Illinois has the power to tax and collect tolls, so why not? Doesn’t it make more sense to charge a toll to a truck and pass that cost on to the products the truck delivers, than to collect all the taxes in one big pot in Washington to be parceled out through a political process?
So are we all in agreement that this is a really stupid idea?
If so, how do we (in the abstract sense) switch from taxing the general population for things the general population benefits from, to taxing one group to pay for the benefits of another group?
In other words, how far removed does the taxed group have to be before we say the indirect benefits no longer justify the direct taxation?
If on the other hand you’ve found a way to rationalize why Wyoming should pay, should Wyoming to also get a say in the nature of the projects?
We never have. There is not a single spending program that benefits all taxpayers equally, and there never has been. The general population doesn’t exist, in the sense of having homogenous needs that are met by some homogenous spending program. We have always been taxing some, often unequally, to benefit others, also unequally. To demand that government do otherwise, or not at all, is a specious argument.
Define group. Explain why this definition should be used.
Maybe there should be some kind of assembly to handle that. It could be comprised of representatives of all the states.
Well, at last we agree on something.
The “skin in the game” yokels haven’t shown up to ask that Mississippi be denied electoral votes if largesse from other states, via the Federal Government, means it lacks “skin” in Federal financing.
Oh, that’s right. The “skin in the game” crowd gets its votes from the very states that should oppose “skin in the game” thinking – not by coincidence, the very states with poorest educational systems. :dubious:
I am a socialist (and I live in Idaho). I would like to point out the a road in Idaho and the military are one in the same, joined forever by that notorious pinko Dwight Eisenhower with the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The system of roads we have today was designed, in part, to move troops around the country.
I’ve grown up (in both Idaho and Wyoming) listening to bullshit anarchists, libertarians, and posse comitatus whackjobs complain about any kind of government larger than a county, or with the capability to do more than enforce criminal codes and property rights. And I’m sick of it.
I can’t think of any major infrastructure project in this nation’s history that didn’t require government sponsorship. The Erie Canal was built with $7 million of New York State money. The transcontinental railroad was built with government bonds and land grants. These projects created short-term employment in their construction, but their real benefit was in the sustained economy they created regionally and nationally.
The economy benefits from business being able to move goods freely around the interstate system and the surface roads intrastate. It would be much more uncertain if they were to rely on states being able to set their own standards for roads and their safety, and fund them through local tariffs and tolls. And isn’t the one thing conservatives always harp on is the need for certainty in the business environment?
I benefit from getting goods that would be expensive or impossible to create locally. Other people benefit from having jobs because their employers can send goods to where the market is.
Wyoming is a big place. Wyoming has not got many people. It couldn’t fund two-lane highways to link its cities together much more build a freeway system that would enable trucks to cross the state quickly and safely. Federal intervention is necessary and that means a national tax to provide it.
I have a job, health care, food on my table, security, and an internet to write on because someone got an education funded with my tax dollars, or did research on the federal dime, or built a factory because they could get the goods to market on national roads. A road in Mississippi is as important to me in Idaho as the street in front of my house.
I will put in a simple argument, probably too simple for the question.
It is in the interest of each citizen that the nation itself remain reasonably strong in infrastructure, social capital, and rule of law.
Inequalities of nature, culture, and other factors will inevitably lead to some weak spots of infrastructure, social capital, and rule of law.
Having weak spots may endanger overall strength, depending on the degree and type of weakness (for example, weak infrastructure in butterfly conservation is far less likely to endanger overall strength than weak social capital amongst those responsible for counter-terrorism).
Therefore, inequalities resulting from nature, culture, and other factors may endanger overall strength of the nation.
Therefore, inequalities may be against the interest of any citizen of the nation.
It stands to reason that we should take care of our own short, mid and long-term interests.
Therefore, we should take care of these inequalities.
I don’t think this argument suggests the need for a totally egalitarian society. But if what we have in Mississippi is basically a pocket of the third world (and if you look at the human development indicators, that’s pretty much what it is, it’s like Ghana or something), then yes, we all need to do something about it.
HOWEVER, I think we have the right to tell Mississipians how to run their freaking state. I mean seriously, get it together, people. And I don’t think their “leaders” (demagogues) should have the right to refuse conditional aid, either. I think they should have to accept and change, or leave office so someone who cares about their constituency steps up.
Oh and regarding roads… for goodness sakes. Idaho isn’t going to build roads for its own massive population, you know. The highways in Idaho are for transit of foods and essential goods. Sure, they have some state roads for their citizens to go to work (to be productive and pay federal taxes, by the way), but a lot of the interstate system funds transport of goods. Trucks, trucks, and more trucks. Lettuce in Seattle in November. Thanks, 1950s taxpayers!
It’s not demonization to suggest that taxpayers also receive benefits from goods in an intangible or far-removed, aggregate way that they themselves might not be aware of. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” comes to mind. A board is more useful in a boat, even if it can’t see how the anchor does it any good as it bumps the side on the way down.
Strawman. No one suggested that everyone has to benefit equally. The OP is exactly the opposite, where one group is taxed without benefits, while the other group gets benefits without tax.
I simply asked if anyone could rationalize their way to justify a case where one group is paying for the benefits of another.
Then surely it is in the interest of each citizen to contribute. Again this is an argument for a national tax, but not an argument for a select tax against a specific group.
This points towards the issue of how much say should the recipients have when receiving benefits they didn’t pay for. At what point does national interest outweigh state sovereignty?
So in that case, should the federal government get to tell Idaho what roads are going where? If the feds decides that it’s in the national best interest for Nevada to have more potatoes, can the feds go in and plop down a new new highway in spite of local residents?
Intangible is a funny word choice, since what you’re saying is that the government shouldn’t have to explain how something benefits, people should just accept it, and pay for it, unquestionably. Wouldn’t a better overall system match taxes with perceivable benefits? And I’ll leave aside the issue of when a government action negatively affects the person being taxed…