Megan wants to clarify the tax debate. "What most of us are really in favor of is higher taxes on other people. If we wanted higher taxes on ourselves, we’d give the money to charity."
In some sort of a crazy-assed world, I guess it would be nice if I got to live in a great house and got great schools, but got other people to pay for it for me. If being a libertarian means getting stuff for nothing, then sign me up, baby!
I want to live in a town with good schools, so I’m willing to pay more taxes for it. I care more about education than cars or shoes, so I like to give my money to the town to purchase books for my kids and pay qualified teachers. I care so much about schools, that I’m willing to pay more money in taxes to improve the quality of schools even more. Even if my taxes were to double, it would still be cheaper than private schools for two kids. Since I don’t have time to home school and don’t want to organize a school myself, I’m very pleased that the town government has arranged a system where I simply write them a check and then they pick up my kid with the school bus ever morning at 8:30.
Of course, this all sounds terribly spoiled. I recognize that we’re lucky to pay our town’s taxes without stress and could even envision moving to a different town with even better schools with even higher taxes.
UPDATE: Biting comments from Henry Farrell.
Apt. 11d 
I care so much about schools, that I’m willing to pay more money in taxes to improve the quality of schools even more. Even if my taxes were to double, it would still be cheaper than private schools for two kids.
How true this is. The argument against taxes again and again reveals a basic inability to appreciate, or even to properly understand, the value of collective action–that by doing something through and on behalf of a larger group, you enable everyone within that group, including oneself, to do or have something that almost none of you could ever have afforded or accomplished on your own. Decent schools are only the tip of the iceberg.
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RAF, if your individual taxes make no difference, why should you feel any obligation to pay them? If they do make a difference, then paying extra would also make a difference. So, why aren’t you contributing to the Tax-Me-More fund? Do you value money in your pocket over the social good the extra money would purchase?
McArdle’s argument isn’t against taxes and collective action. It is that individuals, such as yourself, do not act on the idea that more tax revenue results in more social good. You are willing to pony up extra money only if everyone else is forced to pay along with you.
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“I want to live in a town with good schools, so I’m willing to pay more taxes for it. I care more about education than cars or shoes, so I like to give my money to the town to purchase books for my kids and pay qualified teachers. I care so much about schools, that I’m willing to pay more money in taxes to improve the quality of schools even more.”
That sounds pretty darn indirect, like giving a homeless guy $10, and hoping he gets himself a good dinner. How do you know that extra money will be used wisely?
“Even if my taxes were to double, it would still be cheaper than private schools for two kids.”
Your kids will eventually finish school, but you will be paying property tax until you die. Your tax level may seem like a bargain right now, but will it still seem that way twenty years from now, especially if there were some unexpected catastrophe (tfoo-tfoo)? Private school may be expensive in your area, but eventually you stop paying for it.
That’s looking at it purely self-interestedly. There’s also the social side of it. On the one hand, people of your class will be in basically the same boat as you, so the self-interested analysis holds for them, too. On the other hand, what about the non-upper middle class people? Are they getting the sort of education that justifies this level of taxation? Are your schools really that great for African-American kids, Latino kids, poor white kids, etc.? Are your NJ schools escalators of opportunity, helping the disadvantaged be all they can be? Or is something different going on?
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John,
RAF, if your individual taxes make no difference, why should you feel any obligation to pay them?
Obviously, I’d like to see–and would expect to see–results and differences due to the taxes that I pay. But those results and differences wouldn’t necessarily be the sole source of obligations I might feel. I’m a member of a polity, after all, and as a member, I share–however reluctantly sometimes–in its collective goals. My individual taxes are part of a variety of projects, some of which might make a direct difference in the lives of my children (a park built on my side of town), some of which probably wouldn’t (a park build on the other side of town). Either way, the obligation remains.
If they do make a difference, then paying extra would also make a difference. So, why aren’t you contributing to the Tax-Me-More fund?
Or maybe it wouldn’t quite make a difference. Maybe my individual taxes can make a difference up to a particular point, but after that point my own contributions may be limited enough, or the expense of remaining project(s) might be great enough, that the only way to make a difference, or to advance the polity’s goals, is to seek to raise funds or increase taxes more broadly. So maybe I am contributing to the “Tax-Me-More” fund, in the sense of supporting school bonds or legislative efforts for more money for teachers or whatever.
You are willing to pony up extra money only if everyone else is forced to pay along with you.
Interesting how when taxes come into the equation, so often all talk of democratic politics and consensus and common projects and obligations goes out the window, replaced simply with “force.” Yes, sure, “other people” are “forced” to pay taxes–voting and majorities and all that, it’s such a bummer.
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My kids attend a progressive charter school. In my state, charter schools get no local tax dollars. So my property taxes don’t support my children’s education. However, I still am happy, yes happy to pay taxes for other children’s education. The benefits I reap from well educated citizens will far outweigh the taxes I pay.
Many of the parents at are school do subscribe to the “tax me more” mentality. They contribute to the school, some for years after their children have graduated. These are mostly middleclass families, and often their donations are a sacrifice.
