Ok, I know this is HN, ie. libertarian central, but I for one don't think I'm taxed enough. If it means the US resumes its previous levels of scientific investment, we finally fucking go to mars and we all get healthcare? Yeah, I'm fucking in. Tax me at 50% I don't care.
I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down. Most scientists in the academic world are focused on churning out papers for prestige and chasing grants. There is too much noise generated and lot of it is just bad/poor science.
The government crowds out industrial/commercial labs that are necessary to actually complete large huge projects. As for going to mars, look at how much SpaceX has accomplished and what it cost -- significantly leaner and cheaper than NASA running the show.
Also, taxes are mainly used for social programs and not really for science.
> I think government funding of science is actually slowing it down.
Maybe you weren't alive during the cold war or the space race. The government poured billions into fundamental research, including hopeless moonshots like parapsychology, to help us beat the Russkies to the moon and/or ensure we were the ones dishing out preemptive nuclear strikes against them if and when the shit really hit the fan. When the government funding of science dried up... well, so did science. Private companies stopped opening Bell Labs or Xerox PARC style "let's throw this at the wall and see if it sticks" research centers, and any research companies do today has to have a clear path to monetization. Which is why we're still using 1970s Xerox PARC style computers (running a 1970s Bell Labs style OS) and not something more next-level. What's more, as political conservatism reasserted itself, so too did anti-intellectualism, with the result that it's hard to get funding from any source for fundamental research.
I'm with you. I think it is ridiculous that I get a tax credit for paying my mortgage, for example. By my estimation I get paid a salary that a lot of HN's entitled user base would consider below poverty and I still rarely have to think about money because it is so high. I would gladly pay more to get universal health care and a renewed interest in science and infrastructure projects.
Sadly, the political landscape is dominated by people who would gladly let others suffer to save a dime.
I have a median income in the USA and will likely never be able to afford a major health crisis. I would gladly give up all of my salary to end government involvement in the healthcare system.
> Sadly, the political landscape is dominated by people who would gladly let others suffer to save a dime.
This sort of rhetorical statement is either misinformed or disingenuous. The vast majority of people who wish to see government withdraw from the healthcare system are in fact motivated by the idea that this will limit suffering. In fact, if taken literally your statement could be turned against you:
> I still rarely have to think about money because it is so high
If you retain any money for discretionary spending or anything beyond your mere survival, you are "saving a dime" and not putting it toward alleviating the suffering of others. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This is the choice we all make every day. We value different things at different times for different reasons. Government taxing and spending our money takes away this freedom to choose what we value.
There's a precedent for voluntary contributions towards government. Perhaps if government institutions inspired trust and confidence, while efficiently delivering valuable services, people would be more inclined to donate. As it stands, there's nothing stopping you from donating.
As to this being a largely libertarian website, I'm not sure I would accept that generalization. There's a fair amount of support for state programs here.
>. One was the method relied on by the old city-state of Hamburg and other communities—voluntary gifts to the government. President William F. Warren of Boston University, in his essay, “Tax Exemption the Road to Tax Abolition,” described his experience in one of these communities:
>For five years it was the good fortune of the present writer to be domiciled in one of these communities. Incredible as it may seem to believers in the necessity of a legal enforcement of taxes by pains and penalties, he was for that period ... his own assessor and his own tax-gatherer. In common with the other citizens, he was invited, without sworn statement or declaration, to make such contribution to the public charges as seemed to himself just and equal. That sum, uncounted by any official, unknown to any but himself, he was asked to drop with his own hand into a strong public chest; on doing which his name was checked off the list of contributors. ... Every citizen felt a noble pride in such immunity from prying assessors and rude constables. Every annual call of the authorities on that community was honored to the full.
Can you show it in a pie chart next to other spending? Can you apply that % to your taxes and then fill in the gaps where all the rest went? There must be a name for the logical fallacy you just used
