The richest are the most generous? I think not.

[Tiberius]

I fail to see how the dollar for dollar scheme that Minimalist highlighted is a bad thing. It could prevent what the OP posted. Note that the scheme only applied for social welfare charities; donations to opera houses would not be included.

[Creed of Heresy]

I fail to see how the dollar for dollar scheme that Minimalist highlighted is a bad thing. It could prevent what the OP posted. Note that the scheme only applied for social welfare charities; donations to opera houses would not be included.

They fucking BETTER not be if such a system were implemented!

[Tiberius]

Right, which is why I fail to see why such a scheme would be a bad thing. Currently I have little to no say on where my taxes go. At least with this scheme, when I donate £100 to a children's welfare charity, I'm effectively telling the government that this is what I want those £100 of tax spent on.

Because its reimbursed, and because I still pay the usual taxes, the flow of money means that the government effectively paid me to pay the charity, instead of me paying the government to fund their own (usually costly and bureaucratic) programs.

[Lemonvariable72]

You guys are forgetting something here. Governments seem to be able to manage fuck all, the idea of letting them run large scale welfare programs as opposed to letting private charities seems terrible. All in all I agree with Tiberius here, and for the more politically active types such a system is a great way to assauge their conscience. If I was a american I'd rather my money go to a opera house then drone strikes in Pakistan for example

[Creed of Heresy]

And yet they ran Social Security quite well (over 70 years in fact) until the last decade or so of politicians using almost specifically that argument have torn it apart financially and wish to do so even further.

The reason for the government providing those costly, bureaucratic programs is because it's a centralized entity. It is organized on a national scale, and while chaotic, it is still rather well-managed, especially given the sheer magnitude of the programs and their coverage. Unfortunately there are simply not enough charities in existence to provide the same kind of assistance the government can and does. I would rather my tax money go into expanding those programs and my votes go towards politicians who maximize efficiency and properly balance those budgets than I would abandon the ship and take to spreading everyone out into hundreds of thousands of individual, unorganized rafts over a hull leak that can be fixed with effort and know-how.

You prefer smaller government. I prefer government that can be as large as it wants as long as its size reflects how well it takes care of its citizens. I don't want departments of social workers being slashed due to budget cuts, which is the blunt-force tactic all libertarian and conservative politicians use in regards to "making government smaller." Their idea of "smaller government" is to simply just cut it away. What is left in the vacuum? A vacuum. Those being covered suddenly lose assets previously at their disposal, and waiting and processing times increase. That's not a better or more efficient government, that's a less effective government. More to the point, these programs often are inefficient because they're underfunded, with money being diverted to provide fucking tax breaks for these posh-shits, or poshits as I prefer, who use the savings to put more money in the bank or stock market to profit more from the interest and dividends. Take nothing from the wealthy or as little as you can and expect the poor to be taken care of or take care of themselves is essentially how that argument ends up being summed up as.

Any time you find the government being incompetent at a role, look and see what laws were enacted to minimize their efficiency, and you'll more often than not find it was a law written by someone with a vested interest in keeping that government oversight limited as much as they possibly can.

[là bạn điên]

The US Government spends more per head on Americans specifically on healthcare than the UK, Germany, France, Italy or Japan does yet those 5 countries get socialised medicine as a result in the USA it pays medicare, medicaid and Veterans benefits but for no one else! Government is so incompetent that you pay twice -once through taxes and then again on your insurance .

[Minimalist]

Currently I have little to no say on where my taxes go.

Now if you could just extend that idea to all the wars that the republibertarianeo-conazis start I might go for it. But it never does seem to work that way, does it?

[Lemonvariable72]

And yet they ran Social Security quite well (over 70 years in fact) until the last decade or so of politicians using almost specifically that argument have torn it apart financially and wish to do so even further.

The reason for the government providing those costly, bureaucratic programs is because it's a centralized entity. It is organized on a national scale, and while chaotic, it is still rather well-managed, especially given the sheer magnitude of the programs and their coverage. Unfortunately there are simply not enough charities in existence to provide the same kind of assistance the government can and does. I would rather my tax money go into expanding those programs and my votes go towards politicians who maximize efficiency and properly balance those budgets than I would abandon the ship and take to spreading everyone out into hundreds of thousands of individual, unorganized rafts over a hull leak that can be fixed with effort and know-how.

