Some thoughts on taxation and generosity
Apr. 9th, 2009 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lblanchardI ran across this piece by Arnold Kling that sums up what I think about the forced charity known as government social programs:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/04/some_libertaria.html
My absolute favorite bit:
Hear, hear. I can give a dollar to charity and be reasonably sure that $.80 (or $.90 or $.70 but you get the idea) will go toward the charitable purpose. Or I can give a dollar to government and be reasonably sure that a fat chunk of it will be pissed away by the layers and layers of redistributionists who are getting their salaries before a penny goes to the ultimate purpose. Moreover, I can check up on the charity and decide whether it's run efficently enough to be worthy of my dollars. With the government programs, not so much.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/04/some_libertaria.html
My absolute favorite bit:
Think of government as a charity. From a libertarian perspective, it is a charity run by the Mafia, which will break your knuckles if you don't make your donations. It is also a badly mismanaged charity. It funnels lots of money into questionable causes, and even when the causes are good the programs that it funds tend to be very wasteful.
I would like to see government have to compete with other charities on a level playing field.
Hear, hear. I can give a dollar to charity and be reasonably sure that $.80 (or $.90 or $.70 but you get the idea) will go toward the charitable purpose. Or I can give a dollar to government and be reasonably sure that a fat chunk of it will be pissed away by the layers and layers of redistributionists who are getting their salaries before a penny goes to the ultimate purpose. Moreover, I can check up on the charity and decide whether it's run efficently enough to be worthy of my dollars. With the government programs, not so much.
