Not Yours to Give

[kandrathe]

I fully agree. People don't often realize how much they owe to our social system (with a government, taxes etc.).
Letting people chose what to pay for first costs an enormous amount of administrative work, and second will never yield enough funds.

One good thing: I think we we would be rid of all the wining of people that want more and bigger roads.

The point that is missed here is that the government is the equivalent of "by the sword". Whatever is enacted by law is forced upon the people. By passing laws to tax people, the government is taking away property by force. For a citizen to not pay taxes is to violate a law which then means that the citizen would face "justice".

The question posed by the article is; "Should the government take peoples money by force to spend on things that are not explicitly written into the Constitution (Charter of Government)?"

And, I would pose a second question; "Should the government take the peoples money by force to spend on things that do not benefit "ALL" the people?"

Taxing all the people in the US to pay for some pork project (e.g. The bridge to nowhere), seems to be a violation of the peoples trust at best, and larceny at worst. We live in a society where the funding good ideas and compassion do not need to be done at the point of a gun. If a good idea is fiscally sound, fine, use the bully pulpit of your government office to drum up private funding and investment in it, but don't force all the people to pay for your boondoggles. If people are homeless, hungry, and in need of compassion, then lead by example and dig deep into your own pocket, then go ask good people to do likewise, but don't reach into the next persons pocket and then claim a moral victory.