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The ideas expressed in this article should be applied to government. Everything in government should be a financial transaction. I should be able to see a list
by austincheney 6y ago
The ideas expressed in this article should be applied to government. Everything in government should be a financial transaction. I should be able to see a list of what my federal income tax dollars pay for as a percentage of my tax contributions down to the 0.1% mark. Those assessments should be based on the real money government pays not the estimated funds that float around a bill or a budget.
My thinking is that if people actually saw what they are paying for they would advocate for different policies because it feels great to spend other peoples’ money from some magical endless pool of money on programs that at the surface make us feel good.
- scarmig 6y agoRealistically, large numbers of people pay little to no tax, and so the amount they "pay" for every service will be small, if not zero or negative.
- austincheney 6y agoI have unpopular opinions about that as well.
- conception 6y agoThis is partially true... for income taxes. A large number of people do not pay income tax, and this includes retirees, the disabled, students, the very wealthy, etc etc. There are many types of taxes. And just about everyone pays taxes of some sort.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mjcohen 6y agoI am a retiree and I very definitely pay income tax.
- conception 6y agoI definitely wasn’t being clear there. I meant those 30% or so of retirees that depend entirely on social security.
- XorNot 6y agoThe US federal budget's spending allocations, both upfront and actual, are publicly available (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/budget https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/budget). You know how much money you pay in taxes. This is not difficult to figure out if you were actually interested.
- austincheney 6y agoThat is not an itemized receipt of what I pay. The accounting arithmetic to produce such is nontrivial. Asking any nontrivial calculation of the general public may as well be fantasy. For example it would be great to receive a receipt indicating that I paid $10.12 for school meal programs (0.31% of my tax contributions) if I don’t have children in school.
- minikites 6y agoThe problem with this idea is your premise that you shouldn't have to pay for school meals if you don't have children. Paying for school benefits everyone, even the childless, because it's good for society. The idea of itemized taxes reduces your interaction with others and society down to a capitalist transaction, which is not a healthy foundation for civilization. People are more than their productivity and your system has no way of accounting for that.
- austincheney 6y agoThe premise is transparency. People can do whatever they want with that transparency as more informed voters. The only benefit of decreasing transparency in government spending is corruption.
- minikites 6y agoDoes this view extend to product labels like the California Prop 65 Warning?
- 6y ago