You prefer smaller government. I prefer government that can be as large as it wants as long as its size reflects how well it takes care of its citizens. I don't want departments of social workers being slashed due to budget cuts, which is the blunt-force tactic all libertarian and conservative politicians use in regards to "making government smaller." Their idea of "smaller government" is to simply just cut it away. What is left in the vacuum? A vacuum. Those being covered suddenly lose assets previously at their disposal, and waiting and processing times increase. That's not a better or more efficient government, that's a less effective government. More to the point, these programs often are inefficient because they're underfunded, with money being diverted to provide fucking tax breaks for these posh-shits, or poshits as I prefer, who use the savings to put more money in the bank or stock market to profit more from the interest and dividends. Take nothing from the wealthy or as little as you can and expect the poor to be taken care of or take care of themselves is essentially how that argument ends up being summed up as.

Any time you find the government being incompetent at a role, look and see what laws were enacted to minimize their efficiency, and you'll more often than not find it was a law written by someone with a vested interest in keeping that government oversight limited as much as they possibly can.

I see a huge failure on all levels of government, and Canadian government is much larger then the American counterpart. The feds have a massive debt, and have failed with the payments on healthcare leaving the provinces to take up the slack, which the smaller Atlantic provinces cannot afford do to declining populations that were small to begin with. We do not have tax breaks like Americans , and the ones do have are to keep companies from hightailing it too china or the Philippines. My job is only here because of government subsidies to large corporations.
Not to mention we pay 15% sales tax and I linked the income tax here.
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html
And we chronic staff shortages in hospitals too.

[paintpooper]

Currently I have little to no say on where my taxes go.

Now if you could just extend that idea to all the wars that the republibertarianeo-conazis start I might go for it. But it never does seem to work that way, does it?

Democrats start wars too. Obama is a murderer. So is Bush. They are all controlled by the same puppet masters.

Now the issue with money is it's creation. What is money?
Money is created by the Federal Reserve a private entity, and loans it to the US government with interest. That is why we can never get out of debt, it is impossible, there is never enough money in circulation to pay off added interest. You get massive inflation and depressions/recessions. Along with the fact banks use fractional reserve banking as they create money from only a fraction of the actual reserves they have. Congress has the power to coin money, not a private entity, hence the federal reserve is illegal and usurping the power from the people.

Taxes are a way to steal money from the people and give to the rich banker/politicians/other countries and so forth.
We have no say in where our taxes are used, they are hardly used to benefit the nation you are living in. A large portion of US taxes go to just pay interest payments, now if the US Govt coined their own money there would be little to no interest on a national debt, currently they barrow all the money they have from the FRBS. So a majority of public money could actually go back to the people. The problem of money creation has to be addressed before any type of rational monetary policy and tax policy can be established.

[Tiberius]

Currently I have little to no say on where my taxes go.

Now if you could just extend that idea to all the wars that the republibertarianeo-conazis start I might go for it. But it never does seem to work that way, does it?

You know Minimalist, a bit of fact checking here and there never goes amiss.

Section 3.0 of the Libertarian Party manifesto reads:

3.0 Securing Liberty

The protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of government. Government is constitutionally limited so as to prevent the infringement of individual rights by the government itself. The principle of non-initiation of force should guide the relationships between governments.

Section 3.1 reads:

3.1 National Defense

We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world. We oppose any form of compulsory national service.

Bolding mine. Libertarians are anti-war; we oppose starting wars for any reason other than self defense (i.e. we are attacked or suspect we are about to be attacked). The Libertarian Party were one of the first political parties in the US to condemn the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; your "republibertarianeo-conazis" are a figment of your imagination. They don't exist in reality. Call Republicans what they are: Republicans. Call Libertarians what they are: Libertarians. Call Neo-Cons what they are: Neo-Cons. Call Nazis what they are: Nazis. But don't think you can get away with merging all four into one single entity, and then apply it to a conversation as if there are actual examples of them.