The Pope Endorses Tax Choice

[Xerographica]

Turns out that the pope endorsed tax choice 4 years ago...

One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State. Provided it does not degenerate into the promotion of special interests, this can help to stimulate forms of welfare solidarity from below, with obvious benefits in the area of solidarity for development as well. - Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth

As far as I can tell...it's by far the most notable endorsement of the idea of giving taxpayers more control over how their taxes are spent.

So, are any of you now "sold" on the tax choice concept because the pope endorses it? Do any of you like the tax choice concept even less because the pope endorses it?

Whose endorsement would you give the most weight to? If President Obama supported the tax choice concept would that motivate you to like tax choice on facebook? What about Ron Paul or Paul Krugman? Would any of you be swayed by the endorsements of any actors, musicians or athletes? If so, which ones?

I guess what I'm asking is...when it comes to new political/economic ideas...if you had to pick one person...whose opinion would you trust the most?

Personally, my vote is for Vermin Supreme. I love that guy. Both Vermin Supreme and the pope wear a funny hat.

Should the president wear a funny hat? Speaking of which, let's get crazy with the cheese whiz and consider James M. Buchanan's argument that the state has replaced god (Afraid to be free: Dependency as desideratum)...

But what if Nietzsche is right? What if God is dead? What happens to the person who is forced to recognize that the ordering presence of God is no longer real? What if God cannot be depended on to clean up the mess, even in some last resort sense? Who and/or what can fulfill the surrogate parent role? Who and what is there beyond the individual that can meet the yearning for family-like protectiveness? Who and what will pick us up when and if we fall? Who and what can provide the predictability that God and his agency structures seemed to offer?

...In short, persons are afraid to be free. As subsequent discussion will suggest, socialism, as a coherent ideology, has lost most of its appeal. But in a broader and more comprehensive historical perspective, during the course of two centuries, the state has replaced God as the father-mother of last resort, and persons will demand that this protectorate role be satisfied and amplified.

We transitioned from putting our lives in god's hands to putting our lives in the state's hands...

Something wonderful happened in the United States during the middle third of the twentieth century. After decades of policies that smacked of Social Darwinism, our country created a strong, if incomplete, social-insurance safety net. - Henry J. Aaron, Progressives and the Safety Net

Highly risk-averse people do not start businesses; instead, they tend to go to work for well-established businesses or, in many cases, for the government, particularly in education. That risk-averse population is the natural political home of socialism in the developed world, and particularly in the United States and other English-speaking countries. - Kevin D. Williamson, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism

The state has replaced god, so by endorsing tax choice, the pope is actually endorsing freedom of religion. The question is...of all the really "notable" people, why is the pope the first and only one who endorses freedom of modern religion? How did that happen? It kind of weirds me out. Anybody else think that it's strange?

[Frisivisia]

The Pope also hates birth control, so...

[Avenio]

Xerographica: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of being a broken record.

[Xerographica]

The Pope also hates birth control, so...

So I guess he wants to give Christian taxpayers the freedom not to fund abortion?

[Blazedtown]

Tax choice is a ridiculous concept. It would ensure that programs that nobody has ever heard of get defunded. Like that subsidy for rural airports in Alaska that the one guy was bitching about 3 weeks ago.

[Xerographica]

Xerographica: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of being a broken record.

Avenio: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of listening to the same broken record over and over and over and over...

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

Xerographica: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of being a broken record.

Avenio: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of listening to the same broken record over and over and over and over...

To be fair, General is a giant Ipod stuck on shuffle mode.

[Coccygia]

If the Pope endorses it, then I know there's something the matter with it. Of course I knew that anyway.

[Xerographica]

Avenio: Charting new and bold frontiers in the field of listening to the same broken record over and over and over and over...

To be fair, General is a giant Ipod stuck on shuffle mode.

Here’s a slightly more concrete way to cash out ‘story’: we tend to operate with notions of the proper form and function of the university that are too closely tied to pictures of the ideal college experience that are, really, too atypical to function as paradigms. ‘We’ meaning pretty much everyone still: academics, our students, their parents. Shirky’s idea is that MOOCs are going to unbundle a lot of stuff. You don’t have to buy the 4-year package to get some learning. It’s pretty obvious there’s more unbundling to come – it’s gonna make buying individual tracks on iTunes seem a minor innovation – and it will put pressure on current higher education’s strong tendency to bundle a lot of functions together to the point of indistinguishability (teaching, research, socialization, credentialing). John Holbo, Shirky, Udacity and the University

General-fund financing is analogous to a market situation where the individual is forced to purchase a bundle of goods, with the mix among the various components determined independently of his own preferences. The specific tie-in sale is similar to general-fund financing, that is, nonearmarking. - James Buchanan, Earmarking Versus General-Fund Financing

[Xerographica]

Tax choice is a ridiculous concept. It would ensure that programs that nobody has ever heard of get defunded. Like that subsidy for rural airports in Alaska that the one guy was bitching about 3 weeks ago.

