[pc86]

It isn't a foregone conclusion that states and other governments must increase taxes. If there's less money to go around, they could always spend less money.

I'm not trying to make a political point, but there are certain states where the knee-jerk reaction is all too often to increase taxes - or to tax unpopular things like cigarettes - rather than take a look at the budget and see if there's a middle ground.

[rayiner]

Unfunded liabilities are spent money coming due. You can cut services in other places, but that's a similar tradeoff. At the end of the day, why live in a state that taxes you like California but gives services like Tennessee?

[mjn]

That's sort of how I feel about U.S. taxes in general. I paid somewhat lower taxes in the U.S. than Denmark, but it felt like I got a ton less service. Despite paying taxes, there was no public healthcare, even public university charged thousands of dollars in tuition, transit wasn't great, unemployment insurance was relatively poor, public services like libraries were overcrowded, housing assistance had a 10-year waitlist. I'd happily pay more taxes in the U.S. if I felt that I got a high level of services. Or alternately I would feel that a fair rate for the level of services I did get was much lower.

[bobbydavid]

Have you seen that d3 visualization of the US federal budget? It's pretty interesting. Social security, Defense, and Medicare make up the lion's share of spending. you probably don't use these (except defense, arguably indirectly, but I suspect your politics would disagree with the budget size)

[mcv]

He's probably using social security and medicare more than defense. The chance that he gets sick or unemployed is probably a lot larger than the chance that the US gets attacked or significantly threatened.

Knowing that you're covered in case anything goes wrong is enough to make the taxes worth it.

[rayiner]

That's kind of a misleading comparison. The chances of the US getting attacked or threatened are low because we have tremendous war capability. For examples of the opposite, see Tibet, Palestine, etc, or all the countries that were colonized by the Europeans, or the countries whose natural resources are being extracted on questionably favorable terms by companies like Shell.

Every American benefits from the fact that we can dictate terms in nearly any interaction with other countries. It's a huge aspect of our political dynamic that most Americans take for granted, because they have no experience with a country where the democratic will has to be tempered by considerations of how military superiors will respond.

[mjn]

It's true that the U.S. and Tibet are on opposite sides of that spectrum, but there are a number of countries whose military spending as a percentage of GDP is between 1/4 and 1/2 as high as it is in the US, but who nonetheless defend themselves credibly. Examples: France, Turkey, Italy, Australia, Canada.

I can buy that some proportion of military spending is therefore for protection, but the actual amount of military spending seems considerably higher than the amount needed to keep the U.S. from being colonized.

[thecodeore]

I would prefer to pay for services I use then to have the money stolen from me by force while people pretend it is moral because it is called "taxes"

[rwl]

OK, you're trolling here, and if I could downvote you for it, I would; but since I can't, let me try to raise the level of discussion:

> I would prefer to pay for services I use

I invite you, sometime, to think about which services you really use, and try to figure out how much it would cost to purchase each of them if you were doing so on your own. Don't forget: police protection, fire protection, military protection, paved roads, functioning traffic signals and signs, groomed parks, trash collection (some places), up to sixteen years of education, enforcement of workplace safety standards, financial protection if you become suddenly disabled, a legal system in which to resolve disputes. I don't know what your specific situation is, but just about everyone benefits from those government services in the U.S., and you personally may benefit from many others. I'm guessing that purchasing the first three alone, as an individual on a private market, would probably outrun the total you pay in taxes.

You could lower the individual costs to you of a lot of these by finding a bunch of other people who also need these services, and pooling your money to buy them together. That's just how democratic government begins.

> have the money stolen from me by force

This is a dishonest characterization of the authority of a democratic government to levy taxes. Yes, if you don't pay taxes you owe, someone might come and take your property, and those people might have weapons or threaten you with imprisonment. But that is a measure of last resort, which will surely only be taken if you fail to respond to a long line of more reasonable measures. It does a great injustice to people who actually live under oppressive regimes to compare the collection of taxes under a democratic government to the kind of arbitrary, might-makes-right authority those people are subject to.

