Taxes
I pay a fair share of my income in taxes and wouldn’t mind paying more if I thought it was going to a good cause.
I find myself somewhat disturbed by the anti-tax efforts locally, which seem to imply that schools get too much money and teachers are overpaid. The schools could use renovation and when my wife was a teacher, she was underpaid.
I’m lucky enough to live in a town with great services. It is safe, the schools are good, the garbage gets collected regularly, the park district has dozens of well-maintained parks and great classes at a reasonable price, and we have three well-stocked public libraries. And, our taxes are low, compared to surrounding towns.
But more importantly, an underused function of taxes is that they allows the government to incentivize globally-positive behavior in markets where people will otherwise make locally-optimal decisions. For example, energy-efficient hybrid cars are more expensive than cars with pure gasoline engines. Many folks, myself included, decided to buy a car with a traditional engine because it would take 4-6 years of driving, even at today’s high gas prices, to make a hybrid more cost efficient.
People tend to make locally-optimal decisions. They try to save money.
In comes the government. Instead of giving a smallish tax break for hybrid vehicles, Uncle Sam could give a large tax writeoff, perhaps to the tune of $5000 or more, to anyone who buys any type of car than has a fuel efficiency of over 40 MPG.
Thus, the government uses our taxes to fund a program that distributes wealth to those who behave in a globally-positive fashion. Put all of that nanny-state nonsense aside. This is similar to the government putting criminals in jail, just a more subtle approach to solving a non-criminal behavioral problem.
And eventually, when we’re all driving fuel efficient cars, the government should find something else to incentivize, such as windmill construction and operation, solar energy, etc.
This is the sort of thing that the government could be good at, and that our politicians should focus on.