5 ms·

As a taxpayer I think it’s fine. The option is there for me too if I ever need it.

by nkrisc 6y ago

alentist 6y ago
> I think it’s fine. Good. You can do it on your own dime, then.
- pilsetnieks 6y ago
  Do you police, educate or fight fires on your own dime?
  - adventured 6y ago
    Can we please try that experiment for once, letting people decide exactly what they want to do with the the taxed portion of their income, in terms of where they want to allocate it? We won't change or reduce their taxes, we'll let them choose where to direct it. (hint: military spending to name one thing, would be cut in half; the monsters in DC, the globalists and forever-war advocates that dominate both parties and have us de facto occupying Syria right now, would never allow this) Now that would be a glorious, worthy experiment. Of course everybody - without exception - knows the outcome ahead of time.
    - kasey_junk 6y ago
      We’ve done the experiment with firefighting over and over again. It doesn’t end well...
      - stale2002 6y ago
        You misunderstood their point. They were not asking for firefighters to be privatized. Instead they were asking for people to be allowed to earmark their tax revenue. So, someone could move their money from military spending, and put it in firefighting, for example.
        kasey_junk 6y ago
        That will almost certainly mean critical services won’t be funded. We can see this with “school choice” initiatives. When they pass those that pay for private school remove their funds from the public school coffers. Firefighting is the same. If I’ve put in place fire prevention equipment & paid for insurance why should I fund public firefighting?
        stale2002 6y ago
        > why should I fund public firefighting? I think quite a lot of people would choose to divert their military tax dollars to firefighting. > remove their funds from the public school coffers. I think that many more people would choose to put their tax dollars into public schools, than they would other things, such as the military.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      For a long time police and firefighting were essentially private services. It was horrible. In the US the public can't really choose to meaningfully allocate money for public health. It's catastrophically expensive.
    - anoonmoose 6y ago
      lol, military spending would go down a lot more than 50%
    - notriddle 6y ago
      The ballot box is supposed to be that "earmarking" system. If it's not working, fix it. The problem with directly earmarking taxes is that whoever pays more taxes gets more control over government spending. People with more money already have too much control of the government; I would rather not support policies that make it even worse.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      My prediction is "the collapse of society", because past the waste and corruption there is also a pretty mind-boggling amount of expertise that goes into allocating dollars to projects, and, if you're delegating to individual voters the task of replicating that expertise, you're not going to end up with a functioning NOAA, FSIS, FDA, NERC, &c. Beyond just knowing what NERC is, you have the coordination problem of knowing which worthy agencies need prioritized funding. This is an idea that's trendy in local government, especially among progressives; "participatory budgeting". I don't think it's going to work much better in municipal government, but you can watch and see whether the participatory budgets outperform the competently-managed ones. The cliched libertarian trope is that all our money goes into the military; the sharper libertarian critique would be that the United States is a health and benefits management provider with an army attached. I don't even know what a "globalist" is, by the way. Maybe you could pry that phrase a little further open for us.
- aaalexxjjamess 6y ago
  Shall we fix the roads that we drive on with our own dime too? When others benefit from a taxation and government spending system so do you. If workers have more time to meaningfully chose the work they wish to partake in, managers will have less trouble with unmotivated workers etc. It isnt just about 'give me money and taxes are OK', collectivised services are an economy of scale and benefit from these communal systems.
  - adventured 6y ago
    > Shall we fix the roads that we drive on with our own dime too? That's an interesting suggestion given how horrific US infrastructure is. If only they actually fixed the roads we drive on with the trillions of dimes they already take from us. Let's start with the fact that roads and infrastructure haven't been getting fixed properly for the past 20 to 30 years now despite a massive government expansion in spending and overall size since ~1999. Nearing $8 trillion in total government spending and they can't give us nice infrastructure or fix basic things like roads. California is supposedly awash in a tax revenue surplus of epic scale, and yet their roads and infrastructure are horrific, akin to developing nation conditions across Los Angeles as a matter of routine the past 10-15 years. edit: the downvotes are amusing, given how absolutely atrocious US infrastructure is, and given there is probably nobody left on this planet that doesn't know how bad it is. Every single person reading this knows how bad it is and how poor of a job the US has done at allocating its tax revenue the past several decades. It has been discussed endlessly here on HN for a decade or more, and now I point out that fact of reality and it's unpopular; un huh, sure.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Is the infrastructure in California really atrocious? It doesn't seem so bad compared to many other countries I've visited. Some of the roads that get a lot of heavy truck traffic are a little rough. We haven't had any bridges collapse lately.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      You get the downvotes when you compare California's infrastructure to the Third World. Sure, Germany and the Netherlands have excellent infra. Do you know what's "third world" infrastructure like? It's not having potable water. It's cities of 50K people with mostly dirt roads. It's highways with potholes literally bigger than mortar craters.
- nrb 6y ago
  Should only those of means be able to take time to evaluate their life and goals in the midst of a life-changing societal transition without the constant pressure of daily survival bearing down on them?
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    Are you willing to pay for their living expenses will they go through their existential crisis? I would be willing to do this for my kids, maybe, but not someone else's.
    - moron4hire 6y ago
      I think I would much rather pay for their living expenses than bail out yet another board of fat-cats who gambled on exotic financial instruments and lost. I'd much rather pay someone to live than buy more bombs to go kill someone in a country that has literally nothing to do with my daily life. I'd much rather give a kid a chance to do what they want, or a person to reevaluate their career, than to subsidize carbon fuels.
      - zarkov99 6y ago
        Fair enough, I am sure there are even worse ways to waste money, but that isn't a great reason to waste some of it in this particular way.
    - nrb 6y ago
      Certainly, especially when it’s an actual existential crisis that they and their families are going through.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  It’s everyone’s dime and it’s there for everyone too. It’s us, together, as a society. It’s how we watch out for each other.
  - alentist 6y ago
    Great. Then you should have no trouble convincing people to fund this voluntarily, right? Personally, I don't consider forcing people to work for others who are able but unwilling to work "looking out for each other". I call that slavery.
koolba 6y ago
As a taxpayer I think it’s fine for anyone to make the rationale decision to take effectively free money versus getting a job. I don’t blame the individual anymore than that I blame someone for taking a legal tax deduction. They’re acting rationally within the parameters of the law. But that doesn’t make it sound economic policy for the country as a whole. Far from it.
- madhadron 6y ago
  Absolutely. Children should be working in factories for minimum wage, not getting educated on the government dole.

