Not the government spending my money!
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People should be free to choose what is best for themselves as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. I created this blog to discuss issues I have with big government, liberal media,and to talk about my support for capitalism and the Iraq War.
6 comments:
Damn, good thing Bill Gates is in the 0% tax bracket, or he wouldn't have been able to afford to give away all that money.
Huh? Some of your comments leave me so baffled.
Sorry, I forget that you people don't understand sarcasm despite using it all the time. To simplify:
BILL GATES PAYS ALOT OF TAXES AND STILL DECIDED TODONOTE HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO CHARITY.
THIS UNDERCUTS YOUR ARGUMENT THAT TAXATION QUASHES CHARITY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AMONIG CITIZENS.
In point of fact, my argument is not that taxiation kills all donations, but serves as an inhibitor. The more you tax someone the less they will donate. This is particularly true of the middle class which would not doubt donate more if they were taxed less. They would have a lot more disposable income. Furthermore its unclear how much more Gates would of donated had that money not been taxed away.Most likely most of his taxed money also would of been donated.
I should also note that taxes applied to social welfare also inhibits donations by eliminating the tax payer’s guilt about not helping the less fortunate. In point of fact, they are helping the less fortunate with their tax money. Most likely these funds are being spent less efficiently
So you not only restrict what can be donated, but you remove the social guilt that would bring it about. After doing this, you then place in the hands of a system that, not only has a proven tack record of inefficiency, but is actually designed to be inefficient.
I agree the middle class would probably donate more if they were taxed less, but would they donate more than they are being taxed? To state it more clearly, does more money go to charitable causes with taxation, or with no taxation? This is a completely seperate question from whether or not the taxed money is being used wisely- after all, if we're getting less overall money for charity under our current tax system than we would with no taxes at all, we can simpy increase taxes, making this issue a wash.
As to whether the government or individuals can better spend that charitable money, I'm pretty sure we would disagree. Private industry may be more 'efficient,' but that doesn't neccessarily mean better. For instance, the government has the whole 'seperation of church and state' thing going for it, which is a major plus for me. If all charitable money was spent by individuals, how much of the money going towards disease prevention or eduction wouold instead be going into lobbying campaigns to ban the teaching of evolution in science classes? Would homeless people who are atheists be able to get food or a bed at homeless shelters?
Furhtermore, would people donate money to finding cures for diseases that no one they know has? Would Oprah get to decide where most of our country's charitable donations go based on the geusts on her show?
Now, you can say that the 'invisible hand' handles all of this, but what that really means is that you're saying the morally right way to spend this money is whatever way the peopole with the money want it spent. That implies a degree of moral relativism that I find extremely unnapealing.
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