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I would voluntarily pay higher taxes for more services. How else would you purpose large infrastructure projects to be handled? It's precisely scale that's nee

I would voluntarily pay higher taxes for more services. How else would you purpose large infrastructure projects to be handled? It's precisely scale that's needed to get good ROI. Look up the word monopsony. Also consider the word network, and it's effects, in "transportation network", and consider how scale plays into that as well. As for the rest of your ideas, citation needed.

slickrick216 5y ago
Depending on where you are you can make a voluntary donation to the government. In some places it’s actually similar to a charitable donation so has a tax writeoff. However in response to your point and in fairness to OP you can’t in the overwhelming majority of places decide where your money goes. It’s just pooled and used for whatever government wants to do with it. This is what most people have a problem with. Personally I can see the merit in having some shared system but it should voluntarily always. Compelling people’s money through state sanctioned force which includes fines and imprisonment is sick. It promotes a parasitic relationship with government where people don’t feel part of it. Instead they feel smothered by it.
- daenz 5y ago
  It would be cool if you had to pay $X in taxes, but there were different sliders for allocating where your taxes went (10% to infra, 20% to green initiatives, etc). That way people can support things that they believe in, and they feel more invested in the outcomes.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    It would also be cool if people had long, complex, ongoing conversations (and meta-conversations) about feasible improvements like this to the design of our governments. Petty polarizing arguments arguments are soon much more appealing though. :(
    - mistermann 5y ago
      Hmmmm, -2. From this, would it be logical to conclude that at least three people believe that this is not a good idea?
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Sounds good at first, but it's actually deeply anti-democratic: You're giving people more influence on the state depending on their income and wealth. That's like wealth-based suffrage.
    - daenz 5y ago
      Makes sense. The percentage that you have to freely allocate could be a function of the amount being allocated. For example, someone with $1M income has only 20% of their taxes for free allocation, while someone with $50k income can freely allocate 100%.
      - chii 5y ago
        So in other words, it's OK if the rich get less representation, because they're rich? But it's not OK if the poor gets less representation - because of political correctness?
        anoncake 5y ago
        Unless taxes are regressive, the rich still get more representation in that example.
AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
What stops you from sending a check to IRS now?
fallingknife 5y ago
In theory so would I. But in practice the government keeps spending more and more money without providing more or better services so it's just not a good investment. If the government wants to build infrastructure they should pick a couple of big projects and complete them on time and on budget. Then maybe I will be willing to fork over more taxes for more projects.
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  It would be interesting to have a "tax rewards" system, so that people didn't You paid $10k of taxes this year? Here's for you a free pass to all national parks. You paid $50k? Here's the card - similar to the one police officers give to their wives - that lets you get off minor infractions. Small tokens of appreciation often go long way.
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    Why should poor people (assuming they are poor through no fault of their own) not have equal access to services?
  - cracker-news 5y ago
    Well that's a terrible idea.
- greesil 5y ago
  Operation Warp Speed had a pretty good ROI for the USA, no?
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Yes and most of that came from removing regulatory delays, raising the obvious question of why they were there in the first place.
    - greesil 5y ago
      You're forgetting coordinating at scale, and giant piles of money for parallelization of the building the manufacturing infrastructure. You think regulation was holding us back? How about the infrastructure to make the vaccines?

slickrick216 5y ago

Depending on where you are you can make a voluntary donation to the government. In some places it’s actually similar to a charitable donation so has a tax writeoff. However in response to your point and in fairness to OP you can’t in the overwhelming majority of places decide where your money goes. It’s just pooled and used for whatever government wants to do with it. This is what most people have a problem with. Personally I can see the merit in having some shared system but it should voluntarily always. Compelling people’s money through state sanctioned force which includes fines and imprisonment is sick. It promotes a parasitic relationship with government where people don’t feel part of it. Instead they feel smothered by it.

daenz 5y ago
It would be cool if you had to pay $X in taxes, but there were different sliders for allocating where your taxes went (10% to infra, 20% to green initiatives, etc). That way people can support things that they believe in, and they feel more invested in the outcomes.
- mistermann 5y ago
  It would also be cool if people had long, complex, ongoing conversations (and meta-conversations) about feasible improvements like this to the design of our governments. Petty polarizing arguments arguments are soon much more appealing though. :(
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Hmmmm, -2. From this, would it be logical to conclude that at least three people believe that this is not a good idea?
- anoncake 5y ago
  Sounds good at first, but it's actually deeply anti-democratic: You're giving people more influence on the state depending on their income and wealth. That's like wealth-based suffrage.
  - daenz 5y ago
    Makes sense. The percentage that you have to freely allocate could be a function of the amount being allocated. For example, someone with $1M income has only 20% of their taxes for free allocation, while someone with $50k income can freely allocate 100%.
    - chii 5y ago
      So in other words, it's OK if the rich get less representation, because they're rich? But it's not OK if the poor gets less representation - because of political correctness?
      - anoncake 5y ago
        Unless taxes are regressive, the rich still get more representation in that example.

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago

What stops you from sending a check to IRS now?

fallingknife 5y ago

In theory so would I. But in practice the government keeps spending more and more money without providing more or better services so it's just not a good investment. If the government wants to build infrastructure they should pick a couple of big projects and complete them on time and on budget. Then maybe I will be willing to fork over more taxes for more projects.

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
It would be interesting to have a "tax rewards" system, so that people didn't You paid $10k of taxes this year? Here's for you a free pass to all national parks. You paid $50k? Here's the card - similar to the one police officers give to their wives - that lets you get off minor infractions. Small tokens of appreciation often go long way.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Why should poor people (assuming they are poor through no fault of their own) not have equal access to services?
- cracker-news 5y ago
  Well that's a terrible idea.
greesil 5y ago
Operation Warp Speed had a pretty good ROI for the USA, no?
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Yes and most of that came from removing regulatory delays, raising the obvious question of why they were there in the first place.
  - greesil 5y ago
    You're forgetting coordinating at scale, and giant piles of money for parallelization of the building the manufacturing infrastructure. You think regulation was holding us back? How about the infrastructure to make the vaccines?