From: aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt)
Newsgroups: co.politics,co.general,boulder.general
Subject: Re: A followup to Amendment 1
Keywords: Taxes,Amendment1
Date: 23 Dec 92 15:36:34 GMT
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.

In <1992Dec23.050130.17460@ncar.ucar.edu> rosinski@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Jim Rosinski) writes:
>I don't expect a few Usenet postings to change your mind, but consider the
>following: 

Right, but let's at least argue both sides fairly.  [For the record, I also
voted against #1; my reasons: (1) It is the job of the elected representatives
to decide what is necessary and to make tough choices; if they fail, vote them
out.  If people want to make a contribution to government they can do so
by being informed on what their rep. is doing, and tell them what they want,
including when they want them to make cuts in programs they personally
benefit from.  (2) people will tend to vote for what is best for themselves,
personally -- e.g., taking it to extremes to show my point, if an issue
came up for a vote, "create a program to give everyone free money to
double their income", most people would vote for it, even though it is
ludicrous.  I think we'd do better to find a way to make our elected reps
feel safe making tough decisions and ensure they don't profit personally
from any of their decisions.  So, there's my $.02 on why I voted against #1.]

>1) When the federal income tax came into being (in 1914 I believe), the
>combination of federal, state, and local taxes took about 10% of the average
>wage earner's income.  That number has been on a slow but steady increase
>ever since, and now stands at approximately 47%.  The point is: given these
>statistics, it is hard to argue that governments are being starved for
>money.

Ok, but... gov't is doing a lot more now than back then.  Consider all
the entitlement programs which, I don't believe, existed hardly (if at all)
in 1914.  Now they're a huge percentage of the federal budget.

>2) Again on a nationwide average, the cost of a private K-12 education is
>$2500.  The average cost of a demonstrably inferior K-12 education in a
>public institution is around $4500.  These numbers are based on 1989 data.

Again, to be fair, you have to consider that the private schools select
who they want; public ones take "everyone".  This means there are significantly
greater burdens to be dealt with, e.g., the mentally less-than-fully-functional.

By way of analogy, imagine the costs a software vendor like WordPerfect could
save if they said, "We handpick our customers; you apply, we determine if you
can use our program without handholding, then sell to you."  They might
sell fewer copies, but would need almost NO tech support staff.  Yet support
for a product can be a real killer; witness microsoft having to charge for it
via an 1-900 number.  Clearly the costs of t.s. must be enormous for them
(especially since they produce a lot of public-school-level software :-)

I personally agree that the current setup is in need of major changes, but
just arguing annual cost is not the entirety of it.



>3) Try to put yourself in the bureaucrat's shoes whose job it is to bring
>money in for whatever organization he runs.  When faced with budgetary
>cutbacks, do you really expect him to say: "No problem, we'll just get rid
>of the wasteful do-nothing empolyees and everything will be fine."?  He'd
>look pretty silly saying that.  He has a vested interest in declaring that
>he runs a lean, mean organization, and that only worthwhile, useful programs
>would have to bear the impact of budget cuts.  Cutting popular programs is
>in fact one of the favorite scare tactics employed by advocates of big
>government. 

The flip side of this is, when asked to cut, I'm sure they first look for the
cuts that affect the voters the most.  Then they can say, "See, we had to cut
this XXX you liked so much".  I tend to believe that bureaucrats will cut
the meat before they cut the fat.

-- 

Andrew Burt 		   					  aburt@du.edu

"But if he was dying he wouldn't bother to carve "Aaaaargh", he'd just say it."