Furthermore, by characterizing taxes as 'stolen' money, you are implying that you somehow have an absolute or natural right to have it. Why do you think that? No matter what you do for work, the amount of money you take home is not the product of your exclusive efforts. It also depends on the protections you get just by living in a society that provides some of the services I listed above. You would take home a lot less if, for example, you couldn't rely on the police and legal system to prevent armed bandits from plundering your place of business whenever they please. You'd also probably be a lot less productive if you had to worry about such things on a daily basis. There's a lot standing behind 'your' money that isn't yours, by any reasonable measure.

> while people pretend it is moral because it is called "taxes".

A democratic government's authority to levy taxes does not derive from the name, nor from the force that it can, in extreme cases, use to collect them. Like the government's other kinds of authority, it derives (most people think) from the consent of the governed. Behind that phrase are some important and difficult questions, to be sure. But you are not helping to answer them by characterizing taxes as 'stolen' and 'immoral'.

[Houshalter]

>I invite you, sometime, to think about which services you really use, and try to figure out how much it would cost to purchase each of them if you were doing so on your own. Don't forget: police protection, fire protection, military protection, paved roads, functioning traffic signals and signs, groomed parks, trash collection (some places), up to sixteen years of education, enforcement of workplace safety standards, financial protection if you become suddenly disabled, a legal system in which to resolve disputes. I don't know what your specific situation is, but just about everyone benefits from those government services in the U.S., and you personally may benefit from many others. I'm guessing that purchasing the first three alone, as an individual on a private market, would probably outrun the total you pay in taxes.

First of all the comment he was replying to was talking about services like housing, transportation, and healthcare, which already are provided by the market and aren't really things the government has any advantage in. As for all the stuff it does pay for, at best it costs exactly the same amount as you have to pay in taxes. But the government spends money on a lot of other things with your taxes that don't really benefit you. So you would save a decent amount of money. And with no competition, the services they do provide cost a lot more then they probably could.

>You could lower the individual costs to you of a lot of these by finding a bunch of other people who also need these services, and pooling your money to buy them together. That's just how democratic government begins.

This applies to any service. Anything from food production to software development. A lot of people need those things, and they could cut costs if they pooled their money together for them.

>This is a dishonest characterization of the authority of a democratic government to levy taxes. Yes, if you don't pay taxes you owe, someone might come and take your property, and those people might have weapons or threaten you with imprisonment. But that is a measure of last resort, which will surely only be taken if you fail to respond to a long line of more reasonable measures. It does a great injustice to people who actually live under oppressive regimes to compare the collection of taxes under a democratic government to the kind of arbitrary, might-makes-right authority those people are subject to.

He was definitely using words with bad connotations, but technically it is true. Everyone pays their taxes to avoid having their property stolen or going to jail. The fact that force isn't applied unreasonably doesn't mean it isn't there.

>Like the government's other kinds of authority, it derives (most people think) from the consent of the governed.

There are people that don't consent. At best you could say the majority consent. You can justify it by saying it's better than any other system we know of, but not that people consent to it.

[rwl]

>As for all the stuff it does pay for, at best it costs exactly the same amount as you have to pay in taxes. But the government spends money on a lot of other things with your taxes that don't really benefit you. So you would save a decent amount of money.

So one way to look at the issue is, which costs me more: individual purchase of exactly the services I need, or public purchases of those services plus others that I don't?

This is an empirical question, and the answer depends both on what I need and what my government is currently spending money on. But in general, I think it's very unlikely that the first option could ever be cheaper, for most people and most government-provided services. This is because buying these things privately would mean I have (a) almost no bargaining power, and (b) much higher costs associated with coordinating my purchases with the needs and desires of other people.

> This applies to any service. Anything from food production to software development. A lot of people need those things, and they could cut costs if they pooled their money together for them.

I think this is actually a good starting criterion for deciding what the government should and should not pay for. The government should not pay for what I can get more cheaply or more efficiently by acting as a private individual. That doesn't mean it should pay for everything else, of course. But if sufficiently many people would benefit from something, and they can get it more cheaply by purchasing it together, there's a good case to be made for public investment.

Figuring out the line between what the public should buy versus what collections of private individuals should buy is a really hard problem. It's not always a matter of simply asking "is it cheaper if everyone pays in, or just the people who need it?" One of the benefits of a democracy is that we can have an ongoing public conversation about just where we want to draw that line.

> The fact that force isn't applied unreasonably doesn't mean it isn't there.

