It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago.
"I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit."
We'll let them voluntarily pay more taxes then, or donate to charity, or start a charity or whatever.
By their very nature taxes are not voluntary, they're taken by force of law. Don't pay them then go to jail.
This is a stupid (but very easy) argument to make, one (of the richest)rich person says he'd be happy to pay more tax, therefor all rich people should pay more.
If he really wants to make a difference he'd be way better off spending his money on charirty, then it's not going to be entirely eaten up paying for beurocracy. THe government is not efficient AT ANYTHING.
When you pay taxes you're funding all that crap you don't agree with. Wars, funding for lobbies, paying politicians fat saleries, all those police raids on pot smokers etc. Why the hell would you want to give more to that?
Why does Buffet donate to charity rather than the treasury? Does he believe that the government will use his money less efficiently than the organizations he donates to?
There are any number of possible answers to that question that don't fall into the false dichotomy you've set up. Why are you not a plumber? Is it because you believe that plumbing is worthless?
Good, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.
True, but what solves the forced rider problem and why presume that it is more benign a problem than free riding? One man's public good is another man's public bad.
The US's tax burden is already the lowest of the OECD countries bar Chile and Mexico. It's 30% lower than Great Britain, and half that of Denmark. And what that hides is we spend an extraordinarily large portion of that on "defense", so in terms of money spent on citizens, we're necessarily lower.
But if that's still too much governmental interference, then tax haters are able to select from a wide variety of third-world countries. I might suggest Somalia, where effective tax burden is zero. There being no effective government at all, of course.
Exactly, as much as some individuals would like to focus solely on the ills of government, there are socially beneficial programs supported by the government which need continual funding:
You're taking my abstract argument farther than I intended; perhaps I should have been more careful. I'm not saying we should give all our money to charity, just that it should be strongly preferred to paying increased taxes, especially with the goal of helping people.
"I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-m...