Okay. But if going full time meant you doubled your salary that's different than going from zero to $2,500 for a 1 dollar per year increase. Anyway, I'm curious as to why you think it's fair for the people who benefit the most from war, the international merchants, to pay the least in taxes (no tariffs). Pretty much every war we've had has been a trade war from the Revolutionary War all the way through to today's oil wars. For more on that see "War is a racket" by General Smedley Butler.
Haha, that was a very dramatic and entertaining performance by "General Butler". As far as war being a racket as he defined it, I agree.
Why no tariffs? Because I take the Ron Paul approach on free trade. Here is a decent take on that, from Antiwar.com and the Doc. Starting the video from 5 min on is a decent truncation.
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2016/01/19/ron-paul-says-when-free-trade-fails-war-follows/
The heart of what I think about tariffs, with regards to war, is summarized by a sentence in that link:
"Protectionism [read "tariffs"] leads to trade wars which very often lead to hot wars."
Tariffs aren't ultimately a tax on international merchants, they are a tax on the consumers of the tariffed item. They are a tax on us.
Also, international merchants aren't guaranteed any profits from war, in fact, for most, war is as damaging to them as it is most people. War profiteers profit from war. Like Gen. Butler said there, it's gain for the few at the expense of the many.
Personally I think all government should be funded by GovFundMe, the government equivalent of GoFundMe. If someone wants to pay for the military in general or fund a particular war, let him. If someone wants to fund feeding hungry children, let him. Vote by spending your dollars.
Well, in principle, I agree! The problem being, you speak of a completely voluntarist society, which is wonderful, but I'm speaking of a government something like what the Founders had in mind. GovFundMe would cease to be about government at all.
Ultimately, I'm talking about a vast reduction in taxes and gov't revenue altogether, so that yes, we keep far more of what we earn and use it to fund what we want funded. It wouldn't leave room for endless wars and socialist programs. I'm talking about vastly simplifying taxation, if it must exist, and making revenue collection much more transparent.
As far as suddenly having to pay $2500 in taxes. Look, it could be stratified to lesson the impact, say you pay $500 at $20k, $1,000 at $22.5k and so on until you're at $2500. Frankly, I somewhat like the shock effect. Maybe if everyone experienced the pain of the year or so, in which all of their raises went to the feds, then good. Let the anger flow through you, and
remember that when you run across governmental squandering and waste!
I was initially arguing against the idea that a regressive income tax is somehow better than a tariff for...reasons. That said, there is a hidden cost to your ability to trade with someone across the ocean. That's the cost of the U.S. Navy. If the U.S. Navy quit protecting shipping lanes, either other countries would step up (and charge THEIR citizens the cost which would raise the cost of whatever it is you want to import), or merchant ships would have to arm themselves which would also raise the cost. And...it would probably become cheaper. Remember that Tom Hanks movie about the captain that hijacked by Somali pirates because all he had was a flare gun? I wonder how much his rescue by Navy SEALS cost? One merchant machine armed with a 50 cal and with the proper training could have avoided the whole thing.
