Where Did My Capitalism Go?

I’m not one to write letters to editors, but I saw this article today in The Hindu of India (I’ve been in the country for about a week now) and I had to send my two cents to the publication.  In the online version of the article it’s clearly in the Op-Ed section but that wasn’t made clear in the newspaper…it had the appearance of a news article more than an op-ed.  I’ll probably never know if my letter gets printed since I’m leaving the country tonight, but I thought I’d share my opinion of the article here for posterity:

Dear Editor,
I’d like to make the statement that Narayan Lakshman’s article on July 15th, 2011, “A compromise too far”, should not be regarded as representative of the beliefs of the American people.  As a US citizen that often travels to India for business, I enjoy seeing the an outside perspective on US politics and policies.  But when I see an article such as this which shows the author’s clear bias, I want to be sure that those reading this material understand that Mr. Lakshman’s words are definitively his opinion. 
 
By referring to the heart of the debt negotiations as a “gun to the head of the poor, the elderly and the infirm”, the author certainly tugs at the heart strings of the Indian people, but the fact is that the entitlement programs the US government put in place in the 20th century have spiralled out of control and are a weight to middle-class Americans concerned about their own well-being.  Social Security and Medicare have become behemoths, allowing people to rely on the government for income while forcibly taking money from other citizens that work hard for their money.  Remeber that forced charity is not charity at all.  The American dream is alive and well in the US in the hearts and minds of those that work for their living, but entitlement programs such as these are slowly chipping away at that dream by siphoning off people’s income as quickly as they receive it.
 
The beauty of the American dream is the opportunity to make one’s life whatever one wants; that the individual is in control of their destiny.  Entitlement programs, while they appear on the surface to support the poor and helpless, really work to increase the dependency of the populace on the government.  Without these programs the people are challenged to support themselves throughout life, and to plan for the ups and downs of economies intelligently.  Lack of these entitlements would encourage entrepreneurship, problem-solving and independence rather than dependence. 
 
I have a great respect for the intelligence and analytical nature of the Indian people, and so I hope that the readers of your newspaper will take the time to do their own research, and understand the cost and benefits of these entitlement programs, before automatically agreeing with my or Mr. Lakshman’s perspective.
 
Sincerely,
Andrew Morse
California, USA 

I was thinking the other day about what my federal tax money goes to. There’s a whole range of uses that the government employs our tax dollars for, but I increasingly feel that where I want this money to go is not being recognized by our representatives in government. While I hold that federal tax money should be used for utilitarian purposes like civil works and national defense, our representatives increasingly create budgets authorizing the use of taxpayer funds for social programs that I have no interest in funding. While I understand that we elect these representatives to speak for us in the creation of a national financial plan, we know from experience that what they decide is not always what their constituents want.

So, could we create some sort of check on how our tax money gets distributed for federal uses? What if we developed a survey that was required to be filled out each year at tax time and then sent to the IRS with our other required information? The survey could ask each taxpayer to rank, in order, the buckets that they wanted their money to go into. What percentage of your taxes would you want to see go to the Department of Transportation? What about the Defense Department, or the Department of Health and Human Services? Now, I’m not advocating a mandatory use of these rankings to alter the US budget, but I am interested in seeing the results of a survey like this, and in having some weight attributed to this survey by the US Congress as they develop future budgets. The money we pay today in taxes is used immediately to fund federal programs so it only makes sense to supply the Congress with an accurate portrayal of what its constituents want to see their money go to, and to have that breakdown influence the decision makers.

I realize that our nation consists of a wide variety of people with different backgrounds and from all walks of life, so I’m sure that the summarized results of a survey like this might be different from what I would choose to spend my tax money on. But the great thing about an effort like this is that our representatives would be able to see exactly what their employers want to do with the nation’s money. This would go a long way towards making our Congress men and women honest. We could more easily hold them accountable for their actions if they see in plain light what their constituents expect from them.

Maybe a survey like this would leave some Americans disappointed, thinking that they might not benefit from the outcome of such an initiative. That line of thinking might be warranted given the fact that the power of decision, in terms of monetary value, would be held by the rich, and the weight of fund division would be skewed towards their preferences on tax funding. This makes sense if you look at it from a business standpoint: the investors of a company that hold the highest amount of shares (have supplied the largest amount of capital funding) have the highest percentage of say over how the company is run. It’s the wealthier taxpayers in America that have provided and continue to provide the majority of funding for America’s federal programs, whether utilitarian or social. So why not give them their fair share of say over what those tax funds are used for? Those citizens providing less funding to the government through taxes might cry foul, but the fact is that they would still be given the right to influence decisions about where their tax money goes and their contribution, like everyone else’s, would be taken at face value.

In the end, I think a survey like this would incentivize those with a smaller stake in the breakdown of tax distribution to increase their wealth, and become greater voices in the national discussion. I know I’m extremely interested to see the results of such a survey. It would be fascinating to look at the breakdown and spot the differences and similarities between what comes directly from the voters of America and what comes out of the halls of Congress.