Back when we lived near Dallas, we went to the Texas State Fair. The first thing we learned was that the Fair didn’t take cash. They only took tickets. So, when you got to the entrance, you had to exchange cash for a bunch of tickets. When you wanted to buy something, say, for example, a Coke, you’d tear off some tickets and hand them to the vendor. There were ticket-selling booths scattered across the fairgrounds so if you ran out, you could easily buy more.
Having to convert hard cash for tickets had a downside. Unless you were a math whiz, you never really knew how much real money anything cost. It wasn’t until you got home and started tallying up the day’s spending that you discovered you actually paid five bucks for a mostly-ice-filled Coke.
Abstracting real money into some sort of make-believe currency is an effective way to separate real people from their real money.
Video games do this all the time. Once someone exchanges their real money for make-believe Caps, Simoleons, Gil, Bells, Zeni or Pokedollars, it’s easy to lose track of how much money is actually being spent.
That’s by design.
And that brings me to income tax withholding. Essentially, income tax withholding automatically converts your real money into a currency known as “gov-mint bucks”.
The reason they do this is because nobody in their right mind would willingly give their money to pay for some of the ridiculous things the government routinely spends money on. Imagine how you’d feel if you had to write a check each month so some Pakistani could continue their research on gender studies. Exactly.
I’ve often looked at the crazy stuff that the various governments spend money on and said there’s no fucking way I would spend money on that shit. I’ll bet you’ve also said that at least a time or two.
If you had to write a check each week and then hand it to the first illegal alien you find standing in the parking lot outside Home Depot, how willing would you be to do that? I’m guessing not very. Because it’s a stupid idea. In fact, it’s so stupid that a typical Liberal would only have to write five or six checks before they figured it out.
With every one of your paychecks, many of your hard-earned dollars are converted to guv-mint bucks before you even see them. And the government does whatever it wants with it. Without asking.
But because the money has been abstracted into a pretend currency, for many people it starts to seem like the spending isn’t real either. It’s what gives people the ridiculous idea that there’s such a thing as “free money”. After all, the government isn’t spending dollars, they’re spending guv-mint bucks.
Most reasonable people wouldn’t be willing to write a check to cover even half the crazy-ass stuff the government is wasting money on. And the people running the government know that.
So you don’t get a choice. Not only does the government automatically convert your money for you, it also decides what you’re going to spend it on. Which means you never really know how much what they’re spending your money on really costs you.
That’s by design.
I recently came across an article about the Kellogg Foundation (yes, that Kellogg). They’re funding a program that gives a guaranteed basic income of $500 per month to a bunch of illegal aliens. No strings attached.
Now, the article I read tried to make a big deal out of it, but I don’t really care what the Kellogg Foundation does with their money. I don’t directly donate to their cause. I may indirectly contribute to it because I undoubtedly eat something Kellogg’s makes. But I’m not giving them money on purpose.
So, if they want to fund the activities of illegal aliens, it’s no cereal out of my bowl.
Anybody could do it. If you wanted to start a GoFundMe page to collect money to give away to people who aren’t legally authorized to be in this country, more power to you. If you can find people to help fund your cause, great. Just don’t expect me to pay for it.
This wouldn’t be a solution for everything because if, for example, you wanted to donate money to support Kyle Rittenhouse or Canadian truckers, GoFundMe wouldn’t allow that. But if you want to collect and give money away to a group of people that has the word “illegal” right in its name, well that would be just fine.
Back when I worked in startup companies, we used to say that the best kind of money to spend is “other people’s money”. Instead of spending our own money, we’d convince investors to give us some of theirs. And then we’d spend it.
It’s the same way with the government. Except they don’t actually have any money and in this case the other people is you. So wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way that you could have a say in how your money is being spent?
The Solution
What if we had a system similar to GoFundMe that would fund government spending? We could call it “GoFundGov”.
Here’s how it works:
First of all, we do need to fund some government spending so getting rid of taxes entirely isn’t the solution. Everyone would still be required to contribute to the budget. GoFundGov just changes the way you contribute.
With GoFundGov, instead of automatically taking your money and spending it, the government would have to beg for it. And the money they raise would have to be used for a specific purpose.
Whenever they want to spend money, they’d create a GoFundGov campaign and pitch their argument for why taxpayer money should be spent on their silly-ass idea. If their silly-ass idea has merit, then people will fund it. If it doesn’t get funded, it doesn’t get done.
Here’s an example. If some government department wants to spend $10M to fund gender studies in Pakistan, they would use the GoFundGov app to convince the four people in this country who actually think that’s a good idea to pony up $2.5M each. Easy peasy.
Or say the government wanted to give away crack pipes to junkies. They’d start a GoFundGov campaign. Then they use the app to make their pitch for why giving away crack pipes is the best thing since giving away cell phones. If it’s a good idea, then it should have no problem getting funded.
Or maybe some obscure government department wants to spend any time at all thinking about a new term to call illegal aliens/illegal immigrants/undocumented workers/non-citizens. If that department can convince enough people that changing the term yet again will solve any kind of problem, then they’ll have the money to make it happen.
This wouldn’t be difficult to do. The technology already exists, and most people are at least aware of the concept.
But that’s not all. GoFundGov would also provide a bunch of hidden benefits.
People would be more involved in, or at least aware of, politics. Candidates would have a well-documented track record of fiscal responsibility…or not. With government spending totally exposed and transparent, we’d have less government waste. And it would make the country less partisan by funding good ideas regardless of where they come from and not funding the really stupid ones, regardless of where they come from.
I know I’m biased, but I think this a really good idea. But ironically, it will never get funded. Because the same politicians who are wasting trillions of dollars a year on their own silly-ass ideas, won’t fund an idea that actually makes sense.
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