As a taxpayer I think it’s fine. The option is there for me too if I ever need it.

by nkrisc 6y ago

As a taxpayer I think it’s fine. The option is there for me too if I ever need it.

alentist 6y ago

> I think it’s fine. Good. You can do it on your own dime, then.

pilsetnieks 6y ago
Do you police, educate or fight fires on your own dime?
- adventured 6y ago
  Can we please try that experiment for once, letting people decide exactly what they want to do with the the taxed portion of their income, in terms of where they want to allocate it? We won't change or reduce their taxes, we'll let them choose where to direct it. (hint: military spending to name one thing, would be cut in half; the monsters in DC, the globalists and forever-war advocates that dominate both parties and have us de facto occupying Syria right now, would never allow this) Now that would be a glorious, worthy experiment. Of course everybody - without exception - knows the outcome ahead of time.
  - kasey_junk 6y ago
    We’ve done the experiment with firefighting over and over again. It doesn’t end well...
    - stale2002 6y ago
      You misunderstood their point. They were not asking for firefighters to be privatized. Instead they were asking for people to be allowed to earmark their tax revenue. So, someone could move their money from military spending, and put it in firefighting, for example.
      - kasey_junk 6y ago
        That will almost certainly mean critical services won’t be funded. We can see this with “school choice” initiatives. When they pass those that pay for private school remove their funds from the public school coffers. Firefighting is the same. If I’ve put in place fire prevention equipment & paid for insurance why should I fund public firefighting?
        stale2002 6y ago
        > why should I fund public firefighting? I think quite a lot of people would choose to divert their military tax dollars to firefighting. > remove their funds from the public school coffers. I think that many more people would choose to put their tax dollars into public schools, than they would other things, such as the military.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    For a long time police and firefighting were essentially private services. It was horrible. In the US the public can't really choose to meaningfully allocate money for public health. It's catastrophically expensive.
  - anoonmoose 6y ago
    lol, military spending would go down a lot more than 50%
  - notriddle 6y ago
    The ballot box is supposed to be that "earmarking" system. If it's not working, fix it. The problem with directly earmarking taxes is that whoever pays more taxes gets more control over government spending. People with more money already have too much control of the government; I would rather not support policies that make it even worse.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    My prediction is "the collapse of society", because past the waste and corruption there is also a pretty mind-boggling amount of expertise that goes into allocating dollars to projects, and, if you're delegating to individual voters the task of replicating that expertise, you're not going to end up with a functioning NOAA, FSIS, FDA, NERC, &c. Beyond just knowing what NERC is, you have the coordination problem of knowing which worthy agencies need prioritized funding. This is an idea that's trendy in local government, especially among progressives; "participatory budgeting". I don't think it's going to work much better in municipal government, but you can watch and see whether the participatory budgets outperform the competently-managed ones. The cliched libertarian trope is that all our money goes into the military; the sharper libertarian critique would be that the United States is a health and benefits management provider with an army attached. I don't even know what a "globalist" is, by the way. Maybe you could pry that phrase a little further open for us.
aaalexxjjamess 6y ago
Shall we fix the roads that we drive on with our own dime too? When others benefit from a taxation and government spending system so do you. If workers have more time to meaningfully chose the work they wish to partake in, managers will have less trouble with unmotivated workers etc. It isnt just about 'give me money and taxes are OK', collectivised services are an economy of scale and benefit from these communal systems.
