Is Taxation Beyond Bare Necessity Immoral?

[ParanoiA]

Caught a few minutes of Rush at lunch time today, as open line Friday's are always kind of interesting and he is doing his annual Leukemia and Lymphoma Society money drive, kicking it off with a $400,000 donation. And apparently donations are surprisingly high this year, as well as last - at least according to the show.

 

So it dawned on me, that this serves a better example of a point I've tried to make over the years. (I always used starving chinese kids as an example.)That when we set up programs to help folks and fund them with taxes, that we are essentially forcing everyone to redirect their capital to causes that we find important. We've decided that your causes will take a back seat to ours.

 

You want to help children dying of blood cancer? You'll have to fund that with whatever you have leftover after funding full grown, healthy adults for food and housing, and now health insurance - just the tip of the list. Not to mention a number of child services, like school lunches and head start.

 

Isn't this a conflict of ostensible priority? Aren't dying children more important than adults without a house? Aren't dying children in more need of my money than children who can't eat lunch? How dare the government force such immoral priorities on me.

 

I wonder how much money has been taken from the people to fund mild need that would have gone to extreme need by that person's choice.

[Sisyphus]

All functions of government - or any organization at all - are directing collective resources that presumably otherwise would be used individually, presumably in different ways since not everyone is going to have identical priorities. You want to hire a prostitute? Well, you'll have to fund that with whatever is left over from paying for the roads and the coast guard. Who's to say what's a bare necessity, what's a mild need?

[Dak]

We've decided that your causes will take a back seat to ours.

 

I'm not disagreeing, but not doing it by tax is also problematic as you hit tradgedy of the commons. I mean, why should I donate money to cancer research when other people will, so the research will be there if i ever need it anyway? Unless too many people do this, in which case it wont (and, anyway, it's just not fair if some people foot the bill whilst others don't).

 

non-voluntary charity via taxation side-steps this problem, and you'll still have enough left over that you can choose to give the odd fiver to whatever charity you choose.

 

otoh, maybe x% of your money could be siezed by the government, and then we could have an iterative directly democratic process to allocate it, i.e.:

 

* everyone gets x% of their money siezed

* everyone votes where the tax should be allocated

* results of vote are:

-- fire brigade got waaaaaaaaaaay more than they can spend

-- military and road-maintenance have quite a bit more than they said is neccesary

-- everyone overlooked feeding-homeless children charities

-- several projects, including cancer-research, are requesting more

* You get, say, 10% of your tax de-allocated (over-allocation to fire-brigade) and maybe choose to withdraw a further 1% each from the military and roads, and dump 11% onto feed-the-poor and 1% to cancer research

* results of votes come back, people constantly re-adjust based on what others voted untill there's no longer any change

* these results dictate the budget.

 

what % of your wage goes on tax, and wether it's flat or progressive, could be done by representative or direct democracy; and I think you've bypassed tradgedy of the commons without the problems you describe. Maybe some people would try to avoid funding fire brigade assuming others will do so... so maybe 'spreadables' should be done by the gov (no offence, but I don't want to let you manage your own life when it comes to spreadable things, because the longer you have herpies and the less you want to give to the firebrigade, the more likely I am to catch herpies and have my house burn down)...

 

Maybe, as we'd link the concept of 'being a bigot' with 'costing a lot of money' in people minds, people would be more likely to chip into the 'stopping violent crimes' fund, and less into the 'stopping drugs' fund?

[jackson33]

ParanoiA; I take, what I'm sure will be thought of as a cynical view of benevolence and Government, is short the intension. Societies, I believe going back to when societies formed, have been concerned with the disadvantaged, naturally helping to the needs of whatever the needs were in their day, an old person unable to hunt, to the sick, woman and children, IMO have always been assisted by the stronger.

 

In my view, their have been many well intended (moral) programs by Governments and not just the US, possibly Cuba, Russia or I could even make a case for Iran today, that simply have got out of hand and those original intentions change. Usually I would suggest, Government, in the US aided by parties try to involve more and more into any number of those programs and yes making more and more dependent on them, the Government (immoral). I will admit Bush "Faith Based Initiatives" has been to a degree constructive, but even here, those that actually benefit, receive so little of the money allocated, it's simply not efficient. Most know of Katrina and the blunders, but here is the FBI actual program...

 

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/fbci/NOLA_FACTSHEET_FINAL.pdf

 

 

I really don't know a Conservative Host (TV or Radio) that isn't involved in one or more charitable organization or do I have any reason to think Liberal Host are not doing the same. To give Limbaugh's 400K$ Contribution or "The Two Sisters" who equaled that, a little contrast, the Obama's in all of 2009 made contributions of 330K$ (think 40 different) and think the Biden's contributed 5K$ to charity. This was his 20th straight year, promoting the Charity, on his radio and/or TV (on air, 5 Years) shows, which by any measure has been and is priceless.

