NRA donors to pool their donations and elect representatives to divvy the pool between both organizations? Out of your 20,000 posts here...have you ever written a single post suggesting that this should be done?
Hmmm...while we're at it...can you list any goods that should solely be provided by the private sector? If so, why is the private sector more effective than the public sector at providing these goods?
My time isn't a public good. I'm good, but not that good! Do you think making these ridiculous comparisons will somehow disguise the horrific holes in your argument?
Something like altruism is a different beast (we could use it to understand why a particularly terrible nash equilibrium isn't a likely event, but that's about it). The problem for you is that game theory has already destroyed your position. We can't play pretend!
Most goods should be provided by the private sector. The rationale? Try dispersed knowledge and the use of the price mechanism as an information surrogate
Voters, what a concept. You might want to ponder the fact that LVT is the ONLY tax system that can POSSIBLY align government's financial incentives with the public interest: government can only get more LVT revenue by spending that revenue on services and infrastructure that enhance the economic advantage of using land within the government's jurisdiction -- virtually a definition of good government. Governments competing to make the locations they govern the most desirable for people to use: sounds pretty (*)(*)(*)(*) good to me.
Reiver, the horrific holes in my argument? Where exactly? Based on Bastiat we already established that public goods are no different than private goods. They are simple acts of exchange! You give up one thing that you value...in exchange for something that you value even more. Yet you want to apply different allocation rules to private goods...non-profit goods...and public goods. As if altruism and dispersed knowledge wouldn't be able to efficiently allocate public goods. That doesn't make any sense. Millions of taxpayers are capable of efficiently allocating a gazillion private goods...yet they wouldn't be able to efficiently allocate significantly less public goods? So I guess the oracles showed you the titles to their superiority. Did you take a picture that you can share with the rest of us? If not...how about telling us what it said on their titles. Did it say that they had perfect knowledge? If so...then why can't the oracles tell you whether writing another 20,000 posts on here is really the best use of your time?
See above! A ridiculous statement. They are quite distinct, with public goods showing one source of market failure (and how standard invisible hand ideas fail) Look up the public good game. That will give you an introduction in the folly of your approach.
The only dollars the taxpayer would want would be to go spend for themselves and never anyone else, including family.