It's ridiculous that you believe that "optimal" funding can be accurately determined by a small group of government planners.

Both Samuelson and Musgrave pointed out that the free-rider problem means there are difficulties in a Pareto optimum being attained: ‘no decentralized pricing system can serve to determine optimally these levels of collective consumption’ (Samuelson, 1954, p. 388) because ‘any one individual will find it profitable to understate his preference, knowing that this will have no significant effect on the total supply but result in a smaller assessment on himself‘ (Musgrave, 1959, p. 80). - John McMillan, The Free-Rider Problem: A Survey

In a tax choice system, no matter how you spend your taxes...there will not be a "smaller assessment" on yourself. You're going to pay the same amount of taxes no matter what. So why understate your preferences?

[Cameroi]

well that's good of him. doesn't prove anything about the validity of the office of the papacy, but it is a reasonable perspective.

[Saruhan]

The Pope was also a member of the Hitler Youth. Just putting it out there. Anyway, I wonder if you even know all the government agencies, what they do, and how much funding they need in order to make a choice with your money that would not cause the nation to fall into ruin?

[Ceannairceach]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

[Xerographica]

The Pope was also a member of the Hitler Youth. Just putting it out there. Anyway, I wonder if you even know all the government agencies, what they do, and how much funding they need in order to make a choice with your money that would not cause the nation to fall into ruin?

Nobody is perfect. Let he who has not been a member of the Hitler Youth cast the first stone. Here's what I wonder...but not really. I wonder if you even know all the private sector organizations, what they do, and how much funding they need in order to prevent the nation from failing?

Read up on rational ignorance and decentralized knowledge.

[Xerographica]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

It's not an attempt to allow liberals to boycott unnecessary wars?

[Desperate Measures]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

First thought I had.

[Ceannairceach]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

It's not an attempt to allow liberals to boycott unnecessary wars?

Why would the Pope do anything to help liberals? That's not his M.O.

[Wamitoria]

He would also endorse mandatory tithing if anyone was offering.

[Choronzon]

The Catholic Church is an organization that routinely protects child molestors and defends them in court.

Wonder if they give their parishioners any choice in funding that?

[Blazedtown]

The Catholic Church is an organization that routinely protects child molestors and defends them in court.

Wonder if they give their parishioners any choice in funding that?

maybe they could take up a collection from altar boys.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

So you agree that a significantly greater proportion of tax receipts should be spent on social welfare programs?

Because that's basically what the Pope is hoping would be the outcome of this, and that hope is the entire basis for his (lukewarm and fragile) endorsement.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

The Pope also hates birth control, so...

So I guess he wants to give Christian taxpayers the freedom not to fund abortion?

But Christians don't have any objections to abortion, so why would they do such a thing?

[Xerographica]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

It's not an attempt to allow liberals to boycott unnecessary wars?

Why would the Pope do anything to help liberals? That's not his M.O.

But isn't the pope endorsing tax choice? And wouldn't tax choice give liberals the freedom to boycott unnecessary wars? So isn't the pope helping both liberals AND conservatives by endorsing tax choice?

[Ceannairceach]

I'm sure that this is merely an attempt to give Christians the ability to deny women their right to bodily sovereignty by denying funding.

It's not an attempt to allow liberals to boycott unnecessary wars?

Why would the Pope do anything to help liberals? That's not his M.O.

But isn't the pope endorsing tax choice? And wouldn't tax choice give liberals the freedom to boycott unnecessary wars? So isn't the pope helping both liberals AND conservatives by endorsing tax choice?

No. He's helping conservatives, because liberals, I feel, in the United States at least, can still be goaded or convinced into buying into the war craze. Conservatives cannot, or rarely can, be made into accepting the reality of civil rights.

[Yaltabaoth]

I wouldn't be totally opposed to the idea of "tax choice" if there was an option to say "I want the Government to allocate my taxes for me" for all the people who don't care enough to take the time to determine and allocate their taxes individually.

I foresee the vast majority choosing this option, allowing the Government to offset any imbalances caused by the special-interest taxpayers, thereby practically invalidating the voluntary system.