 

 

All functions of government - or any organization at all - are directing collective resources that presumably otherwise would be used individually, presumably in different ways since not everyone is going to have identical priorities.[/Quote]

 

Sisyphus; There is nothing in the Constitution, under any Federal Law or the intention of any Tax Payer to directly donate to any or all charitable needs of the society, through taxes. Anything that bridges a seen gap, between where private charitable organizations or individual charity has been a source, with Federal Funds, then is charity, IMO. SS/Medicare/Unemployment/Disability and several other programs had been paid for by either the employer or employee and were never intended to be charity...And no, you can pick the exact purpose for any donation you make to most any private organization, most however do not.

[padren]

I really don't know a Conservative Host (TV or Radio) that isn't involved in one or more charitable organization or do I have any reason to think Liberal Host are not doing the same. To give Limbaugh's 400K$ Contribution or "The Two Sisters" who equaled that, a little contrast, the Obama's in all of 2009 made contributions of 330K$ (think 40 different) and think the Biden's contributed 5K$ to charity. This was his 20th straight year, promoting the Charity, on his radio and/or TV (on air, 5 Years) shows, which by any measure has been and is priceless.

 

Rush also has probably 100x to 1000x the money that Obama has.

Not that I think those sources are especially great, but I looked around at the numbers and they looked similar. It is safe to say the disparity is at least a full degree of magnitude, and likely between two and three.

 

 

 

What is bare necessity with regards to services? Some people honestly believe you just need "the right vibes" and then we don't even need a military. Others believe if we don't have thousands of nukes we are as good as dead. There are probably programs where most rational people would say are nonessential.

 

On that point, I disagree philosophically, and think if the costs would be substantially higher and the quality substantially lower through the free market then taxing to provide it publicly by voter approval is warranted. It's really an old conversation, and boils down to the fact that (1) everyone will end up paying taxes on things they feel are gratuitous and even offensive (2) others will strongly defend that spending. On top of that, there are always minorities who would privatize or federalize market sectors to the point where most would consider disastrous.

 

So I disagree philosophically, and at the same time find it unworkable in a practical sense since there will never be enough consensus over the term "Bare Necessity."

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Rush also has probably 100x to 1000x the money that Obama has.

Obama's money has changed quite a bit in the past few years.

 

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/04/obama_income_for_2009_is_55054.html

 

Book sales are great, apparently...

[bascule]

You want to help children dying of blood cancer? You'll have to fund that with whatever you have leftover

 

Psst, charitable contributions are tax deductible. Helping children dying of blood cancer reduces your obligations to Uncle Sam.

 

...after funding full grown, healthy adults for food and housing, and now health insurance

 

Something tells me healthy adults aren't going to be a big draw on the healthcare system.

 

All that said: government services are a pooled risk system. We pay into programs we may or may not end up using depending on life circumstances we cannot predict.

[padren]

Obama's money has changed quite a bit in the past few years.

 

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/04/obama_income_for_2009_is_55054.html

 

Book sales are great, apparently...

 

So if Obama could do that 100 times over, he would match the money Rush gets on those two radio contracts. I'd say it still stands that you can't compare their relative charitable donations as oranges and oranges.

[Mr Skeptic]

So it dawned on me, that this serves a better example of a point I've tried to make over the years. (I always used starving chinese kids as an example.)That when we set up programs to help folks and fund them with taxes, that we are essentially forcing everyone to redirect their capital to causes that we find important. We've decided that your causes will take a back seat to ours.

 

But what is the alternative? If we were to leave everything entirely optional, you'd get a serious free-rider problem. Why should I pay for roads when my neighbor needs them more than I do and will pay for them himself if no one else does? Why should I donate to public research when others will do it for me? Sure, there are some people that will donate to the various programs, but most likely many important things will be horribly underfunded. Shall we reward the people who are greedy and apathetic by letting them keep their money while everyone else spends money to their benefit?

 

I think I much rather the idea that Dak proposed: everyone pays taxes, but then gets to choose what programs to fund. Or at least picks someone to represent them for choosing what to fund, to avoid over-funding/overlooking things.

[Dak]

Or at least picks someone to represent them for choosing what to fund, to avoid over-funding/overlooking things.

 

Iterative voting would fix the problem of over-funding, as you could re-allocate your funds when it happens till there's a stable level of funding that everyone's happy with (in theory).

 

As for the 'someone else will fund the roads', maybe you could use pledging? e.g., I pledge to fund x% of my tax to roads iif at least £y is raised in tax and other people's pledges, thus forcing other people to actually contribute to roads if they want to see them maintained?

[John Cuthber]

If (OK, that's a big if) the people vote for it can it be immoral?

Isn't morality pretty much defined by the will of the community?