Makes planning extremely difficult. It’s hard for leaders to make consistent policy when they don’t know how much money will go to which project.
Subject to wild fluctuations. An event like 9/11 could strongly skew spending and leave other programs underfunded. In practice that means employees get laid off, infrastructure doesn’t get maintained, etc. Damage of this sort is more expensive to repair than it was to maintain.
Requires a lot out of the voters. I doubt very many people are interested in going over the federal budget and deciding how much money they would want to pay for each item.
It’s very easy to take a little bit of money out of your national debt payment contribution and apply it to a pet cause. This relies on other people picking up the slack. It wouldn’t be long before S&P gave your bonds junk status.
Bureaucratic nightmare. How are people to communicate their preferences? Write-in budget outlines? Voting booths? It’s a lot of paperwork and someone’s going to have to process it. Electronic systems have the usual vulnerabilities.
You’re making my plan… aka pragmatarianism… extremely difficult to implement. Why not just give me a bunch of your money rather than harass me about the viability of my plan? Sheesh! Just because it’s your money doesn’t mean that I have to prove to you that I’m not going to waste it. Seriously guy.
A huge fluctuation in demand is unwarranted? We’ll have throngs of people tilting after windmills? The way markets work is that people who bark up the wrong trees generally have less influence than people who bark up the right trees. We’d be really screwed if it was the other way around.
If there’s absolutely no demand for the IRS then this “pet” is vanishingly small. No demand for the IRS? As in, everybody would trust everybody else not to try and free-ride? It doesn’t seem likely. But who knows?
There’s actually evidence (that I’m too lazy to dig up) that people do tend to voluntarily contribute more when the public good actually matches their preferences. gasp That’s a real shocker isn’t it? Maybe that’s why I’m too lazy to dig it up.
Also, it’s not entirely unreasonable to predict that like with crowdfunding… maybe government organizations would start offering some type of rewards to contributors. In other words… the carrot might gradually replace the whip.
If you’re intrigued by the possibility then here you go… razotarianism.
If there’s absolutely no demand for the IRS then this “pet” is vanishingly small. No demand for the IRS? As in, everybody would trust everybody else not to try and free-ride?
There’s a massive leap in everyone trusting everyone else, and people feeling like the best use of their money is to make sure other people give their money. Human psychology is relevant here.
I have to say, having now made a few comments on this: I think aspects of your idea might be doable or might work on a much smaller scale. It might be interesting to try this for a small town and see what happens, or to try it on a large scale with a fraction of tax money- both of these would not have many of the problems that people have raised with doing this on a very large scale. But as the plan stands there are too many problems for jumping to anything like the scale you want, and you aren’t making the strongest case for your idea.
You’re making my plan… aka pragmatarianism… extremely difficult to implement
What is going on here is that they are raising practical implementation problems. They aren’t making it difficult.
A huge fluctuation in demand is unwarranted?
Whether they are “unwarranted” or not they don’t work well. Many projects take many years to complete. If one engages in rapid changes many civil and scientific projects will stall. This is part of the problem with the current space program in the US: each US president drastically alters the space priority as they desperately try to have a legacy like Kennedy’s. What they don’t apparently appreciate is that Kennedy’s space program was left partially intact more because he was a martyr than anything else.
Sorry about that. I made my point poorly. What Epictetus was doing to pragmatarianism is exactly what I would want him to do to any government plan. It should be just as difficult for the government to implement any of its plan as it is for me to implement my plan. It’s great to have more, rather than less, people inspecting a plan for problems. According to Linus’s Law… given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow. Allowing people to choose where their taxes go would put a lot of eyeballs in the public sector.
Regarding your second point… it’s addressed by the comment where I brought up the example of putting a man on the moon. Also, wouldn’t you guess that there’d be less demand fluctuations with the public than with presidents or congress? The public really doesn’t switch back and forth between conservative and liberal like presidents and congress do. I’d think that, for the most part, the aggregate demand for most things would be a lot steadier than the “demand” we get from our seesaw government.
I don’t think Linus’s law applies here, since that’s with areas like programming where a) the eyeballs are experts and b) it is close unambiguous once a bug has been found that it is a bug.
Also, wouldn’t you guess that there’d be less demand fluctuations with the public than with presidents or congress? The public really doesn’t switch back and forth between conservative and liberal like presidents and congress do.
