Always great to see a post by Robert Frank at RBC, this time him skewering the stale and intellectually dishonest argument that “anyone who thinks his taxes are too low can just choose to send in a check to the guvmint”.
I have been vaporizing Tea Partiers who intone this dreck for the past few years with the following: “Anyone who thinks guvmit spending is too big can just choose to refuse their Social Security check and their Medicare”.
Go and do likewise: The “but…but…but…that’s different!” sputtering and ensuing logical gymnastics are always fun to watch.
I like to tell Republicans that they can give themselves an income tax cut any time they want: just take a lower-paying job.
-TP
With your permission, Keith, I’m going to adopt that practice, too.
Yes, they speak of the 51% who pay no income tax as “Lucky Duckies”, yet I’ve never heard of a conservative in the top 49% offering to trade places.
Not only that, but they should opt out of libraries, parks, public schools, police services, etc. They should probably also avoid out of businesses who employ people who depend on such services, or depend on them themselves. They should stop eating food that has been inspected, living near natural hazards that have been guarded against, using drugs that have benefited from government research, or using technology that has been supported and developed by the government.
They did some silly news show recently where they asked a family to remove everything in their house that was made outside the US. Maybe they should do a similar show about people who have to live without direct or indirect government assistance. After (hopefully)surviving a few weeks, an actor playing Ronald Reagan could show up and introduce himself: “Hi. I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Probably won’t sound so scary then.
Brilliant Eli!
Why should I turn down the proceeds from a bad investment I was coerced into making?
Charles, the game is, “Heads they win, tails you lose.” Get with it.
Of course, we don’t just think government spending is too big. We think it’s spent on a lot of the wrong things, as well. Give me a way to opt out of my share of 80% of the ‘defense’ budget, (Most of which is not spent on defense and 100% of the war on drugs budget, and I will, gladly, even if I don’t get a corresponding cut in my taxes.
In the mean time, this pathetic “gotcha!” is just the latest version of closing the parks when money gets tight; Maximize the pain if you don’t get every cent you’re demanding. Except in this case you expect people to volunteer to have the pain maximized. How silly is that?
Dennis: I suggested it to share the fun, enjoy!
Funny that the two clowns above (Bellmore and Charles), who have no sympathy for unemployed people who won’t simply pack up and move to where job prospects might be better, STILL HAVE NOT MOVED TO SOMALIA. Or anywhere else where taxation is at the rate they want it to be, and/or spent only on the things they want. Hypocrisy much?
Well, Phil, you still haven’t picked up and moved to North Korea, so I’m not sure why you think you’ve got standing to complain…
What exactly is in North Korea that your fevered imagination supposes I want?
pretending for the moment that brett is being serious and not pulling our legs (which i can’t for a moment accept personally), the comparison remains fatuous because while somalia has zero taxes, zero governmentl, and zero services all of which seem to be the logical conclusion of the “drown the government in a bathtub” approach to taxation, north korea is an absolutist government along the lines of a personality cult theocray which provides no services in exchange for maximum taxation and maximum government. a more telling blow would have been to ask “well, phil, you still haven’t moved to canada (or norway or sweden . . .), so i’m not sure why you think you’ve got standing to complain.”
Indeed. But in his mind — which, when not addressing either whatever type of engineering he does for a living, or his baby, has NO idea what it’s talking about — anyone who is not a Republican or a libertarian ultimately desires a totalitarian state a la North Korea. Brett only deals in strawmen, while refusing to acknowledge his own hypocrisies.
Somolia does NOT have “zero” government. Rather, it as an excess of governments, fighting over which one will rule. It’s rather like having one mob in control of your neighborhood is superior to living in the middle of a turf war, though idealy you want to have nothing to do with organized crime at all.
If I can be told to move to Somolia because I want less government than the chap instructing me to move desires, then I can darned well tell people who want more government than *I* want to move to North Korea. Sauce for the goose, and all that.
Paying more taxes so whiners who are just as well-off as you but don’t want to pay can free-ride off you is just stupid. I’m willing to pay more if others with comparable income/wealth do as well.
The “donate to the IRS” challenge is absurd, and yes Brett, it’s exactly as absurd as demanding a Conservative to refuse government benefits.
Not that they do, of course (see also: Ayn Rand on Medicare). They take them, whining all the while. I know this, because I have many in the family.
Kinda like this: Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand’s law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand’s behalf she secured Rand’s Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O’Connor (husband Frank O’Connor).
One can certainly argue that Ayn Rand was entitled to those benefits even though she railed against their existence. If you do, however, you cannot whine about liberals who don’t donate to the IRS.
[i]Somolia does NOT have “zero” government. Rather, it as an excess of governments, fighting over which one will rule. It’s rather like having one mob in control of your neighborhood is superior to living in the middle of a turf war, though idealy you want to have nothing to do with organized crime at all.[/i]
Everyone who honestly believes that this is not exactly what libertarianism would devolve to given free reign — that is, competing private “security and protection groups” waging wars on behalf of their clients — raise your hands.
Nonetheless, Mr. Move-To-Where-The-Jobs-Are, you still haven’t relocated yourself so as to minimize your tax burden or government intrusion in your life, so perhaps a tall glass of STFU is in order?
No, Phil. See, you forgot the libertarian secret sauce: magic ponies and rainbow unicorns. The Somalians simply forgot to invent them.
I’m not eligible for either program, so I have every right to complain.
Somalia improved under anarchy:
http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2006/02/better_off_stat.html
Unfortunately GWB encouraged Ethiopia to invade.
Relocated myself to minimize my unemployedness, which is the only sort of relocation I really advocate. I suggest you relocate yourself mentally, to minimize your demands that people who disagree with you STFU; Such demands on the part of people who can’t enforce them are as silly as they are offensive.
Re Somalia, note in passing that the pirates like to work out of the northern portion, where there is still a bit of order and infrastructure, rather than the southern where there is none. In general it appears that pirates prefer not-quite-failed ststes (think Cambodia, Cameroon) over outright basket cases. See, e.g., http://tinyurl.com/4x2mqfu Whether a libertarian society would look like (southern) Somalia seems to me an open question. One hears very little discussion of exactly what is the libertarian “sweet spot,” and how we get there, and how we keep from overshooting.
“Somalia improved under anarchy.”
Careful raising that bar so high, it might hit you in the shins!
And I agree, Brett. Phil should have been more polite.
“One hears very little discussion of exactly what is the libertarian “sweet spot,” and how we get there, and how we keep from overshooting.”
Understandable, you don’t get a lot of discussion from liberals about how to avoid overshooting in the direction they want to go, either. You tend not to worry about overshoots when you’re fighting just to get things to budge a little in your desired direction.
I suggest you relocate yourself mentally, to minimize your demands . . .
As a “libertarian,” you of all people should understand the difference between suggest (which I did) and demand (which I did not).
Relocated myself to minimize my unemployedness, which is the only sort of relocation I really advocate.
That’s . . . silly.
“Everyone who honestly believes that this is not exactly what libertarianism would devolve to given free reign — that is, competing private “security and protection groups” waging wars on behalf of their clients — raise your hands.”
I’m raising my hand. This EXACTLY what libertarians have described as their perfect form of government - private contract enforcement. No taxes. No regulations. Completely decentralized. But remember, libertarians are utopianists. They want a fantasy land that does not exist anywhere on this earth. So when you point to a country that has the closest thing resembling what they describe of course they do not want.