[scurvy]

How about charging them for their public costs? If you get rescued by helicopter because you went skiing out of bounds at a resort and got lost, don't they send you a bill? How about that for people with money who abuse the system while abusing other things?

[toomuchtodo]

Like how the Japanese will send a bill to the family of someone who commits suicide on a train line?

I prefer my government to absorb the cost of human despair rather than bill for it. Don't write policy based on outliers.

[friedman23]

> absorb

You are very good at using language. The reality is that government doesn't 'absorb' anything. Other people, some of whom can't afford to, pay for it.

[toomuchtodo]

All economics are redistribution, it's simply the details that change with the methods. It is unrealistic to want a world where each person pays exactly for what they consume or are liable for.

[friedman23]

Maybe you are right but I cannot understand or agree with this idea that has taken hold among some on the internet that we should be happy to pay taxes because the government will go and solve problems with that money. Beyond the fact that the government is horrible at allocating resources and using them efficiently, every tax is a dollar being taken from the economy that could have gone to people that produce things of value not what some bureaucrat decided was of value.

[pjmorris]

Three arguments in favor of governments and taxes: 1) Taxes are what makes a currency valuable (if you don't believe me, try printing your own money, or using Monopoly money, to pay for something) 2) Governments provide currency (also, see above). Look for the lowest interest rates on financial instruments, and you'll find governments. 3) Governments enforce property rights.

No taxes, no currency, no economy to speak of (see: anywhere without a functioning government).

I don't get how some on the internet live and breathe in a government-sponsored property and currency regime and rail against the government part of it, but want to keep the property and currency.

[maxerickson]

every tax is a dollar being taken from the economy

Government turns around and spends those dollars in the economy. They are reallocated, not removed.

[friedman23]

Individuals are significantly better at allocating resources than a central authority.

[jasonkostempski]

Sending the bill to the family is dumb but there's sense in sending the person responsible for damages bills. I think we already mostly do that though, they just don't always pay the bill.