Taxes should be used for two primary reasons. The first is to pay for those things that the populace have deemed "the general welfare"; the second is to encourage earners to spend their money in a responsible way.
Aha, I see we've reached our first inconsistency--how does a libertarian support government intervention into the way that people spend their money? Easy--I'm talking about the time during the twenty year (minimum, really) journey to independence from government. Look, let's be honest here. There isn't much incentive for the super-rich to hand their money to the masses right now, is there? Look at the Facebook "exec." who is denouncing his American citizenship so that he can take his money to Singapore to pay the smallest amount of taxes on his fortune. That's just one example of how businesses game the system to give as little as possible to the government. While yes, that can be a good thing, we need to look at the system as a whole, especially if we want to remove the government from our lives.
Back in the dark ages before Reagan, the highest tax bracket was more than 80%. Now, Republicans would have you think that that would mean living in a Socialist Dictatorship with high poverty and breadlines...my grandmother would call it the 1950s when you could buy a house big enough for 8 kids for $15,000 (now worth almost $300,000 w/some upgrades). Some of the countries favorite places are the result of high taxes on the wealthy because there was also a deductions list three miles long. Williamsburg, VA was once the capital of the colony of Virginia, but once that was moved to Richmond, it became just another town, even though many of the founders of this country had ties to the College of William and Mary. The history might have been lost except that John D. Rockefeller had money to spend. Chrystler put money out to build museums (we have an art museum and a music hall). Carnagie built a Hall that's kinda famous. Isn't it interesting that all the big barrons of yore spent their money building things that the public could use? I mean, can you picture Romney funding the establishment of a museum? The man paid exactly 10% of his income to charity last year--if you know your church rules, 10% is the recommended tithe. Even the Mormons can't get an extra penny out of him.
Now, I hear you wondering why we should care whether the rich donate to charity and build public spaces. Well, what is an important role of government? To keep people off the streets and to help keep them educated. There are few if any museums that would be able to stay open if we removed government--would we be better off without them? This includes the Smithsonian Institute, the champion of government funded museums. Can you see paying $40 per person to see Archie Bunker's chair? Or the first American Flag? Actually--I'm not sure how much a ticket would cost to visit a museum that doesn't recieve government funding--and of course it would be dependent on how many people attend, so the less popular the museum, the more expensive the price--yeah...those museums will stay open forever. But that's capitalism for you.
So, we have to create a tradition of giving before we can get government out of philanthropy. High taxes for those who make more than $1 Million (or $10 Million. Or whatever number you want to pick, really) with anything under the sun being a deduction encourages them to spend it on things that might make a profit, might not.
And I think that getting government out of philanthropy is a good thing because the people who care enough about a cause to donate are the ones who are best able to make sure that it does the job that it's supposed to. Republicans like to complain about neglectful regulators--this would relieve a lot of the pressure there, allowing them to do a better job in areas that are more important. And museums are an area that real capitalism is actually a good thing (well, except for the pricing). History and science benefit from dialogue and it's a good thing to have alternative views of the same events. So if you have an Evolutionary Museum right next door to the Creationist Museum, the prudent scholar would walk into both before deciding (or well, that's the way it's supposed to work, but we all know better). But I think that we can all agree that as Practical Libertarians, keeping museums like the Smithsonian as they are is a good thing.
Aha, I see we've reached our first inconsistency--how does a libertarian support government intervention into the way that people spend their money? Easy--I'm talking about the time during the twenty year (minimum, really) journey to independence from government. Look, let's be honest here. There isn't much incentive for the super-rich to hand their money to the masses right now, is there? Look at the Facebook "exec." who is denouncing his American citizenship so that he can take his money to Singapore to pay the smallest amount of taxes on his fortune. That's just one example of how businesses game the system to give as little as possible to the government. While yes, that can be a good thing, we need to look at the system as a whole, especially if we want to remove the government from our lives.
Back in the dark ages before Reagan, the highest tax bracket was more than 80%. Now, Republicans would have you think that that would mean living in a Socialist Dictatorship with high poverty and breadlines...my grandmother would call it the 1950s when you could buy a house big enough for 8 kids for $15,000 (now worth almost $300,000 w/some upgrades). Some of the countries favorite places are the result of high taxes on the wealthy because there was also a deductions list three miles long. Williamsburg, VA was once the capital of the colony of Virginia, but once that was moved to Richmond, it became just another town, even though many of the founders of this country had ties to the College of William and Mary. The history might have been lost except that John D. Rockefeller had money to spend. Chrystler put money out to build museums (we have an art museum and a music hall). Carnagie built a Hall that's kinda famous. Isn't it interesting that all the big barrons of yore spent their money building things that the public could use? I mean, can you picture Romney funding the establishment of a museum? The man paid exactly 10% of his income to charity last year--if you know your church rules, 10% is the recommended tithe. Even the Mormons can't get an extra penny out of him.
Now, I hear you wondering why we should care whether the rich donate to charity and build public spaces. Well, what is an important role of government? To keep people off the streets and to help keep them educated. There are few if any museums that would be able to stay open if we removed government--would we be better off without them? This includes the Smithsonian Institute, the champion of government funded museums. Can you see paying $40 per person to see Archie Bunker's chair? Or the first American Flag? Actually--I'm not sure how much a ticket would cost to visit a museum that doesn't recieve government funding--and of course it would be dependent on how many people attend, so the less popular the museum, the more expensive the price--yeah...those museums will stay open forever. But that's capitalism for you.
So, we have to create a tradition of giving before we can get government out of philanthropy. High taxes for those who make more than $1 Million (or $10 Million. Or whatever number you want to pick, really) with anything under the sun being a deduction encourages them to spend it on things that might make a profit, might not.
And I think that getting government out of philanthropy is a good thing because the people who care enough about a cause to donate are the ones who are best able to make sure that it does the job that it's supposed to. Republicans like to complain about neglectful regulators--this would relieve a lot of the pressure there, allowing them to do a better job in areas that are more important. And museums are an area that real capitalism is actually a good thing (well, except for the pricing). History and science benefit from dialogue and it's a good thing to have alternative views of the same events. So if you have an Evolutionary Museum right next door to the Creationist Museum, the prudent scholar would walk into both before deciding (or well, that's the way it's supposed to work, but we all know better). But I think that we can all agree that as Practical Libertarians, keeping museums like the Smithsonian as they are is a good thing.
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