If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Re
The "lowest taxes in the developed world" isn't quite true when you take into account state and local taxes. However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the sta
Even if the practical stumbling blocks DrgnDancer pointed out could be overcome, there is still a very large political barrier. The highway system is a perfect example. You ever wonder why the drinking age in every single state is 21? B/c the Federal government came in years ago and said "You want funds for your highways? Drinking age needs to be 21". Giving states money is how the Federal government affects policies that they technically have no say in. They have no desire to reduce that influence by passing some of the purse strings back to the stats.
I agree with both of you. By the way, I generally consider myself left of center, but I'm in Upstate New York. Basically, rather than cutting services wholesale I'd like New York to have a choice of keeping the services it wants, and keeping more of the tax money. Currently the federal government receives far more in taxes from NY than is spent here. If the federal government cut services and forced states to pick up the slack, NY could probably do it. Eventually federal taxes would go down as the debt cris
I agree with you in principle, but again must point out some practicalities. The reason it would expensive to live in some states is because they have low populations to begin with. Force people out with unreasonable tax burdens and those places will become truly abandoned. This is a) bad for our international image ("Yeah, we used to have 50 states, but after they abandoned Montana and Alaska we couldn't figure out a way to tax the bears") b) a potentially serious issue for agriculture. Remember that t
Well ... (Score:5, Funny)
Easy enough (Score:0, Insightful)
If citizens actually had free choice in which government programs to fund as well as how much to contribute, the size of the US government (measured both in revenue and power over the people) would be 1/10 the size of today's utter monstrosity.
And if citizens literally had to cut a check at the beginning of every year, rather than pay through deliberately-obfuscated systems designed to hide the true cost of government, the size of government would be cut again by 90%.
Too bad government isn't voluntary, or t
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you really think this is the case? What I see is a lot of people saying: "Don't touch my Medicare, don't touch my Social Security, don't raise my taxes, and balance the budget." Which is sort of a ridiculous position to take. Even if we're allowed to touch defense (which a lot of people don't want either) that's not enough room to maneuver. Hell a strikingly large percentage of Americans don't even seem to realize that Medicare and Social Security are tied to the federal government and the debt. Re
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I would say that the real problems are in the "My road project in my town" group. While the states have broad powers to tax, for some reason the argument has stuck that only the federal government can come up with the money for certain things. The federal government should not be funding the states, and any such funding should be cut. The states should administer their own taxes. When the sta
Re:Easy enough (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you in principle, but again must point out some practicalities. The reason it would expensive to live in some states is because they have low populations to begin with. Force people out with unreasonable tax burdens and those places will become truly abandoned. This is a) bad for our international image ("Yeah, we used to have 50 states, but after they abandoned Montana and Alaska we couldn't figure out a way to tax the bears") b) a potentially serious issue for agriculture. Remember that t