The other day at work during lunch, we got into talking about taxes and voting. Wanting to stir up some conversation and see where it would go, I suggested that if you were to have a progression tax system, the fairest way to structure the voting system would be to make the number of votes a person was entitled to directly proportional to the amount of taxes that individual paid. Not surprisingly, no one in the room liked the idea.
One of my coworkers asked me if that system had ever been used before. Knowing that he wouldn’t like my answer, I tried to get him to be more specific. Does he mean used in a government or is he talking about any institution? In trying to pinpoint the actual question being asked, I was accused of trying to skirt it—that I was being a “politician” about it. Ugh. So I answered the question.
Yes.
I followed it up by saying that it’s the way businesses (i.e. shareholders) run things. That’s the way markets in general work (minus the unnecessary step of trading money for “votes”). If I buy one unit of Product A once a month, I’m less powerful than the person who buys 10,000 units of Product A in that same time period.
Unfortunately, no one really bought this. The best answer anyone could give was “Well, that’s different” and “You can’t really compare the two.”
Why not? The government, in its theoretical form at least, is simply a collection of goods and services that we pay for through taxation. When I go to the food store and pay $10 for apples, I get more apples than the guy that only pays $2. They don’t care what my salary is compared to anyone else. If you want to be “fair” with government services and taxes, what’s the difference?
Of course, I find the idea of taxation to be abhorrent. I was only trying to demonstrate the way our taxing and voting systems work together just don’t make logical sense.
But what really got me intrigued (or frustrated) was how everyone clung to the sacredness of the democracy—one person, one vote. When told that “my” system would mean that the rich and elite would simply use their money to control everything, I responded by saying that they already do with lobbying and that elections are determined by huge sums of money being passed around. What was the response to that?
“You’re just being too cynical.”
Am I? First of all, that doesn’t refute my statement. And ignoring it doesn’t make it become untrue. And secondly, even if I were being cynical, my claim isn’t based on stirring up emotional fervor since you’re the one who believes that your single vote among 10 million other votes in a given election gives you a say in the government. Your voice is really heard when it makes up 0.0001% of the vote, isn’t it? I’m an engineer and was having this conversation with other engineers within my department. Don’t we pride ourselves on being the rational, “show me just the facts” kind of people?
“Never underestimate the power of a single vote.”
That’s the next line I was hit with. What does that even mean? It’s a silly little one-liner void of any actual substance. It’s propaganda because the single vote is actually powerless. In any election of substantial size, your vote is literally statistically insignificant.
If you took a bucketful of sand off the beach and someone scolded you for destroying the ocean’s ecosystem, would you scurry back to dump the sand or would you laugh at that person’s lunacy? So why do people react with such shock and disgust when they hear someone announce “I didn’t vote”?
As I found out, I didn’t even need to say that the democratic system itself was a bad way to structure society to get people to close their eyes, cover their ears, and repeat “I’m not listening, I’m not listening.” All I had to do was suggest a change in the voting system—a system that is rigged against their favor. Don’t people realize that the rules for voting are made by the people already in power? Don’t people realize these people get to change who gets to vote on what and for whom by changing imaginary geographical lines?
I guess people don’t see that. And that’s why they’ll become enraged when you question the power that their occult (oops, sorry…vote) possesses.
The USA was never supposed to be a democracy. Most of the Founding Fathers considered a democracy to be extremely dangerous. The people were not supposed to vote of senators (that changed in 1913), and have very little to do with electing federal officials. I know none of that changes our current situation, but here are some quotes for all the democracy lovers, who also claim to love the constitution…
At the Constitutional Convention, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts said, “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots”
“Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure” – James Madison
Madison also warns against a pure democracy in Federalist Paper No. 10.
Alexander Hamilton countered the claim that pure democracy is the perfect government by saying, “Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies…never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity.”
John Adams said, “there was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Edmund Randolph said that states choosing their senators instead of the people is a “cure for the evils under which the United States labored…the turbulence and follies of democracy.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “A democracy is the only pure republic, but impractical beyond the limits of a town.”
Alexander Hamilton again said, “Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have the power, that each may defend itself against the other.”
The genius of our system (when it isn’t being “fundamentally transformed”) is that a democratic republic makes government officials more accountable to the citizenry. Elected officials should fear the people. However, if the recent NSA and IRS scandals have revealed anything, its that the roles have been reversed and citizens now have reason to fear the government. As evidenced by the 10th Amendment, the founding fathers saw fit to reserve most power to the states and local governments. They knew that a large, overbearing federal government is ill-equipped to address problems. After all, isn’t a town councilman more likely to know more about a pot-hole on Main Street than a bureaucrat in Washington DC? And furthermore, if the councilman fails to address the pot-hole, you can bet he won’t be elected next time. Whereas the bureaucrat can easily overcome a few disgruntled voters in one town by concentrating campaign efforts elsewhere.
As for taxation, it is ridiculous that politicians can essentially bribe voters with handouts (thank you Martin Van Buren!). But while I believe we need to reform the system, I don’t think it would be effective to tie votes directly to taxes paid. There would simply be too many wrinkles to hammer out (i.e.- stay at home mom’s, retired people, people who make money from capital gains, etc.) and I don’t trust Washington DC to make those decisions. However, I do like the idea of a flat tax of approximately 15%. That way everyone has skin in the game.
To be clear, I’m not actually advocating for votes being tied to taxation. I was simply demonstrating that someone who is forced to pay $1,000,000 a year to the government should have more say as to what happens to the money than someone who only pays $1000 a year.
As for a flat tax, the same issue of people theoretically receiving the same services at different levels of cost. Why should Person A have to pay $10,000 for the same government services that Person B gets for only $2000? If we’re all equally protected under the law, shouldn’t taxes be taken at a flat fee and not a flat rate?