Thread: Are you confident in congress's competence?

Imagine if you needed brain surgery. Would you ever seriously consider conducting the surgery yourself? I think that most of us would choose to leave brain surgery to the brain surgeons. There's little doubt that brain surgeons are uniquely and supremely qualified to conduct brain surgery. Therefore, we put our brains in their hands.

Now imagine that you had the option to spend your taxes yourself (pragmatarianism FAQ). Would you ever seriously consider choosing where your taxes go? Or, would you choose to leave tax allocation to your elected representatives? Do you think that congresspeople are uniquely and supremely qualified to spend your taxes? Would you choose to put your taxes in their hands?

Nobody, that I know of, debates whether people should have the option to conduct brain surgery on themselves. But ask somebody whether people should have the option to spend their taxes themselves and you might end up in a pretty big debate. Why is that?

How many people would choose to shop for themselves in the public sector? What percentage of the purse would they control? Maybe 50%? Taxpayers would spend half of the public funds themselves and congress would spend the other half? Would people who wanted to shop for themselves in the public sector be more conservative? Or liberal? Rich... or poor? Educated... or uneducated? Would professionals shop for themselves or have congress shop for them? Would brain surgeons choose to put their taxes into the hands of congress like congress chooses to put their brains into the hands of brain surgeons?

If you're worried about giving people the option to directly allocate their taxes... then you're worried about whether people are competent enough to recognize competence. Except, the very premise of voting is that people are competent enough to recognize competence. So if you trust voters to discern which candidates are the most supremely and uniquely qualified to spend their taxes... then it requires a bit of uh... flexibility... to twist around and argue that you don't trust taxpayers to discern whether or not congress is supremely and uniquely qualified to spend their taxes.

In a pragmatarian system there would be two main ways for the people to indicate that a politician is supremely and uniquely qualified to spend their taxes...

1. People could give the politician their vote
2. People could give the politician their taxes

If you trust the first way, then how could you possibly distrust the second way?

And if you don't trust the first way, then you should really want to have the option to directly allocate your taxes. It would be the only way to keep your hard-earned taxes out of incompetent hands.

Nobody wants to put their brain into incompetent hands. Why would it be any different with taxes? It seems pretty straightforward that giving taxpayers the option to directly allocate their taxes would be the best way to minimize the amount of taxes that end up in incompetent hands.

If you follow what the Constitution says about what the FedGov is allowed to do, it makes things a lot easier.

) Defense, war prosecution, peace, foreign relations, foreign commerce, and interstate commerce;
2) The protection of citizens’ constitutional rights (e.g the right to vote) and ensuring that slavery remains illegal;
3) Establishing federal courts inferior to the SCOTUS;
4) Copyright protection;
5) Coining money;
6) Establishing post offices and post roads;
7) Establishing a national set of universal weights and measures;
8 ) Taxation needed to raise revenue to perform these essential functions.

Taxes raised would more than pay for these items but, not all the other intrusive agencies that tinker with ever facet of our lives.

TL DR but I am going to address the title of the post.

I think Congressmen are too busy striking deals and bribes to even further educate themselves. They don't understand certain complex issues. I bet in the olden days, when the the country was first founded, the men were scholars of their time. They continually tried to grow themselves intellectually. I feel like these men don't. It's about money and where it goes to whom and how much, that's about it.

As to the response above me, the constitution is a mere guideline, and has been polluted for years. I think the reason being, is a document created in the 1700's cannot under any circumstance satisfy the demands of our society 200 some odd years later. A governor suggested states' governors to meet about amending the constitution. That should be done far more often, to have the document tailor to our society. I think it is prudent to think of the constitution as a perfect document made by holy men.

With that said, it is important to have rules to govern, but actions from all branches have shown that those rules do not apply. And, the people are ignorant of one very important thing, American government. I had my American government class in the summer of eighth grade only because I opted not to take the course during the year. That was it. Nothing in high school, and I got nothing in college. Shouldn't that be extremely important for everyone to know extensively? But I fear that the department of education makes sure that the people aren't really informed on how the government works.

I think the only purpose of the people is the vote, and even then I think that can be manipulated if bribed enough. It's just there so we don't revolt. I do not believe that people in Congress, or state legislature, serve for the people, but for the corpocracy and money. I feel like writing to representatives, which I have done, does nothing. They just say we are working hard, blah blah blah.

Taxes don't necessarily have to be raised. It would help no doubt. But what drives deficit spending is bank loans and demand for treasuries. Yes The Fed buy treasuries, but a lot less than people think. In 2011, The Fed owned 1.7 trillion and the private sector owned 9.3 trillion of the 11 trillion dollar debt at the time. As long as the private sector can buy more and more treasuries, meaning demand is there, we can essentially deficit spend more. In order for this to happen, is there have to be bank loans. More bank loans means a healthy economy, and more tax money, which offset the accounts at the treasury. The point of all of this, is to show that taxes aren't as important of a role that people think. I think cutting taxes, even though in some schools of thought stimulates the economy, it is actually inducing more risk onto the process of printing of money. Taxes are a safeguard persay, so slow the rate of debt expansion. There are people that are probably on these forums, that disagree. But lowering the debt to GDP ratio ensures that we can print more in the future with sustainability.

