Which Congressperson Would You Trust With Your Taxes?

[Xerographica]

In this thread...Perspectives Matter - Economics in One Lesson...I proposed a variety of pragmatarianism in which people would have the option to give their taxes to specific congresspeople. Out of curiosity, I started a thread in a couple political forums to see which congressperson people found to be the most trustworthy...

• Which Congressperson Would You Trust With Your Taxes? - DebatePolitics.com
• Which Congressperson Would You Trust With Your Taxes? - PoliticalForum.com

As you can tell from the lack of responses...it's not that people trust congress with their taxes...they don't even trust specific congresspeople with their taxes. The problem is that they do not trust other taxpayers to make the "right" decisions with their own taxes. Here's just a tiny fraction of the evidence from my blog entry...Unglamorous But Important Things

While I don't really trust them either, at least they are more knowledgeable in economics and have been elected specifically to do just that. Therefore, I trust them a bit more than I trust Joe Blow plumber who can't balance a checkbook to safe his life. - Cephus

You can't really expect people to take the time out to distribute their taxes in the optimal way for governance, because they don't have the interest, education, or experience for it, usually. Bureaucratic functions are left up to officials for good reason, because they usually are people with the appropriate knowledge and experience. Joe the Plumber might be good at his job, but he doesn't have the background or perspective for delegating funds for the government. - Serfin' USA

For a while now I've been trying to teach you guys about Bastiat's opportunity cost concept and Hayek's partial knowledge concept. Just recently, thanks to helmuth_hubener's suggestion that I listen to Ralph Raico's seminar on Classical Liberalism, I learned that a French economist by the name of Turgot discussed the opportunity cost concept and the partial knowledge concept before Bastiat was even born. In other words...he was an early proponent of the idea that perspectives matter...

Although Turgot called the cost of a product its “fundamental value,” he comes down generally to a rudimentary version of the later Austrian view that all costs are really “opportunity costs,” sacrifices foregoing a certain amount of resources that would have been produced elsewhere. Thus, Turgot’s actor (in this case an isolated one) appraises and evaluates objects on the basis of their significance to himself. First, Turgot says that this significance, or utility, is the importance of his “time and toil” expended, but then he treats this concept as equivalent to productive opportunity foregone: as “the portion of his resources which he can use to acquire an evaluated object without thereby sacrificing the quest for other objects of equal or greater importance.” - Murray Rothbard, The Turgot Collection

Thus our policy should surrender itself to the course of nature, and the course of commerce, which is no less necessary and no less irresistible than the course of nature, without seeking to direct this course. For, in order to guide it without disturbing it, and without injuring ourselves, it would be necessary for us to be able to follow all the changes in the needs, the interests, and the industry of mankind. It would be necessary to know these in such detail as would be physically impossible to obtain, and in which even the most skillful, the most active and the most painstaking government will risk always to be wrong in half the cases, as is observed or acknowledged by Abbé Galiani in a work in which he nevertheless vindicates with the greatest zeal the system of prohibitions just on the type of trade where they are most disastrous, to wit, the grain trade. I add that, even if we had for all these particulars the mass of knowledge which is impossible to gather, the result would only be to let things go precisely as they would have gone by themselves, by the simple action of the self-interest of man, enlivened and held in check by a free competition. - Turgot, The Turgot Collection

In my thread on perspectives mattering....here's a point that Sam I am brought up...

So, what you're saying is, that if you donated that $2000 to something that ended up not getting enough money, then it sucks to be you. You just pissed $2000 for nothing. sounds like a plan.

Here's what Turgot's response would have been...

To expect the government to prevent such fraud from ever occurring would be like wanting it to provide cushions for all the children who might fall. To assume it to be possible to prevent successfully, by regulation, all possible malpractices of this kind, is to sacrifice to a chimerical perfection the whole progress of industry

and...

To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorizing them to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community

The information exists...but people just don't have it. If they don't have it then they'll never understand why they don't need 538 congresspeople making decisions with money that they did not sweat, toil, labor and sacrifice to earn. So let's get the Magna Carta Movement started and make it impossible for people to avoid bumping into this information.

It's really easy to do...just sign up to these forums and help people understand exactly how we would all stand to benefit by allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...

• Which Congressperson Would You Trust With Your Taxes? - DebatePolitics.com
• Which Congressperson Would You Trust With Your Taxes? - PoliticalForum.com

 

[TheTexan]

I think you missed the point about the immorality of taxes.

 

[otherone]

I think you missed the point about the immorality of taxes.

Theft is the heart of 'pragmatarianism'. He doesn't understand it, though.

 

[Xerographica]

I think you missed the point about the immorality of taxes.

Let's say that you hired me to be your personal shopper for food. There would obviously be a disparity between the food that I purchased for you and the food that you would have purchased for yourself. The less I knew you...the greater this disparity would be. For example...perhaps I might accidentally buy you peanuts even though you were allergic to peanuts.

Now, the vast majority of people sincerely believe that we need public goods to survive much in the same way that we need to eat food to survive. So when you tell them that taxes are immoral...it's like me telling you that spending your money on food is immoral. You'd think I was crazy just like most people think that you are crazy. That's not a recipe for success or progress.

Therefore...I choose to focus on economics. What I want to help taxpayers understand is the disparity between the public goods that they want...and the public goods that congress purchases for them. If they would fire a personal shopper that didn't purchase them private goods that they value...then why wouldn't they want to fire a personal shopper that purchased them public goods that they do not value?

 

[Sam I am]

I don't think that Xero understands the difference between individual goods, which affect only one person, and public goods which affect many.

most of the points I've seen Xero post hinges around the idea an individual can make decisions about public goods and not be subject to the decisions of others, or vice-versa.

