A Different Approach to Governing – the Personal Tax

 

The average reader of this text probably has auto insurance, since it is mandatory in your State and homeowners insurance, as it is required by your mortgage lender or just common sense.  You qualify for Social Security benefits and have a separate retirement or pension plan.  You have health insurance and at least a high school education.  You probably don’t think about it, but through your taxes, you have unemployment insurance, poverty insurance and various services such as fire protection and snow removal.

 

Since we all use these services, doesn’t it make sense for the community to pool their money to pay for these common services and benefits?  That’s what we do now, isn’t it?  What’s wrong with this concept? 

 

The problem is there is a never ending public argument on the State, local, and primarily Federal level on the level of services and benefits to dole out and the means to pool resources (tax).  The task before the liberal politician is to increase the benefit level for his constituents at the expense of his opponents constituents.  The task for the conservative politician is to question the need for the added benefits, the national ability to pay for the benefit, and to repel unfair taxation, such as graduated income taxes.

 

 

What’s a Personal Tax?

 

Let’s take education as an example.  We were all educated, most of us formally in a public school.  So why can’t we pay for our own education? 

 

How?  With a personal tax, the benefits and services we select are either current, have occurred in the past, or will occur in the future.  An agency of the government, call it the Department of Communal Affairs (DCA), will give parents the option of funding their children’s education in whole, in part, or not at all.  DCA will fund in advance the child’s education at the school of the parent’s choice.  As education progresses, the individual incurs a debt to the DCA.

 

When the child completes high school, a choice is made by the family whether to continue education or enter the work force.  If higher education is chosen, DCA can also fund the additional education.  If the individual chooses work, payback of the debt commences, with interest,, at a pace commensurate with the individual’s ability to pay.  Profits the DCA earns as a result of the interest payments may be used to cover payments lost due to deaths, non-wage earners, and other expenses (analogous to a negative Social Security tax).

 

Similarly, the individual determines his or her own tax by selecting the level of benefits desired.  Certain benefits, such as education, medical, disability, unemployment, poverty, and retirement income will be mandatory at a basic level.  Options for a higher tax will be available with higher education, for instance.  The individual or the parents always has the option to privately pay for a private school, or higher education, or any benefit above and beyond the required basic coverage.

 

Once enacted into law there will be no need, other than transitional reasons, to maintain a majority of taxes we now pay, from local property taxes supporting schools, to the Federal graduated income taxes currently covering most of these “insurance policies.”

 

Does this plan have faults?  Of course.  Think of how boring the elections will be in the future.