11/20/2010 Itemized receipt for the civilized societ…

Itemized Receipt For The Civilized Society « The

Reality-Based Community

September 30th, 2010

by Andrew Sabl

Justice Holmes said (and I’ve checked the quotation), “Taxes are what
we pay for civilized society….”* The problem is that most people don’t
know which civilized things they’re paying for and how much they cost
—and as a result believe some bizarre things about where taxes go.

The Third Way, whose determination to evenhandedly blame liberals

and conservatives for our fiscal problems generally irritates me, has
come up with a brilliant solution (abstract, whole thing as .pdf): a
“Taxpayer Receipt” to be sent to each taxpayer—not posted online,
dammit; hasn’t anyone heard of information costs?—detailing what his
or her taxes, at her level and composition of income, paid for.

A sample would look like this:

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Alas, I’m afraid that Republicans, for all their stated zeal to scrutinize
federal spending, would never go for it. They benefit quite nicely from
the false but common assumption that the federal budget goes mostly
to foreign aid and “waste.” Still, let’s propose it and see how they
squirm. My reasons are different from Third Way’s: TW thinks that if
people see what government pays for, they’ll realize the need to cut the
big items; I think that if people realize how much they love what
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government pays for, they’ll stop hating taxes so much.

Via Ezra Klein.

*Dissenting in Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas v. Collector

of Internal Revenue, 275 U.S. 87, 100; 48 S. Ct. 100, 105; or 72 L. Ed.
177, 183.

Posted: Thursday, September 30th, 2010 at 5:33 pm

32 Comments »

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