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

Let's say that you hired me to be your personal shopper for food. There would obviously be a disparity between the food that I purchased for you and the food that you would have purchased for yourself. The less I knew you...the greater this disparity would be. For example...perhaps I might accidentally buy you peanuts even though you were allergic to peanuts.

Now, the vast majority of people sincerely believe that we need public goods to survive much in the same way that we need to eat food to survive. So when you tell them that taxes are immoral...it's like me telling you that spending your money on food is immoral. You'd think I was crazy just like most people think that you are crazy. That's not a recipe for success or progress.

Therefore...I choose to focus on economics. What I want to help taxpayers understand is the disparity between the public goods that they want...and the public goods that congress purchases for them. If they would fire a personal shopper that didn't purchase them private goods that they value...then why wouldn't they want to fire a personal shopper that purchased them public goods that they do not value?

Or I can just buy my own groceries and buy the foods I want and know I'm not allergic to.

 

[Cabal]

I think you missed the point about the immorality of taxes.

He just doesn't care. That's why he keeps making the same thread.

 

[Xerographica]

I don't think that Xero understands the difference between individual goods, which affect only one person, and public goods which affect many.

most of the points I've seen Xero post hinges around the idea an individual can make decisions about public goods and not be subject to the decisions of others, or vice-versa.

The very fact that public goods affect more than one person is evidence that we, the public, should have the freedom to choose which government organizations we give our taxes to. Why should a committee of 538 people be in charge of deciding what does and doesn't affect 150 million taxpayers? If you believe that a committee of planners should have control over what does and doesn't effect us...then how are your beliefs any different from socialism?

Thus, considered in themselves, in their own nature, in their normal state, and apart from all abuses, public services are, like private services, purely and simply acts of exchange. - Bastiat, Private and Public Services

 

[Xerographica]

Or I can just buy my own groceries and buy the foods I want and know I'm not allergic to.

That's exactly what I'm advocating. I'm advocating that taxpayers be given the freedom to use their own, individual taxes to purchase the public goods that they value. Why should taxpayers be forced to have a personal shopper for public goods?

 

[eduardo89]

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

That's exactly what I'm advocating. I'm advocating that taxpayers be given the freedom to use their own, individual taxes to purchase the public goods that they value. Why should taxpayers be forced to have a personal shopper for public goods?

What if I don't value public goods? Am I still forced to pay taxes?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

LOL!

 

[Xerographica]

What if I don't value public goods? Am I still forced to pay taxes?

If taxes were optional...do you think the opposition would agree to this compromise?

 

[Xerographica]

Theft is the heart of 'pragmatarianism'. He doesn't understand it, though.

Let's say you hate shopping and could care less about fashion...is it theft if your wife buys your clothes for you? What about if she used your money to buy expensive jewelry for herself? Would that be theft?

It's illogical to say that taxes are theft and then oppose pragmatarianism. If taxes are theft...then why wouldn't you want taxpayers to see exactly how the government is spending their hard-earned money? Why wouldn't you want 150 million "victims" to see the government from your perspective?

 

[eduardo89]

Let's say you hate shopping and could care less about fashion...is it theft if your wife buys your clothes for you? What about if she used your money to buy expensive jewelry for herself? Would that be theft?

Uh what?

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

Let's say you hate shopping and could care less about fashion...is it theft if your wife buys your clothes for you? What about if she used your money to buy expensive jewelry for herself? Would that be theft?

When you get married you enter a voluntary contract with your spouse. I've signed no such voluntary contract with any government.

It's illogical to say that taxes are theft and then oppose pragmatarianism. If taxes are theft...then why wouldn't you want taxpayers to see exactly how the government is spending their hard-earned money? Why wouldn't you want 150 million "victims" to see the government from your perspective?

If taxes are theft than abolish taxes.

 

[Xerographica]

When you get married you enter a voluntary contract with your spouse. I've signed no such voluntary contract with any government.

If taxes are theft than abolish taxes.

If death is uncertain then why not live forever? Sure...go ahead. Out of curiosity...can you make an economic argument for abolishing taxes?

 

[ronpaulfollower999]

If death is uncertain then why not live forever? Sure...go ahead. Out of curiosity...can you make an economic argument for abolishing taxes?

I'm not here to make an economic argument, I'm here to make a moral argument. If you want to pay taxes there is nothing I can do to prevent you from doing so, but are you so set on me paying taxes that you would put a gun to my head and force me to pay?

 

[otherone]

If you want to pay taxes there is nothing I can do to prevent you from doing so, but are you so set on me paying taxes that you would put a gun to my head and force me to pay?

The government has no idea how much to steal from you if it doesn't even know what one "chooses" to spend your money on. Any amount stolen would have to be completely arbitrary.

"Knock. Knock....gimme 10 grand!"
"What do you need it for?"
"You decide"
"Ok....the otherone retirement fund." SLAM.

 

[Xerographica]

I'm not here to make an economic argument, I'm here to make a moral argument. If you want to pay taxes there is nothing I can do to prevent you from doing so, but are you so set on me paying taxes that you would put a gun to my head and force me to pay?

Sure, if putting a gun to your head and forcing you to pay taxes saved lives...then yeah, I don't see why not. There you go...I just answered your moral question with a moral answer. Now...if we're going to have a fair discussion then please answer my question. Can you make an economic argument for abolishing taxes?

 

[Xerographica]

The government has no idea how much to steal from you if it doesn't even know what one "chooses" to spend your money on. Any amount stolen would have to be completely arbitrary.

"Knock. Knock....gimme 10 grand!"
"What do you need it for?"
"You decide"
"Ok....the otherone retirement fund." SLAM.

Are you saying that in a tax choice system...taxpayers would be happy with how government spent their taxes?