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Re: Bush and his politics

Posted By: Superfoborg (term1-12.vta.west.net)
Date: 6/13/2003 at 12:53 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Bush and his politics (Phil)

: Here's where I begin to have doubts about this system on
: an ideological level. This system depends on the
: altruistic nature and philanthropic deeds of,
: primarily, the wealthy to provide public services for
: very little profit. For example I'll use the same
: sample calculation I used above, but change one
: statistic. The wealthy citizen now gives 200,000 in
: gifts, in addition to his OE of 50,000, to provide
: public services such as police, civil defense, fire
: coverage, health services, waste management, urban
: upkeep, public transportation, telecommunications,
: utilities, infrastructure, and public works. In
: actuality, it need not be a wealthy citizen; it could
: now be a public works company that has 250,000 in OEs.
: Either way, it's new net is zero. Now the total for
: half of the accumulated nets is 15,000. Subtract 5,000
: for the net of the government and there is 10,000
: divided between 10 units leaving a 1,000 index. Now
: the lower class units receive a refund of 3,000
: leaving each in the hole by 1,000 for the year. The
: lower middle class will now owe 4,000 leaving them
: with 6,000. The upper middle class will walk away with
: 11,000 after owing 9,000. And the wealthy unit or
: public service company which would have had an after
: tax profit of 111,000 in the first scenario now walks
: away with only 1,000 in refunds.

: Not only can I not think of an individual or company that
: would sacrifice that amount of time and resources for
: the public good, but the personal fortunes of everyone
: else would be diminished if they did. My confidence in
: humanity is not so great that I believe people will
: willingly make this sacrifice or even encourage others
: to do so if it will impact them negatively. This is
: why paying taxes that support the government run
: services in this country is mandatory. The
: government's very job is a form of philanthropy and it
: uses the money that others would rather not give to
: fund services that need it. This is partly why the IRS
: has such a fearsome reputation. If paying taxes and
: supporting basic public services were voluntary, or
: punishments for non-payment light, no one would pay.

A large portion of this is because you are presuming a large negative Net for the tier government, the $5000. That would be so if this were a more wealthy tier of the overarching society, in which case most of the people in it would be what the rest of the overarching society would consider wealthy in comparison, and thus the people in this tier very well should wind up making very little. Consider if this were a poor tier of society, which it likely would be if 5 of the 10 people in it come up $4000 short (before taxes) each year. Then take your exact same scenario above, but say the tier has a governmental Net of $5000, because they are poor and thus recieve money as welfare after the government's taxes. Now each person has $1000 more after taxes than in your calculation (since (5000 - (-5000))/10 = 1000). This means that the poorest people make and lose absolutely nothing, and the richest unit in this tier still walks away with not a lot more - which makes sense, since this is a poor tier of society.

As to your objection with the altruism of people, as I said, I designed this system specifically with nonaltruistic people in mind, to operate off their own desires and needs. The wealthier units don't want to pay to maintain the public services? Fine then, live without running water, sewage, electricity, etc. Ah, but you ask, why would they give that away to everyone else? Well on the one hand, they could say "Hey, I'm gonna get a tax cut from doing this and save money!" as many rich people do now. On the other hand they could be a short-sighted greedy bastard and SELL the service to everyone around them, in which case their Net skyrockets and the owe a ton more, and all the people they're selling to go badly into debt, so they're owed a ton more back. The system will balance it whether you're greedy or altruistic.

A good small-scale example of a system like this that I can point to in the real world is the way we set up the dues structure at a game group I play at called Amtgard (see http://www.sphidia.com/public/feanga/ for details). Normally, we change $1 a meeting. However, we give dues credits for people who contribute things to the chapter, like a tax write-off. Now instead of us (the govt of the chapter) having to buy food for the feasts and materials to maintain a chapter weapons collection and so on, people figure they'll just buy the stuff directly themselves and give it to the chapter for dues credits. People bring food and drink, donate materials, perform various services, all to avoid having to pay their 'taxes' when the time comes. It's a good motivator, I tell you.

Lemuridae Caveat

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