I agree. My point was not that the force isn't there, but that it is not the source of a democratic government's authority to levy taxes, and accordingly not the only reason that its citizens pay them. A government which people only obey because of the threat of force is an oppressive regime. I am fortunate not to live under such a government, as I think most people commenting here are too.

> There are people that don't consent. At best you could say the majority consent. You can justify it by saying it's better than any other system we know of, but not that people consent to it.

This is one of those difficult questions I spoke of. Obviously, most people do not explicitly consent to the authority of a democratic government. On the other hand, I'm not so sure it's clear that there are people who don't implicitly consent. Even people who disclaim support for the government usually don't take all possible measures to avoid its authority and benefits.

But actually, I agree that 'consent' may not be the right concept for explaining the source of the authority of democratic government. Still, I think there's something right about the consent idea, and I don't think it just comes down to our not knowing of any better system.

[mcv]

> First of all the comment he was replying to was talking about services like housing, transportation, and healthcare, which already are provided by the market and aren't really things the government has any advantage in. As for all the stuff it does pay for, at best it costs exactly the same amount as you have to pay in taxes. But the government spends money on a lot of other things with your taxes that don't really benefit you. So you would save a decent amount of money. And with no competition, the services they do provide cost a lot more then they probably could.

Healthcare is one area where a collective (i.e. by the government) approach has a definite advantage. Privatized health care and health insurance is a lot more expensive. The US has the highest medical costs in the western world, yet many people are lacking very basic medical care.

The second most expensive country (at roughly half the cost per capita) is Netherland, where health care is semi-private, semi-government, and health insurance is private but regulated and compulsory in order to provide a uniform standard for everybody. And surrounding countries (where it's cheaper) have better health care at least in some areas.

I don't have numbers, but I expect that the cheapest and highest quality medical care in the western world will be in some country where health care is strongly dominated by the government.

> Everyone pays their taxes to avoid having their property stolen or going to jail. The fact that force isn't applied unreasonably doesn't mean it isn't there.

Just like everybody doesn't steal from their neighbour or kill people who anger them in order to avoid going to jail. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with taxes; it means we live in a civilized society with some basic standards of behaviour.

> There are people that don't consent. At best you could say the majority consent. You can justify it by saying it's better than any other system we know of, but not that people consent to it.

The same goes for any law. I'm sure there are people that disagree that theft or murder should be illegal. Or slavery, for that matter. And those are the extreme cases. For every law, there are some who don't agree with it. Should every law only apply to those who agree with it? Laws would lose their meaning.

[georgefox]

> First of all the comment he was replying to was talking about services like housing, transportation, and healthcare, which already are provided by the market and aren't really things the government has any advantage in. As for all the stuff it does pay for, at best it costs exactly the same amount as you have to pay in taxes. But the government spends money on a lot of other things with your taxes that don't really benefit you. So you would save a decent amount of money. And with no competition, the services they do provide cost a lot more then they probably could.

Health care in the U.S. generally costs a lot more than government-run health care in other western countries.

[sophacles]

I don't consent to you blocking expenditures on things I need to do my life. So now were fucked. I guess sometimes you just cant get it all your way. Perhaps you should keep up the childish whining about "I don't wanna"... I'm sure that is rational and will fix all sorts of things.

[yummyfajitas]

Don't forget: police protection, fire protection, military protection, paved roads, functioning traffic signals and signs, groomed parks, trash collection (some places), up to sixteen years of education, enforcement of workplace safety standards, financial protection if you become suddenly disabled, a legal system in which to resolve disputes.

Those services make up a fairly small portion of government spending. The really vital portions [1] are even smaller.

Most government spending is merely wealth redistribution.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2011_US_total

[1] Vital: protecting the US from Russian invasion. Non-vital: drone strikes on random Pakistanis. Vital: protection from bandits. Non-vital: war on drug users.

[rwl]

Do I think our actual government could do a better job of figuring out what to spend money on? Yes. Are there things I wish it did not spend money on, and other things I wish it spent more on? Absolutely. Is it possible that, if the government spent money on exactly what you or I thought was ideal, it would be raising fewer tax revenues and spending a lot less? Sure.

So what should we spend our money on? This is a policy question, and fortunately one which (however indirectly) we each have a say and a stake in. That is also what makes answering it a very messy process.