I think people will put their money in what they believe in given the chance.
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“Yes, sure, “other people” are “forced” to pay taxes–voting and majorities and all that, it’s such a bummer.”
“Force” is the right word. If you disagree, stop paying your property tax or your federal taxes and see what happens. Also, doesn’t our current federal tax arrangement amount to Bob and Suzie and George and Jennifer voting on what restaurant Dave is going to take them to? That may be “fair” in some sense, but I think it is not ennobling for Bob, Suzie, George and Jennifer, and it wouldn’t be even if they were voting to make Dave take a different group of people out to dinner. To me, that set-up (where only a minority pays taxes for the common good but everybody votes) seems corrupting and infantilizing. (Insert obligatory note about social security, etc.)
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I apologize for this bad taste anti-democratic example in advance, but here goes: if Ginger winds up shipwrecked on a desert island with nine guys, it shouldn’t be legitimate for them to be able to vote her group concubine without her permission.
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Amy P,
Also, doesn’t our current federal tax arrangement amount to Bob and Suzie and George and Jennifer voting on what restaurant Dave is going to take them to? That may be “fair” in some sense, but I think it is not ennobling for Bob, Suzie, George and Jennifer, and it wouldn’t be even if they were voting to make Dave take a different group of people out to dinner….if Ginger winds up shipwrecked on a desert island with nine guys, it shouldn’t be legitimate for them to be able to vote her group concubine without her permission.
Amy, this is exactly the situation (the restaurant one, not the Ginger one) I pose to my basic American government classes when we’re talking about definitions of democracy. It’s (Classical) Liberal Politics 101. What’s the relationship between Bob and Suzie and George and Jennifer and Dave? Are they all under the thumb of some tyrant (even a Hobbesian “social contract” sort), or are they relatively free individuals, possessing rights that for the most part have to be respected? If the latter, then is there anything they agree upon, in general or specifically? If they agree generally upon certain joint obligations/projects, can they also agree on a general scheme of taxing themselves to fund it? If they can agree upon that, can they agree in general on a democratic process (with its inevitable winners and losers) to determine the relative size and distribution of those taxes? If so, then bingo: you’ve got the modern liberal democratic state.
For better or worse, we’ve (nearly) all kind of agreed on the legitimacy of “forcing” people to pay taxes for common schools. We’ve also all come (I hope!) to recognize the illegitimacy of “democratically” voting to make anyone a slave (or a concubine). The role of general agreements and consensus and all the rest in this scheme is why I put quote marks around “force”–because it’s not (or at least not always, not necessarily) just the solitary individual vs. the coercive state. (Jacob Levy and I used to go back and forth on this very point, back in the day.)
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Isn’t the constitution specifically designed to acknowledge individual civil rights that cannot be abridged in a democratic society? Why are we having arguments about prostituting Ginger?
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Obviously, I’d like to see–and would expect to see–results and differences due to the taxes that I pay. But those results and differences wouldn’t necessarily be the sole source of obligations I might feel.
I haven’t claimed otherwise. Nonetheless, I would argue effectiveness a large part of the case for paying taxes. If, for example, your taxes were never used for any purpose, but simply collected, I think that you would feel far less obligation to pay. Would you agree?
Or maybe it wouldn’t quite make a difference.
How does that differ from “does not make a difference”? I pay thousands in local taxes for schools, but I believe that directly giving a teacher $300 to buy supplies makes far more of a difference than giving $600 to the school board to spend. The first makes a visible difference, but the second doesn’t quite make a difference. Which is to say it makes no difference at all.
So maybe I am contributing to the “Tax-Me-More” fund
Unless you are paying more than your required tax bill, you are not contributing to the TMM fund. Assuming you think taxes are too low as they stand, of course.
Interesting how when taxes come into the equation, so often all talk of democratic politics and consensus and common projects and obligations goes out the window
Just as interesting as the fact that people who think their tax bills are too low never seem to pay any extra unless everyone else is required to pay extra. All this talk about social good and obligations to those less fortunate goes out the window when it comes to behavior.
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“We’ve also all come (I hope!) to recognize the illegitimacy of “democratically” voting to make anyone a slave (or a concubine). ”
At least until I find a long boat on E-bay.
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As to whether or not our democratic process precludes slavery, we still have all the machinery set up to draft males over 18 into the military and to send them to kill and die. That machinery is rusty, but it’s still there.
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“We’ve also all come (I hope!) to recognize the illegitimacy of ‘democratically’ voting to make anyone a slave (or a concubine).”
Apparently not–or, at least, we find partial slavery legitimate, since it’s OK to take part of the fruit of person A’s labor to pay for something person B wants. All people are really arguing about here is how much slavery and for what purposes.
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The penalty for not paying local taxes (losing your house and having the sheriff put you on the street) and federal taxes (going to prison, etc.) are so serious that I think we have to think carefully about any use of tax dollars. As P.J. O’Rourke would say, you are putting a gun to your fellow tax-payers’ heads. It better be worth it.
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