OP is flawed in so many ways, I hardly know where to start. I’ll choose order of increasing invection.
How is individual-targeted spending supposed to work? Suppose an extra $1 billion is raised, all targeted at education. The Congress has its own spending priorities, knew how much it thought appropriate for education and will reduce the general funding for education by the same amount as the earmark raised (perhaps they’ll need to wait till next year). I don’t think there is any real way to prevent that, but I’m sure proponents of the idea will try. Check recent threads about California’s dysfunctional state government to learn what intelligent people now believe about transferring power from legislature to direct public vote.
In any discussion about “raising taxes” it’s good to remember what raises are presently being proposed; this is discussed in another thread. In very round approximate numbers, households with gross income of $300,000 or less are being asked to pay ZERO additional taxes; households making $400,000 would be asked to pay about $3000 additional taxes.
That’s right. With all the shrill ranting about “Don’t raise my taxes!” it’s only a very small minority of Americans affected. This crucial fact seems to be completely ignored. Let me state it again in a larger font.
In very round approximate numbers, households with gross income of $300,000 or less are being asked to pay ZERO additional taxes; households making $400,000 would be asked to pay about $3000 additional taxes.
If OP is making less than $300,000 but would still be happy to increase his own tax by a significant amount voluntarily, my hat is off to him. But let’s please do not prattle about Americans happy to give $100 for their favorite program; that could only lead to “chump change” even if many participated (which is far FAR from conceivable reality). Are there any Dopers here who would volunteer $1000 ? (There are many rich people who have altruism but would be unlikely to participate if only for reason (1) above. Ted Turner donated a HUGE amount (many hundreds of millions IIRC) to the United Nations and was ridiculed hideously by the right-wing for it.)
The Golden Rule would be very nice if most people lived by it, but they don’t. I might favor gun control, but still carry my own gun in a state without gun control if I feel I need it for protection. Does this make me a hypocrite? OP’s theme (“If you support raising taxes, raise your own voluntarily”) is a particular kind of fallacy. Does it have a special name?
Congratulations on that insight. I’m sure you’ve stopped beating your wife too.
In addition, you can donate quite a bit to charity and take it as as a tax deduction.
My general understanding is a huge amount of this happens already and offsets taxpayer spend and therefore taxes paid to the government (e.g. United Way, Red Cross, research hospitals, etc).
I see your point but either you are cherry picking or missing the larger relevant one. What is perceived as social liberalism in the US is a natural reaction to higher rates of education, standard of living and literacy. The better educated a populace is, the more tolerant and less dogmatically religious they tend to be. China has a literacy rate of 95%, which is decent, but still not at the level of the western countries which nearly all rate in the 99th percentile. India ranks around 75%, and most of the African continent is languishing around the 50’s. All of those countries still have a very large, uneducated, poor class that makes up a significant percentage of their population. It is not surprising that social change is taking longer in these areas of the world.
As to the OP, I’d like to see taxes reformed so that your portion was split. The bulk goes to the general treasury and you can allocate the remaining percentage into programs you support. This would provide the clearest indicator of public support for any federal program. While no doubt the majority would probably select the easy option of not allocating, many would take the time to demonstrate their inclinations. Those kind of hard numbers would be a great political resources for any party to rely upon.
And here I was taking your post seriously until I came to this ad hominem implying people who are against raising taxes are wife beaters. Now I have to reread your post with your prejudice in mind.
Nice way to nullify your argument. I especially wonder why you didn’t go to the BBQ pit for that tidbit since you had the BBQ pit on your mind.
Citation please as to whether this is correlation or cause and effect. How do you know that it’s not the other way around, that greater social liberalism leads to greater education, rather than the other way around.
(anecdote) My sociology instructor from college and I are still in touch. He and a good deal of other teachers I talk to are concerned that public education is becoming less and less education and more and more political indoctrination. (end anecdote)
If this is so, your point becomes meaningless and becomes “the more we indoctrinate the higher the rates of indoctrination become.”
Nor do I think reading rates alone are a sufficient yardstick to measure this by. It might be different if all Americans were required to pass logic, philosophy, and higher science courses (only the basics are required) but they aren’t. Reading alone could mean that the left just does a better job selling its ideas by manipulative means to people who cannot properly analyze what is being said.
