To any Libertarian. Would you authorize a new $1 billion agency to save $10 billion?

[Linden Arden]

Costs and savings are annual. On an ongoing basis there would be $9 billion in federal savings per year.

This is a hypothetical question (so John Mace I have no data to support an opinion since you always insist such data is provided whenever I post a question like this).

Which would it be? A new bureau or the savings?

[Bartman]

I'm a small "L" libertarian, so I'm not sure I count. But for me the answer is clearly yes. Simple practicality outweighs dogma in some cases. And while I think a minimalist approach to government is generally to be preferred, there are plenty of cases where government can actually be a preferred solution.

[XT]

Well, it helps to know the outcome in advance. Yeah, I'd say that if you could peer into the future with 100% accuracy, and know that by spending a little now you'd save tons more in the future (and if you could see the outcome years and decades further, verifying that it wasn't some sort of ponzi scheme or that the 'savings' weren't illusory 10 or 20 years down the pike), then I'd guess most folks would rather spend a a billion in the short term for the sure and certain knowledge of $10 billion saved down the road.

Why?

-XT

[Linden Arden]

Well, you are both reasonable.

I argue with pure Rothbard anarchist types on Reason.com who insist that any government of any kind is tyranny of the state and should be fought like the plague at any cost.

[XT]

Well, there are fanatics in any group of people...the fact that there are some real loonies under the banner of Libertarianism is no real surprise, since it's pretty fringe in any case. My guess is that the real argument would be 'how do you KNOW it's going to save $10 billion?' That's the kicker. Pretty obviously anyone who, with sure and certain knowledge of the future wouldn't spend a billion to save $10 billion is a fanatic...but, the thing is, no one really knows the future, and intuitively creating a new government agency is unlikely to give a 10 fold return on investment over any period of time. New government agencies are generally not formed to save money, but to prove some service that was either done by some other agency, or to provide some new service to the public (such as Homeland Security)...a service that some non-zero number of tax paying citizens wants or thinks they need. They aren't formed to save lots of money, because the government isn't really in the business of saving money...they are in the business of providing services to the tax payers.

-XT

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Linden Arden

Well, you are both reasonable.

I argue with pure Rothbard anarchist types on Reason.com who insist that any government of any kind is tyranny of the state and should be fought like the plague at any cost.

I dont think even Rothbard would turn something like that down. I'm curious to see know how someone would argue against such an agency. How is government intrusion into government anything at all like government intrusion into private sector? Seems like some people just have so much time on their hands that they thought themselves into a corner.

[Chronos]

Surely, it's more reasonable to measure the size of government in dollars than in agencies, no? The number of agencies is a purely organizational matter, and you could merge two agencies, or split one into two, without changing what they actually do. But it's hard to see how "the government is spending $9 billion less" isn't a shrinking of government.

[Linden Arden]

Yes, I don't wish to marginalize libertarians. I want to empower them to create a viable third party and squash Conservatism - which I consider poison to our political process.

In a recent GOP debate this 10-1 ratio question came up and they all said to piss on it.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by Linden Arden

In a recent GOP debate this 10-1 ratio question came up and they all said to piss on it.

Thing is, that's not entirely an unjustifiable stance given history, where numerous government initiatives have promised to streamline government and cut expenses but failed to deliver, in fact making the problem worse. Is it worth spending a billion on the promise of saving ten, considering who's making that promise?

[sisu]

Depends on how they are saving money, what are effects on me and society in general?

[septimus]

I may be conflating "libertarians" and "fiscal conservatives" but OP's query need not be just a thought experiment.

In another thread I mentioned IRS budget cuts which cost the Treausry far more than they save. So instead of a "new $1 billion agency", OP could restore the $1 billion cut from IRS budget and save $10 billion or so by better enforcement, i.e. catching more cheats. (I'm not sure what the ratio is. The linked-to article has "The I.R.S. identified one million returns as possibly fraudulent, the report found, an increase of 72 percent over 2010" and "For every dollar in funds, the I.R.S. brings in $200 in revenue, the report said" though I'm almost certain the 2nd excerpt here was stupidly misleading.

In the other thread no one contested this example of Republican hypocrisy (cutting the profit-making IRS to "save money" )

(Perhaps it's insulting to state the obvious, but those who support lower taxes and many loopholes need not support cutting IRS. IRS employees don't change the tax rates nor close legitimate loopholes -- they catch cheats.)

[emacknight]

Originally Posted by septimus

I may be conflating "libertarians" and "fiscal conservatives" but OP's query need not be just a thought experiment.

You're not alone. This thread highlights a lot of the misconceptions you guys have.

Originally Posted by septimus

OP could restore the $1 billion cut from IRS budget and save $10 billion or so by better enforcement, i.e. catching more cheats.

Now, this would seem like a no-brainer. Spend $1 billion on more enforcement and recover $10billion in unpaid taxes.

