4 ms·

I pay for most of the things you mentioned out of my own pocket. My kids go to private school. Currently, property tax pays for some of those things, but only b

by RUG3Y 10y ago

I pay for most of the things you mentioned out of my own pocket. My kids go to private school. Currently, property tax pays for some of those things, but only because our system is structured to work that way. Without getting into a long, drawn out discussion, I believe that there could be better ways to pay for those things.

gumby 10y ago
My kid went to private school as well but I benefit from free public education the same way I benefit from a good public health system: other people are somewhat educated and healthy meaning.
- twblalock 10y ago
  If people were to pay only for the government services they actually used, we would need some way to determine which ones they used. How would that be accomplished? The only way to do it would be to evaluate everyone's usage of government services. Some kind of bureaucracy would need to do that, and it would be large, because there are a lot of people to evaluate. How would we pay to run that bureaucracy? More taxes. So, even if public education didn't benefit society as a whole, there is still a pretty good reason everyone should pay for it.
  - RUG3Y 10y ago
    It's not taxes I object to. I think taxing income is much better than taxing property. I believe that we should have a right to our own property - I don't believe we should have to "rent" the right to keep what belongs to us from any government.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      In what way is taxing income any more fair or just? After all, our income belongs to us just as our property does. It seems odd to object to one but not the other on this basis.
    - gumby 10y ago
      In order to "own" something you need to be able to control it. That is, you could in theory build a huge wall, have appropriate armaments etc to keep people from stealing your stuff. Or you can outsource most of that to the government to do things like maintain the ground book, have a police force etc. You don't have to dispute a lot line with your neighbour because you have common resource that records that. Someone can't come and claim you didn't pay for it (or come in and claim they did) because those records are maintained. They also manage the stuff that's harder, not simply more expensive, to maintain such as that paint factory upstream that wants to dump their waste into the water. Sure, in theory you could try to do that all on your own but then you'd have no time to read hn.

by RUG3Y 10y ago

gumby 10y ago

My kid went to private school as well but I benefit from free public education the same way I benefit from a good public health system: other people are somewhat educated and healthy meaning.

twblalock 10y ago
If people were to pay only for the government services they actually used, we would need some way to determine which ones they used. How would that be accomplished? The only way to do it would be to evaluate everyone's usage of government services. Some kind of bureaucracy would need to do that, and it would be large, because there are a lot of people to evaluate. How would we pay to run that bureaucracy? More taxes. So, even if public education didn't benefit society as a whole, there is still a pretty good reason everyone should pay for it.
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  It's not taxes I object to. I think taxing income is much better than taxing property. I believe that we should have a right to our own property - I don't believe we should have to "rent" the right to keep what belongs to us from any government.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    In what way is taxing income any more fair or just? After all, our income belongs to us just as our property does. It seems odd to object to one but not the other on this basis.
  - gumby 10y ago
    In order to "own" something you need to be able to control it. That is, you could in theory build a huge wall, have appropriate armaments etc to keep people from stealing your stuff. Or you can outsource most of that to the government to do things like maintain the ground book, have a police force etc. You don't have to dispute a lot line with your neighbour because you have common resource that records that. Someone can't come and claim you didn't pay for it (or come in and claim they did) because those records are maintained. They also manage the stuff that's harder, not simply more expensive, to maintain such as that paint factory upstream that wants to dump their waste into the water. Sure, in theory you could try to do that all on your own but then you'd have no time to read hn.