But answering it presupposes the principle that taxation by democratic government is legitimate. This is the principle which thecodeore was casting rhetorical aspersions on, and that I was defending.

[anonymoushn]

Let's check out the federal budget!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_categor...

19.63% for generational theft, which I pay into but will never see a penny of.

18.74% chiefly for killing brown people on the other side of the planet, generally people who were not a threat to the U.S.

16.13% for programs that are like basic income except that they create awful incentives, are vulnerable to fraud, and have high administrative overhead (mostly people trying to stop the fraud?).

12.79% for health care for the elderly. This program is actually pretty effective, if we ignore the bit where health care providers dramatically overcharge people who do not use it to make up for being underpaid by those people who do use it. It's also questionable whether it will exist in its current form 40 years from now.

It makes sense for me to look at the federal budget because I pay very little in state and local taxes. People who pay more state and local taxes generally end up spending it on paying CHP staff $400,000/year or ensuring that teacher pensions return 8% year over year when no investment on the market does that.

Given this state of affairs, it's not unreasonable to think that you could make some substantial savings when purchasing the services you would use through means other than an annual mugging.

[rwl]

This is exactly the same rhetorical fallacy that thecodeore made, and that I think is damaging and dishonest to propagate. Which government do you live under that subjects you to an "annual mugging"? Do you really not see a relevant difference between taxation and being forced to give up your money at gunpoint?

We can agree that some of the actual budget allocations of our governments are not ideal. That's not the point. (See what I said in response to yummyfajitas elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6196119) The point is that taxation is not theft, and characterizing it as such unhelpfully distracts from the real and difficult problems of self-government.

[thecodeore]

I do not believe, support, or accept "democracy" or mob rule. I do not believe the "majority" has the moral right to lay claim to my labor or the product there of, nor tell me how to live my life. I believe in Non-Aggression Principle and the voluntary exchange of goods and services

You are correct in I do not exist in an island, however I do VOLUNTARILY exchange my labor for goods and services, this is society, not the immoral democratic structure you call "government". Government is a vile, evil entity that seeks to destroy society not build upon it.

>police protection,

Police are not today, and never have been a protectionarly unit, you can not cite any case law, or evidence to support that belief, if they were there would not be the need for self defense, private security, and entire industry producing goods and services for protecting one's self

Police are a Harassment and control mechanism for the state to force arbitrary laws and regulations passed by special interests, the majority or other such groups. They are nothing more than a gang of thugs.

>fire protection,

Historically Fire Protection was provided quite well and for a much lower cost privately, infact come counties are going back to that model.

Today I live in a Region with a 100% VOLUNTEER fire protection services that is supported by VOLUNTARY DONATIONS by the community, instead of violent forced collections. Our fire services is the best in the region with faster response times then the surrounding areas where they are paid to sit on their asses all day with money stolen from the community.

>military protection,

Most of the Military Budget today is used for Unjust and immoral wars, and immoral surveillance. I, just as our founders, do not believe in a Standing Army.

>paved roads,

A good % of roads are PRIVATE roads, further public roads can be funded exclusively with user fees which I have no problems with, as if your using the road you should pay for them, however they should not be funded with Income Taxation, Property Taxation, etc.

>functioning traffic signals and signs

See Above

>groomed parks,

Parks are not a proper role of government, I have never used a City Park, have no desire to use a City Park, and my money should not be stolen from me to pay for a city park

>trash collection (some places),

I have a private collection service that I pay monthly

>up to sixteen years of education,

Calling government schooling an "education" is laughable at best

>enforcement of workplace safety standards,

A System of Strict liability would be better for that

>financial protection if you become suddenly disabled,

I have private Long and Short term disability insurance, even if I did not that should be done via community charities not through the forced taking of other peoples money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs

> a legal system in which to resolve disputes.

The legal system should be paid for by the people that make use of it.

[jrockway]

I see today was your 15th birthday and your parents finally let you onto the Internet. Congratulations.

That said, there are a number of externalities that you're not thinking of. The simplest is: without a government, what's to stop someone from walking into your house and killing you? Every incentive says they should: free money, no consequences.

Another is: if we privatize everything, then only the wealthy get the benefits of having a society. Privatized workplace safety enforcement, for example, would ensure that only those rich enough to afford a lawsuit could get justice if injured in an unsafe environment. That's just stupid.

