continued…

I want to be very clear on this:  it is wrong for any individual or group to get money from the government merely because they exist (and belong to some special interest group that has enough political leverage to convince enough politicians to give them other people’s money for nothing).  That would include “rich corporations” along with “poor people”.  I’ve said it a thousand times and I’m going to keep on saying it:  If YOU want to help people, go to it; nobody is stopping YOU.  The people that created and support governmental welfare have no interest in helping people.  If they truly cared about poor people they would mind their own business, stop bothering the government to redistribute money, and go out and help people with their own time and money.  The real reason that all these redistribution entitlement programs exist is not to help people.  The real reason is that someone with political clout wants to take money away from people that earn it.  It has been argued that “private charity can’t solve all the problems of poverty, etc.”  But government redistribution can?  Of course it can’t; it hasn’t yet and it never will.  This is yet another completely irrelevant argument.  It is not even a morally suspect situation wherein some “end” (ending poverty, social ills, etc.) can be justified by some “means” (government redistribution of wealth).  It is a complete non sequitur.
 
I could say also say that government intervention and redistribution is a dehumanizing way to institute a charitable delivery system; which is very true.  Why even bother to worry about or interact with actual humans when a person can just sit back and say, “Hey, I paid my taxes, I am in favor of social security, subsidies and welfare and the government is supposed to make poverty go away.”  But such a person would have much more integrity if they went out into the real world of real people and actually got involved and helped someone they think is deserving of help.  Of course, I am not leaning on this argument too heavily.  I am not a “compassionate conservative”.  The problem with that line of thinking is many conservatives advocating this position are still using altruism as their moral standard.  And the liberals against this position (and thus for governmental redistribution programs) are quite correct in arguing against this position by pointing out that if one is morally “for altruism” then the government programs are perfectly suited to this purpose.  After all, someone’s interests are being sacrificed for someone else’s and therefore regardless of reality, rights, truth, justice or consequences their almighty god of altruism is being served.
 
Suggestion…
A long time ago I devised a proposal that I will now restate.
 
Once a year we fill out a tax form to determine how much money we will be responsible for handing over to the government.  Along with this form should be another form that is an Allocation of Funds Form.  (See where this is going yet?)  All the current Federal Programs will be listed on this form and if you want some of your tax dollars to go to a specific program then you enter a check or even a percentage by this program on the form.  If you don’t want any of your money going to a specific program, enter a zero.  This principle works even for state income taxes.  Carrying the idea a little further it could even be applied and tacked onto local yearly election ballots for state and county sales taxes.  Tax collections would then be split up to the various programs.  Programs without funding are “out of business”.
 
Even if this is merely a “thought experiment” that never gets implemented I find it an extremely useful and revealing tool.  Once and for all the real motives behind people’s political convictions would be exposed in a concrete form.  And further more, this would be a chance for everyone that pays taxes to find out (to precisely identify) if they are willing to practice what they preach.
 
Of course all of this could be avoided if we could elect public officials that would only make laws that protect (and not violate) individual rights and spend only the amount of money they collect in taxes.  Of course, that is going to take a major reassessment in philosophical premises.
 
I even have a suggestion that address a way to start paying down the national debt.  You know all those public schools and roads that are essentially paid for by taxes?  How about the government sells them to private companies?  That would go a long way to reducing the debt.
 
No more public school?!  Yeah, that’s right, I’m against them.  There are many noted problems with public schools and how ‘ineffective’ they are.  No big secrets or revelatory surprises there.  I am actually impressed that the public schools do as good a job as they have.  My issue is with how they are funded.  If you have a kid, it is your responsibility to feed, clothe, house and education your kid.  Not mine.  Everyone knows (unless they are completely ignorant and/or naïve) the only reason public schools exist is to redistribute enough wealth so John Dewey and his disciples could and can realize their precious dream of teaching kiddies to grow up to be a Progressive Community of Socialist Nitwits.  They have succeeded spectacularly.  On a less acidic note, it should be obvious that the funding of public schools is yet another collectivist delusion.  The irrational hope is the same as with the  national health care scheme: that there will be enough responsible parents that will be able to pay for the education expenses of their own children (through taxes) as well as the children of parents that can’t afford it or won’t pay for it (for whatever reason).
 
Of course, as a side note, if you really want to keep public schools in operation why not just require parents to pay directly for their children’s tuition?  And if someone can’t afford it they could make it know to the community at large or ask someone with some extra money to help them out and pay it for them.  I have heard several objections when I have mentioned this idea.