Current Events > Why can't there be a donation system in place of a lot of existing taxes

(+) Yeah! (+)

Milkman5 posted...

For example, let's say a state wanted to pave over it's roads, instead of forcing people to pay for the roads who don't even want them, open a fund so everyone who doesn't like the current roads may pay to have the things they value personally to be improved upon.

That's what fuel taxes are for.

It doesn't work. The wealthy would pay private companies to make the areas they live nice. Poor areas would become worse, with no street lights, poorly paved roads, unpaid fire companies, ect.
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DarkChozoGhost posted...

It doesn't work. The wealthy would pay private companies to make the areas they live nice. Poor areas would become worse, with no street lights, poorly paved roads, unpaid fire companies, ect.

Why should anyone be required to fix areas they don't live in at gunpoint, though?
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Because money would go to people who needed it, rather than go into the pockets of the rich.
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darkjedilink posted...

DarkChozoGhost posted...

It doesn't work. The wealthy would pay private companies to make the areas they live nice. Poor areas would become worse, with no street lights, poorly paved roads, unpaid fire companies, ect.

Why should anyone be required to fix areas they don't live in at gunpoint, though?

To prevent poor people from moving to the more maintained areas and eating the rich.
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it's actually interesting to me that so many people ITT see financing roads as such a critical function of (local?) government

if anything, what I like about this idea is we would almost certainly pay less toward roads if we saw what we were spending on them

the idea of charitable giving to replace taxes isn't sound, though. it needs to be user-fees of some kind
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Milkman5 posted...

charey posted...

Because everyone would say "I'll let other people pay for this" and no one would pay in.

There can be a perk system. Literally many things have been crowd funded through donations, you guys act like it's such an insane concept when it happens everyday for more frivolous things.

maybe the people who don't donate don't get to use the service as much or at all depending on how frivolous it is.

Like a clocktower project where the people who donate to fund it get tickets to get an exclusive tour of the tower.

How do you judge people who do want to fund things, but don't have the money to do so?
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--kresnik-- posted...

Because money would go to people who needed it, rather than go into the pockets of the rich.

You're not serious, are you?
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fenderbender321 posted...

The demand for services has to be there, first and foremost. Then the ability to actually provide them to the public in a profitable manner has to be there as well

What if there's no way to provide healthcare to the sickest members of society profitably?
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I'd pay for jack shit
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Antifar posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

The demand for services has to be there, first and foremost. Then the ability to actually provide them to the public in a profitable manner has to be there as well

What if there's no way to provide healthcare to the sickest members of society profitably?

Significantly curtail taxation, and watch the profitably increase.
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fenderbender321 posted...

Our hearts and souls can profit, too

Hearts and souls won't keep Aetna afloat.
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Antifar posted...

Hearts and souls won't keep Aetna afloat.

how can you be a socialist when you think something like that
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Balrog0 posted...

Antifar posted...

Hearts and souls won't keep Aetna afloat.

how can you be a socialist when you think something like that

It's capitalism that demands monetary profit as the bottom line for firms. Shareholders will not accept "being nice" as a return on their investment. Now, I think that this is a deeply immoral system, and of course there has to be room for projects and programs that don't meet capital's demand for profit. But I'm talking about how things are, not how they should be.

In the US, the government took on healthcare for the oldest (and generally most expensive) and the poorest (those with the least ability to pay) precisely because they are unprofitable to cover. A government has a duty to its citizens in a way that insurance companies do not, and it is not beholden to the profit motive.
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3rd_Best_Master posted...

Cause then nothing would get funded.

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Antifar posted...

It's capitalism that demands monetary profit as the bottom line for firms.

no, it's people who demand a profit as a bottom line for themselves

kicking the can down the road to a nebulous ideological system is worse than intellectually lazy

Antifar posted...

In the US, the government took on healthcare for the oldest (and generally most expensive) and the poorest (those with the least ability to pay) precisely because they are unprofitable to cover.

no, the US government took on healthcare for the oldest because they are politically powerful, and for the poorest as a way to stymie the rising demand for guaranteed universal coverage

Antifar posted...

A government has a duty to its citizens in a way that insurance companies do not, and it is not beholden to the profit motive.

seems false on the face of it
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