5 ms·

"2) Paying taxes is one of the few transactional relationships you have with your government. If you ask me, a government representative should come to your off

by ellyagg 14y ago

"2) Paying taxes is one of the few transactional relationships you have with your government. If you ask me, a government representative should come to your office and you should pay him in cash, not hide and automate taxes so that they disappear." Yep. My brother resists giving his credit cards to businesses to keep on file because it makes it much easier for them to get your money habitually, unconsciously, accidentally and by sleight of hand. There should be a little friction at every transaction wherever possible. Frankly, this goes double for the government, which has way more power than any business. I like the government. It does lots of good stuff for me. But I like it at the right price, and I know that just like any other powerful entity, it will take more than its best share given a bad dynamic. In the same way that unconscious eating habits make people obese, unconscious tax policies makes the government obese.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
You should love paying your taxes because you love your government. That means that you and the government should have some sort of transactional relationship. I give the government 100 bucks every payday, and I see the things it provides for me. Then, every election, I get to vote for folks to make adjustments based on my desires. We have a relationship. I understand and am reminded on a regular basis that there is a trade-off I can't emphasize how much that making this relationship go away is a tremendously bad idea. Yes, tax paying can be easy -- if the tax code is easy. But you should do something on a regular basis to think about the agreement you're part of, even if it's just sending an SMS every week to transfer your funds. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the person responsible for making sure the Social Security agency sends out statements to show how much you've paid into the system. He felt, and I agree, that government systems for which there's no interaction eventually become perceived as either magic or worthless -- and either choice was really bad for a democracy over the long term. You shouldn't run a government the same way you'd run one of those companies that wants to automatically deduct money from your account every month -- hoping you'll never miss the charges once the benefit goes away and then they can continue billing. It just won't work.
- SilasX 14y ago
  Yeah, man, that's such a great point. I look around and see all the GREAT things the government does for me. I mean, who else but the federal government would put a massive army in the Middle East to blow up swarthy people that might think bad thoughts about me. I sure as hell can't afford that! So when I see thousands go each month to feed our democratically elected government, I smile -- because they're blowing up the darkies that none of us could afford individually to blow up. Same thing with drug prohibition. I mean, my friends and I are clever and all, but there's no way in hell we could ever scrape together the money, material, and manpower to lock up a bunch of darkies for putting the wrong chemicals in their bodies. I mean, SOMEONE has to keep them off the job market and from providing for their families, and we can't trust them to just go attempt rape on a white woman anymore. That's lots of prisons we've got to put up and manage. Golly gee, I'm just ECSTATIC to pay for these things.
king_jester 14y ago
> In the same way that unconscious eating habits make people obese, unconscious tax policies makes the government obese. This analogy doesn't make sense since unconscious eating habits do not have a causative link with obesity and existing studies about correlative relationships are fraught with issues.

by ellyagg 14y ago

DanielBMarkham 14y ago

You should love paying your taxes because you love your government. That means that you and the government should have some sort of transactional relationship. I give the government 100 bucks every payday, and I see the things it provides for me. Then, every election, I get to vote for folks to make adjustments based on my desires. We have a relationship. I understand and am reminded on a regular basis that there is a trade-off I can't emphasize how much that making this relationship go away is a tremendously bad idea. Yes, tax paying can be easy -- if the tax code is easy. But you should do something on a regular basis to think about the agreement you're part of, even if it's just sending an SMS every week to transfer your funds. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the person responsible for making sure the Social Security agency sends out statements to show how much you've paid into the system. He felt, and I agree, that government systems for which there's no interaction eventually become perceived as either magic or worthless -- and either choice was really bad for a democracy over the long term. You shouldn't run a government the same way you'd run one of those companies that wants to automatically deduct money from your account every month -- hoping you'll never miss the charges once the benefit goes away and then they can continue billing. It just won't work.

SilasX 14y ago
Yeah, man, that's such a great point. I look around and see all the GREAT things the government does for me. I mean, who else but the federal government would put a massive army in the Middle East to blow up swarthy people that might think bad thoughts about me. I sure as hell can't afford that! So when I see thousands go each month to feed our democratically elected government, I smile -- because they're blowing up the darkies that none of us could afford individually to blow up. Same thing with drug prohibition. I mean, my friends and I are clever and all, but there's no way in hell we could ever scrape together the money, material, and manpower to lock up a bunch of darkies for putting the wrong chemicals in their bodies. I mean, SOMEONE has to keep them off the job market and from providing for their families, and we can't trust them to just go attempt rape on a white woman anymore. That's lots of prisons we've got to put up and manage. Golly gee, I'm just ECSTATIC to pay for these things.

king_jester 14y ago

> In the same way that unconscious eating habits make people obese, unconscious tax policies makes the government obese. This analogy doesn't make sense since unconscious eating habits do not have a causative link with obesity and existing studies about correlative relationships are fraught with issues.