But think about that for a second, what does more enforcement mean? More enforcement means more audits, and what is an audit if not the single biggest violation of a person's privacy? What you are suggesting is having the government go through more people's lives to see if they really drove 12 miles for work or just 10. If the clothes they donated to charity were really worth $100 or $50.

Can you see how some people might not want another government agency, full of unelected bureaucrats, whose sole purpose is to sift through people's lives by means of their financial records? With the ability to go back 3 years, or should we make it 5, or 10?

This is where the real answer is to fix the freakin tax code so it isn't so easy to evade. I'd suggest you volunteer for the first audit...

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by emacknight

Now, this would seem like a no-brainer. Spend $1 billion on more enforcement and recover $10billion in unpaid taxes.

But think about that for a second, what does more enforcement mean? More enforcement means more audits, and what is an audit if not the single biggest violation of a person's privacy? What you are suggesting is having the government go through more people's lives to see if they really drove 12 miles for work or just 10. If the clothes they donated to charity were really worth $100 or $50.

Can you see how some people might not want another government agency, full of unelected bureaucrats, whose sole purpose is to sift through people's lives by means of their financial records? With the ability to go back 3 years, or should we make it 5, or 10?

This is where the real answer is to fix the freakin tax code so it isn't so easy to evade. I'd suggest you volunteer for the first audit...

Audits are not done at random, as you'd know if you lived here and went through the audit check part of tax software. Say, for instance, a cross check showed that a person claimed $10,000 in mortgage payments as a deduction while his bank only reported $5,000. Would you object to an audit then?
Why do you think taxes are easy to evade (besides the IRS not having enough staff to follow up.) Compared to the first times I did taxes, they are much harder to evade, since there was much less electronic stuff, so an IRS person would have to manually correlate documents.

Anyhow, do you want us to become like Greece?

[XT]

I thought a certain percentage of audits were done at random, actually...and the rest were due to the software flagging certain returns as you mentioned. Is that not the case??

-XT

[Bryan Ekers]

Heck, wanna save money? Ditch the penny and the nickel and render all prices to the nearest tenth of a dollar instead of the hundredth.

[erislover]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Heck, wanna save money? Ditch the penny and the nickel and render all prices to the nearest tenth of a dollar instead of the hundredth.

Don't mess with Bank of America's "Keep the Change" savings program, bub.

[randomface]

Will the method they are going to be using to save this money mean more controls on what citizens can do?

How likely is it to actually save this money?

If it doesn't take away any more power from citizens, isn't an expansion of government power over citizens, and is actually likely to save this money, I don't see why most libertarians won't get on board.

[FlyByNight512]

Common sense > idealism, and even then I don't think your suggestion is necessarily against libertarian thought. As others have pointed out, the problem is that it's never this clear cut in reality. This is also why I call myself a moderate libertarian. I'm quite happy to ditch ideals when there's another solution - from any school of thought - that makes more sense in the given situation.

[Ají de Gallina]

Small "l" libertain.
Since it's a hypothetical were it is given that 9bn will be saved I'd say yes unless there is a massive loss of rights or something like.

[emacknight]

I was trying to think of some other fun ways for a new government agency to save the government lots of money.

If we spent $1billion on a better domestic eavesdropping program, getting rid of that pesky constitution, I'm sure the FBI and Department of Justice would save a ton on investigations and court costs.

What if we hired a team of ninja assassins to kill seniors before they started racking up medical costs? That would save Medicare and Social Security a ton.

If we had more radar traps we could catch more speeders, more meter-maids to issue more parking tickets.

On a serious note: picture a tiny libertopia with the bare minimum of government services. And lets say every year the graduating class from the neighbouring country tries to invade. This means the tiny government has to call up conscripts from local militias. Buy a bunch of equipment, go through a lot of training, and then deal with the additional cost of a crappy half-assed army. Instead, for $1billion they could have a Department of War with a well trained and well equipped volunteer army constantly ready to defend against hooligan. That's the sort of agency that is a worthwhile expenditure.

This tiny libertopia would also be on some sort of gold standard. So lets say every year the graduating class raids Fort Knox and steals $10billion. Spending $1billion a year to keep the gold safe would be a pretty good investment.

[XT]

Don't know how accurate this is, but according to Turbo Tax they have been doing random audits since 2007:

The IRS Random Audits Are Back

The IRS has recently announced that, starting in October, 2007, they will be randomly picking tax returns for full-fledged audits. The plan is to select 13,000 income tax returns, from the 136 million returns filed for 2006. They expect to continue this plan for the next several years.

The IRS is under strong pressure from Congress to close the $290 billion tax gap (the difference between what is collected and what should be collected.) To do this, the IRS needs “fresh” data to update their computer program that statistically figures out which tax returns to audit in the future to get the most money.

-XT

[John Mace]

A Libertarian (and anyone else, I hope) would want to know what the agency was supposed to do. If it is set up to kill all suspected criminals on the spot thus saving court costs, then no, a Libertarian would not support that.

So, LA, I don't ask for cites about hypotheticals, but I do want to know more about an agency than "it exists" before I'm going to think it's a good idea.