Raising taxes also increases money velocity. People horde assets to become more rich, not really don't anything. Taxing them more, the money is circulated through the economy faster (money velocity) whereby slowing the rate of inflation, benefiting even the people hording money.

Raised taxes and deficit spending would unleash all kinds of great things for the people of this country.

Originally Posted by WCH

If you follow what the Constitution says about what the FedGov is allowed to do, it makes things a lot easier.

Does it really make things easier? The constitution was written by our founding fathers. Our founding fathers were government planners. Therefore, you're arguing that government planners are capable of effectively determining the proper scope of government. Which sounds a lot like socialism.

Are you a socialist?

Xero... it really doesn't matter what analogy you try, as you've tried a million of them.

Nothing has changed since the aliens analogy, the bible analogy and the horrific and stupid Holocaust analogy... Your idea has no value, it sucks and it will always suck.

Why you are so obsessed with such an awful concept I have no idea.

Originally Posted by Jetboogieman

Xero... it really doesn't matter what analogy you try, as you've tried a million of them.

Nothing has changed since the aliens analogy, the bible analogy and the horrific and stupid Holocaust analogy... Your idea has no value, it sucks and it will always suck.

Why you are so obsessed with such an awful concept I have no idea.

I mean, here you are. Again. For the millionth time. Errr... why is that exactly? Do you read all my threads because you enjoy them? Or masochistic much? Or... are you really optimistic that my threads will eventually improve? Or... are here to warn people about my idea? Because... you're convinced that some of them might be tricked into thinking it's a good idea?

Originally Posted by Xerographica

You're convinced that some of them might be tricked into thinking it's a good idea?

I don't think there's any danger of that.

Originally Posted by Xerographica

Does it really make things easier? The constitution was written by our founding fathers. Our founding fathers were government planners. Therefore, you're arguing that government planners are capable of effectively determining the proper scope of government. Which sounds a lot like socialism.

Are you a socialist?

The Constitution is not being followed. Taking any number of the ABC agencies and show where that authority exist in the Constitution.

Originally Posted by HonestJoe

That’s how representative democracy is meant to work. It’s impractical for millions of individual citizens to each seek out expert opinion and reach an independent conclusion, especially given a lot of political decisions are all or nothing (you can’t build 62% of a hospital or bridge because only that many taxpayers want to fund it). That’s why we elect representatives who are meant to seek the opinions of relevant experts and others directly involved in a given decision and reach the best conclusion for the people as a whole.

1. Are you assuming that many people will choose the option to directly allocate their taxes? Please explain your answer.

2. Why would you build a large hospital if there's only demand for a small hospital? If you build a large hospital when only a small hospital is needed... then you've wasted people's money that could have been used to build things that were actually needed... like a larger school or police station or jail or post office or DMV or public park or bridge. Every allocation requires the sacrifice of alternative allocations. The only way it's possible to determine the most optimal (valuable/efficient) allocation of public funds is for each and every taxpayer to have the freedom decide for themselves whether any given allocation is worth the sacrifice of the alternative allocations. When you go shopping... maybe you grab a loaf of bread and put it in your shopping cart. Do you put a second loaf of bread in your shopping cart? Or a third loaf? Or a fourth loaf? Probably not because you intuitively understand that the more money you spend on bread... the less money you'll have to spend on all the other groceries that you need. Therefore, it behooves you to avoid buying more bread than you really need. Your choices are driven by a consideration of the alternative uses of your money.

3. Clearly you can't build a shorter bridge but you can build a narrower bridge. Again, it's a waste of society's limited resources to build a 10 lane bridge when only a 2 lane bridge is needed. And if people don't allocate enough taxes to build a 2 lane bridge? Well... then the people who really want the bridge can continuing giving money to the Bridge-Building-Department until the BBD has enough money to build a bridge. Haven't you ever saved up for something that you really wanted? Maybe for a computer game, computer, car, college or cottage? Responsible people have no problem giving up momentary pleasure for future benefit. If you have trouble imagining many people giving up momentary pleasure for a project that will benefit them in the future... then perhaps this will help... Star Citizen.

4. Democracy is subject to the free-rider problem....

It’s very easy to support programs that other people will have to pay for. But voters, like everyone else, should bear the costs of their own decisions. Letting people vote for expensive programs that “somebody else” will finance is a good recipe for getting people to vote irresponsibly. - Steve Landsburg, Blast from the Past

Lots of people want prostitution and drugs to be illegal. They'd certainly be happy to vote accordingly. But this doesn't mean that they'd truly be willing to spend their own money accordingly. As a result of this significant disparity between popular and valuable... massive amounts of society's limited resources are diverted away from more valuable uses and directed to less valuable uses. In order to ensure that society's limited resources are truly put to their most valuable uses... people must be free to personally valuate the alternative allocations of their own money.