Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Spending Other People's Money

Now that I'm on my break, I hope to be posting more frequently in the next few weeks than I have recently. I want to start off by quickly sharing my thoughts on the morality of taxes and government spending.


Whenever policymakers create new laws that require funding, they must keep in mind that they are spending other people's money. Since taxation is not voluntary, people aren't paying the government for services, and taxes cannot simply be thought of as the "price" for a government provision of goods. Since government programs can only be funded through coercive measures, it is a moral imperative that governments demonstrate that they are justified in raising such taxes.


I don't think that anything I've said so far is controversial. The debate lies in what counts as "justified", and I will devote many posts in the future to examining that thought.

No comments:

Post a Comment