A Thought
If there is absolutely no choice in the matter and the political tides are taking us certain ways, I had a thought.
I think one of the most repugnant aspects of American politics is the way programs are sold to us and then paid for by lawmakers. Specifically, the program is sold in theory, with the funding coming from some magic pot o’ gold at the end of a rainbow. But it turns out the leprechaun is just an IRS agent with a calculator and a hot poker. The attitude of the lower income folks is “why not?” The attitude of the liberal rich guy is “add it to the bill.” The attitude of the conservative rich guy tends to be a “whiskey tango foxtrot” type thing.
I think these grandiose ideas would be much more palatable if they tied the program funding to the program itself. Does that make sense? I’m saying, set it up (somehow, I need to go shower so I’m banging this one out quickly) where, when I pay my heavily corporate-subsidized health insurance premium, I understand that $X is being added to my bill to pay for 20% of a family of 5 in Tucson.
The US has 307 million people or so, with less than 50 million (even using pretty fat numbers, as I understand) uninsured. I’m seeing that around 20% of that figure elect to pass up already-available public insurance options. A bunch of them are young, in college and such, so you can assume some will come and some will continue to pass it up.
I think this, if properly implemented, could really help keep them honest. The SSA sends out lame-o annual statements, why not other real-life aspects of tax? I really have no interest if the Defense portion of my taxes goes for the paint coat on a Cruise missile, but I’d kind of be curious how far the “FDR portions” of my payments are going toward actually making peoples’ lives better.
In the end, if the government does this, I think the government is putting itself in the position of being a charity. We can talk about the pluses and minuses of this, but what I would stress is that - this being the case - the government should begin acting more like a charity in the way it spends and raises money:
- Efficiency should be transparently reported and audited by the CBO
- Contributors should be aware of the impact of their contributions and thanked
- Tying contributions to tangible benefits, when possible, is better
- Competition, with the winner determined by efficacy of service and communication, makes things better