Mind you, I am not accusing the left of doing this, just pointing out that it could mean that.
What is china’s science comprehension rate compared to the U.S.?
That was my thought. My understanding is the tax system would remain largely unchanged, that is, you’ll be charged according to whatever your tax bracket is and this money will be disbursed as it is now, with you, taxpayer, having no say outside of your tiny influence at the ballot box. The sole change is you will have the option of paying an additional amount that will be allocated as you see fit. This does not differ significantly from the system we have now. People can either pay extra money in taxes to be spent however, or choose specific causes/organizations to give money to. The OP’s proposal is a sort of mishmash of the two, with the funds donated to your “charity” being distributed and run by Uncle Sam.
Actually, since it’s a tax deduction and not a tax credit, charity does not keep your burden of “giving” the same since it does not reduce your tax bill by the same amount that you donated.
But we’ve tried this experiment before, in the 19th century. Didn’t work out so well. Charity does not prevent starvation, grinding poverty, and crumbling infrastructure.
To paraphrase an 18th century English parliamentarian on his perplexity at American tax protests, “they complain that man cannot be taxed without his consent, but in truth, no one is taxed by their consent.” So if taxes were voluntary, no one would pay them. Or, more accurately, I don’t suspect we’d take in much beyond the several million a year in voluntary contributions we already get.
The correlation is too strong in regards to historical trends to not be cause and effect. Take a look: HERE is a map of world illiteracy rates. Now lay that map over THIS one and notice the almost entirely direct match. It is worth noting that the countries represented also cross a wide variety of religions and cultural practices including christian, islamic, hindu, buddhist, and smaller indigenous faiths. What they have in *common *though is poor education, literacy rates, and standard of living. Historically, as a culture becomes fully literate, better educated, and raises its standard of living, dogmatic adherence to religion tends to die back. You can see the exact same trend in miniature in the united states if you compare the same criteria by state.
In order to administer a program- as opposed to a project- you need a steady, predictable income. Government organizations usually provide programs, and thus cannot easily cope with shifting budgets. Imagine that one year schools get a lot of funding, so they invest in building new schools. The next year, NASA might be in the news more, and the funding for schools dries up. Now you can’t afford to pay teachers to use those classrooms.
Shifting funding forces programs to work on a project basis, which makes them far less effective at achieving lasting, sustainable effects. It also creates a whole lot of problems simply spending that money. A huge amount of money to spend is just as big of an administrative nightmare as not enough money. It takes skilled managements and organizations to work with bigger budgets.
This.
2012: NASA gets $100 billion in funding. Announces project to establish a permanent base on Mars. Massive round of hiring and contracts.
2013: Mayan disaster strikes at the end of 2012 but the world is preserved. NASA gets $1 billion. Mars base project canceled due to lack of funds. All future satellite launches canceled. Other scientific research (including weather monitoring) halted. Minimal funding for absolutely necessary programs. Massive layoffs.
2014: Repeal of unwise taxation policy. Return to normalcy. NASA gets $20 billion.
Would you even consider working for a government agency if you weren’t sure you’d have a job from year to year? Or imagine the waste involved with funding a program one year only to get no money the next? Or then getting much more money than you need for existing programs while NOAA or the NSF or the NIH gets nearly none? It’s inefficiency on a massive scale.
If we both agree that the rich/wealthy/highest earning should shoulder a “bigger than today” tax burden, then a plan that the rich will avoid participating in will be a colossal failure.
The other problem is that we need everyone to participate if the plan is going to have any impact. People are not likely to hurt their personal finances by throwing voluntary money down the gaping maw that is our deficit. I’m not putting 2 cents into a voluntary program that will do jack squat to actually fix the problem. I’d willingly pay somewhat more in taxes as part of a comprehensive plan to fix the budget problem.
Read what he was responding to. If you can’t understand that **septimus **was illustrating how Stink Fish Pot was being a hypocrite, maybe there are other things you also are unable to understand? Like why the OP was utter nonsense, maybe?
Here’s one way to look at this. Americans voluntarily give to charity and get a tax deduction for it. For the sake of argument, let’s say that all taxpayers take all those charitable contributions and instead give them to the Federal government. How much would that bring in?