[vacri]

What about money? Do you do all your business in BTC, or perhaps thecodollars? Facilitating the exchange of your goods and services is significant in itself.

Incidentally, Vanuatu is a place with zero income taxes (unless you're a landlord), happy people, and good weather. Perhaps you should consider moving there if you want a strict user-pays-for-service system?

[redthrowaway]

He's not trolling, it's just a kneejerk libertarian comment. There's a strong thread among the more vehement economic libertarians of taxation being theft enforced by the government's monopoly on force. It's a bit silly, but it's also a sincerely held belief.

[mjn]

If not deliberate trolling, that kind of comment is at the very least low-information. It could be replaced by a shell script that looks for the word "taxes" and randomly replies with a short but strongly worded comment that taxation is theft.

Compare: whenever a commenter mentions property, user proudhon99 shows up to write a one-line comment that property is theft. Yes, he legitimately believes it, and his position is actually less absurd than the libertarian's, but comments that could be replicated by parody bots are not that useful.

[cinquemb]

I would say it is a bit silly to throw that argument around as a blanket statement, but there are plenty of cases where people have been sent to jail for not paying up (who probably wouldn't associate with what people refer to as "libertarian").

[pmorici]

"police protection"

I've had the misfortune of having to deal with the police of two different police departments this year. In the first instance my car was stolen, in the second someone ran into my car that was parked on the side of the road. In both instances the Police were totally incompetent and arguably caused me more financial damage than the criminal and the out of control driver.

Here is how; Once the Police "recovered" my stolen car I had to pay their towing company of choice about $400 to get my car back. In the second case they have taken over a month to issue the police report about the accident; my insurance company won't pay to have the car fixed until they have the report so I've had to front the costs in the mean time and hope that they get their act together at some point.

I think I would have been better off in both situations if there had been no police and my taxes were a bit lower.

[sophacles]

So you'd rather pay some company the hourly to locate you car because they throw a tow in for "free"?

[rayiner]

Taxes are what you pay to transform the act of killing and eating you into "murder" from what it really is: natural selection.

[dalke]

Ahh, yes, "nature red in tooth and claw" and all that.

Social Darwinism went out of fashion about 60 years ago. In part because its philosophical underpinnings had little to do with Darwin or evolution.

For example, an alternate view is that taxes are part of kin selection, in that those people who pay more taxes end up with a social system which is better at raising successful children who continue that culture and practice.

[rayiner]

Its not social Darwinism, which is a wholly distinct set of beliefs. Its actual Darwinism, or the recognition of the fact that in the state of nature killing is morally neutral and arguably virtuous (e.g. being an apex predator).

[lmm]

No-one's doing any pretending. Your morality may differ from other people's, but that doesn't mean theirs is insincere.

[alan_cx]

Tax is paying for services you use, which is very moral.

[Houshalter]

That's not really true. You can avoid most if not all government services and still have to pay the same amount as everyone else. They also have a monopoly on most things. It's not like you can go to a competing service.

[pavedwalden]

I disagree that you can avoid using these services, because I don't think that things like public schools are a service only to their direct recipients. Even families that can afford private schools for their children benefit from living in a nation with a high literacy rate. I'm not a 'customer' of my city's social services, but I benefit from having fewer people bottom out and end up on the street.

[georgefox]

Monopolies are really hard to avoid, which makes your statement seem a bit logically inconsistent. Combine that with the impossibility of avoiding services like military protection, the public education of your community members, the regulation and insurance of the financial markets your money flows through, plus a whole host of other things, and I have a very hard time believing your dream of avoiding government services is in any way attainable.

[yason]

Simply increasing taxes will educate the decision makers about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve eventually.

Taxing spending on harmful things is better than to tax work and activities because what you tax will diminish.

[lmm]

My country had a top tax rate of 85% at one point (with a 10% premium for unearned income). Society didn't collapse; in fact many of us remember that as a golden age.

[CamperBob2]

Are you referring to the US in the 1950s, as tellers of this particular just-so story usually do? If so, that prosperity came about because we had just finished shooting, bombing, nuking, and in general pounding the living daylights out of the rest of the industrialized world.

WWII wasn't about who was right, it was about who was left. To the victor went the spoils. Meanwhile, there was a war to pay for, hence the high tax rates.