How in the world would pragmatarianism ever be implemented if the majority of Americans did not support it?
Well, that's the $64 trillion dollar question, isn't it? Without a solvency mechanism (the ability to allocate to savings), what would be pragmatic about it? Even if your version could pass, and it wouldn't for the reasons I stated, and then some.
Like I've already mentioned...the large majority of Americans favor and support some public goods. My mission is to show them how a market in the public sector will lead to an abundance of inexpensively produced public goods that they value.
You would have an even more distorted public sector, for reasons already explained, because those paying the most taxes would be channeling funds toward whatever they felt was in their specific interests alone. It would no longer be about common goods and services.
If people value public education...then how am I going to sell them pragmatarianism by arguing that the budgets for public schools and universities will collapse?
I was the one that predicted that their budgets would collapse, even without my provision for savings. But you are already arguing that they are risking exactly that by allowing taxpayers (most of whom are not even people) in the market to choose.
No no no...I take my cue from Bastiat...
There is, however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it. - Bastiat
What you are forgetting--and this goes to the heart of the problems that got us where we are now--is that Congress has the option NOT to fund anything, and/or to decrease funding in the aggregate. Congress already has the choice not to go into further debt, pay down debt, and to even build surpluses (AKA SAVE). Your proposal takes a choice that is RIGHT NOW in the power of Congress, and DESTROYS even the option for any individual to make that same choice. Without a) the ability NOT to make any choice or pay less in the aggregate, or b) having savings as a choice, you have already destroyed the individual foresight of taxpayers, as you replace it with [your] government foresight.
Furthermore, by having a fixed aggregate sum
that must be allocated for spending only from the onset, you have absolutely guaranteed that no "optimal" level can ever be found for any individual part of the public sector. Those agencies or programs that are the "crowned favorites" will not have an "optimal" sum at all. They will instead have
a lion's share of an aggregate sum that you have fixed.
Here's another passage that aptly describes the situation...
Put differently, voters in democratic regimes are unwilling to give up the protections offered by the welfare state, even when those protections are produced inefficiently, and at very high cost. Libertarians are not going to succeed politically by telling voters that they should give up welfare-state protections. Rather, libertarians need to show how freemarket programs will produce social security at levels comparable to those provided by welfare-state systems. - Jonathan R. Macey
Yes, that is a problem for libertarians, because most people have a normalcy bias in the existence of a predominately welfare state, and cannot conceive of the natural protections for social security (real social security, not the government sham by the same name), in the absence of a welfare state--the only state that most of them have ever known, which defines "reality" for them. But that doesn't let you off the hook, because your idea is every bit as non-existent and difficult for any of them to fathom, and puts everyone's pet programs
at risk of not being chosen. Worse yet, you aren't arguing for a free market solution at all. You are arguing for a STATIST SOLUTION that only happens to borrow [very loosely and selectively] from free market principles.
I have to cater my message to voters. They really don't want to lose the protections offered by the welfare state...but I really want to help them understand how markets work.
You can't leave out individual choice to save without making it highly questionable whether or not you even understand how a "free" market works.
Therefore...I don't say anything about the tax rate...I don't say anything about kicking welfare programs over to the private sector...I'm all about ceteris paribus.
Ceteris Paribus only means, "with other conditions remaining the same". You're not about
ceteris paribus if you remove the option NOT to pay, or to reduce the aggregate amount paid, or to have the choice for savings. You are, in fact, changing that element.
The only argument I make is that we should create a market in the public sector. This allows them to focus entirely on what the consequences would be.
I get that you're working on your political sales pitch, with a focus on only what would pander to voters, but you're being disingenuous about it, because in fact you yourself are not focusing on what the consequences would be. Your focus is on
what you want people to think the consequences could be.
Bringing option D into the equation only distracts them.
I think it has only distracted you, as its absence really is a fundamentally fatal flaw in your proposal. Option D already exists for Congress. You want that option, that
choice, REMOVED/DESTROYED for individuals.
It does absolutely nothing to help them understand why markets work and it does absolutely nothing to help them understand why they should want a market to be created for public goods.
Then you're generalizing. You have a fixation on "a market to be created for public goods", and you want it to work according to market principles, but you're creating nothing but a distortion, because you are being artificially selective about which market principles can even operate.
But do you have any evidence that conservatives as a group pay more taxes than liberals as a group do?
Firstly, let's get back to the fact that a major part of that group you refer to as "taxpayers" aren't even voters, and many of them aren't even citizens. There is no liberal or conservative to it in many cases--only self-interest. Furthermore, you haven't broken down what liberal and conservative even means. Fiscal or Social?
Also, I assume that we are talking about market principles, not politics. You're trying to weigh and predict the economic effects of the individual political purse-string choices of your proposal, but the only thing you can really predict is that it would be guaranteed to result in major shifts in funding, regardless which "group" pays more in taxes. That, and a gross distortion overall, because you are not giving individuals the choice to force savings, or reduce the aggregate amount that agencies spend in the aggregate, which means there is absolutely ZERO possibility of determining an "optimal" amount for any agency or program.
I've honestly searched for evidence that this is the case but haven't found anything conclusive. According to
OpenSecrets.org...in 2012 the Democratic Party raised $860,049,815 and the Republican Party raised $907,008,562.
That's for political campaign financing! There is absolutely no useful information there, as that has nothing whatso-fucking-ever to do with revenues from taxpayers or their political affiliations, assuming they even have any, or how they would choose on an individual level to allocate their own paid out funds if given the choice.