- adventured 6y ago
  > Shall we fix the roads that we drive on with our own dime too? That's an interesting suggestion given how horrific US infrastructure is. If only they actually fixed the roads we drive on with the trillions of dimes they already take from us. Let's start with the fact that roads and infrastructure haven't been getting fixed properly for the past 20 to 30 years now despite a massive government expansion in spending and overall size since ~1999. Nearing $8 trillion in total government spending and they can't give us nice infrastructure or fix basic things like roads. California is supposedly awash in a tax revenue surplus of epic scale, and yet their roads and infrastructure are horrific, akin to developing nation conditions across Los Angeles as a matter of routine the past 10-15 years. edit: the downvotes are amusing, given how absolutely atrocious US infrastructure is, and given there is probably nobody left on this planet that doesn't know how bad it is. Every single person reading this knows how bad it is and how poor of a job the US has done at allocating its tax revenue the past several decades. It has been discussed endlessly here on HN for a decade or more, and now I point out that fact of reality and it's unpopular; un huh, sure.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Is the infrastructure in California really atrocious? It doesn't seem so bad compared to many other countries I've visited. Some of the roads that get a lot of heavy truck traffic are a little rough. We haven't had any bridges collapse lately.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    You get the downvotes when you compare California's infrastructure to the Third World. Sure, Germany and the Netherlands have excellent infra. Do you know what's "third world" infrastructure like? It's not having potable water. It's cities of 50K people with mostly dirt roads. It's highways with potholes literally bigger than mortar craters.
nrb 6y ago
Should only those of means be able to take time to evaluate their life and goals in the midst of a life-changing societal transition without the constant pressure of daily survival bearing down on them?
- zarkov99 6y ago
  Are you willing to pay for their living expenses will they go through their existential crisis? I would be willing to do this for my kids, maybe, but not someone else's.
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    I think I would much rather pay for their living expenses than bail out yet another board of fat-cats who gambled on exotic financial instruments and lost. I'd much rather pay someone to live than buy more bombs to go kill someone in a country that has literally nothing to do with my daily life. I'd much rather give a kid a chance to do what they want, or a person to reevaluate their career, than to subsidize carbon fuels.
    - zarkov99 6y ago
      Fair enough, I am sure there are even worse ways to waste money, but that isn't a great reason to waste some of it in this particular way.
  - nrb 6y ago
    Certainly, especially when it’s an actual existential crisis that they and their families are going through.
nkrisc 6y ago
It’s everyone’s dime and it’s there for everyone too. It’s us, together, as a society. It’s how we watch out for each other.
- alentist 6y ago
  Great. Then you should have no trouble convincing people to fund this voluntarily, right? Personally, I don't consider forcing people to work for others who are able but unwilling to work "looking out for each other". I call that slavery.

koolba 6y ago

As a taxpayer I think it’s fine for anyone to make the rationale decision to take effectively free money versus getting a job. I don’t blame the individual anymore than that I blame someone for taking a legal tax deduction. They’re acting rationally within the parameters of the law. But that doesn’t make it sound economic policy for the country as a whole. Far from it.

madhadron 6y ago
Absolutely. Children should be working in factories for minimum wage, not getting educated on the government dole.