This is a really good point and seems like the strongest argument for your proposal.
Some issues:
Makes planning extremely difficult. It’s hard for leaders to make consistent policy when they don’t know how much money will go to which project.
Subject to wild fluctuations. An event like 9/11 could strongly skew spending and leave other programs underfunded. In practice that means employees get laid off, infrastructure doesn’t get maintained, etc. Damage of this sort is more expensive to repair than it was to maintain.
Requires a lot out of the voters. I doubt very many people are interested in going over the federal budget and deciding how much money they would want to pay for each item.
It’s very easy to take a little bit of money out of your national debt payment contribution and apply it to a pet cause. This relies on other people picking up the slack. It wouldn’t be long before S&P gave your bonds junk status.
Bureaucratic nightmare. How are people to communicate their preferences? Write-in budget outlines? Voting booths? It’s a lot of paperwork and someone’s going to have to process it. Electronic systems have the usual vulnerabilities.
You’re making my plan… aka pragmatarianism… extremely difficult to implement. Why not just give me a bunch of your money rather than harass me about the viability of my plan? Sheesh! Just because it’s your money doesn’t mean that I have to prove to you that I’m not going to waste it. Seriously guy.
A huge fluctuation in demand is unwarranted? We’ll have throngs of people tilting after windmills? The way markets work is that people who bark up the wrong trees generally have less influence than people who bark up the right trees. We’d be really screwed if it was the other way around.
Does Elizabeth Warren Know What Keeps You Running?
If a pet is too small, then it could be said to have insufficient demand breadth.
Shopping. It might help to read the FAQ.
Another thought occurs: if no one gave money to the IRS, how would collection enforcement work?
If there’s absolutely no demand for the IRS then this “pet” is vanishingly small. No demand for the IRS? As in, everybody would trust everybody else not to try and free-ride? It doesn’t seem likely. But who knows?
There’s actually evidence (that I’m too lazy to dig up) that people do tend to voluntarily contribute more when the public good actually matches their preferences. gasp That’s a real shocker isn’t it? Maybe that’s why I’m too lazy to dig it up.
Also, it’s not entirely unreasonable to predict that like with crowdfunding… maybe government organizations would start offering some type of rewards to contributors. In other words… the carrot might gradually replace the whip.
If you’re intrigued by the possibility then here you go… razotarianism.
There’s a massive leap in everyone trusting everyone else, and people feeling like the best use of their money is to make sure other people give their money. Human psychology is relevant here.
I have to say, having now made a few comments on this: I think aspects of your idea might be doable or might work on a much smaller scale. It might be interesting to try this for a small town and see what happens, or to try it on a large scale with a fraction of tax money- both of these would not have many of the problems that people have raised with doing this on a very large scale. But as the plan stands there are too many problems for jumping to anything like the scale you want, and you aren’t making the strongest case for your idea.
What is going on here is that they are raising practical implementation problems. They aren’t making it difficult.
Whether they are “unwarranted” or not they don’t work well. Many projects take many years to complete. If one engages in rapid changes many civil and scientific projects will stall. This is part of the problem with the current space program in the US: each US president drastically alters the space priority as they desperately try to have a legacy like Kennedy’s. What they don’t apparently appreciate is that Kennedy’s space program was left partially intact more because he was a martyr than anything else.
Sorry about that. I made my point poorly. What Epictetus was doing to pragmatarianism is exactly what I would want him to do to any government plan. It should be just as difficult for the government to implement any of its plan as it is for me to implement my plan. It’s great to have more, rather than less, people inspecting a plan for problems. According to Linus’s Law… given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow. Allowing people to choose where their taxes go would put a lot of eyeballs in the public sector.
Regarding your second point… it’s addressed by the comment where I brought up the example of putting a man on the moon. Also, wouldn’t you guess that there’d be less demand fluctuations with the public than with presidents or congress? The public really doesn’t switch back and forth between conservative and liberal like presidents and congress do. I’d think that, for the most part, the aggregate demand for most things would be a lot steadier than the “demand” we get from our seesaw government.
I don’t think Linus’s law applies here, since that’s with areas like programming where a) the eyeballs are experts and b) it is close unambiguous once a bug has been found that it is a bug.
This is a really good point and seems like the strongest argument for your proposal.