Essays in Idleness

Let me be clear, like a politician, when he is running for office. I am not running for office, and will not be, no matter how popular my political views. Unlike most of my rivals, neither have I ever run for office in the past; except, one campaign for the student council, when I was in high school.

My chief plank in this campaign was to construct an airstrip behind the school, so we could have a parachute club. The airstrip would be built over the football field then occupying the site, thus eliminating several other extracurricular activities. This I successfully concealed from the school’s avid sporting fans.

I did however have to confute several who complained about the potential noise of jet aircraft coming and going, by suggesting that the airstrip might serve only as a balloon-launching facility. Ascents and parachute descents, even free-fall, non-parachute drops, would be both voluntary and involuntary, by decision of the student council.

I finished a respectable, encouraging third in that election. By quitting school soon after, I disqualified myself from trying my luck again the next year. This was a pity, for several of my other policies, though ruinously expensive and implausibly funded, had proved attractive to the high-school voter, and would gain in popularity, I thought. My less attractive proposals, such as a fully-equipped plasma lab, were soon forgotten.

For reasons of pride, I did not reboot my political career, once “on the outside.” I did not feel the need to make this sort of spectacle, in adult society. But I’ve since noticed that many of my contemporaries were unable to resist; the poor, vexed devils. For their political careers never ended well. All they ever managed to achieve was to squander huge amounts of other people’s wealth, while getting rich themselves. They could have done this in private business, instead, if they had had the skill.

There is one policy I regret not having promoted, however; for no one else seems to have taken it up. This is to make the tax system, at every level, entirely voluntary.

If passed, this measure would immediately enable us to release almost all of the civil service from employment, including several disagreeable tax collectors I’ve met. We could reduce public spending to pre-modern levels. And, as most government expenditures are not only wasteful, but evil, it would put taxpayers to work as our moral guardians. They could be trusted to eliminate excess.

On the annual voluntary tax form, we could check off which departments should receive our hard-earned subsidy of cash (and which we might pay to have demolished). I expect police and military would partially survive the cutbacks, after some initial confusion, but no matter; only those who felt the need for protection from the “bad guys” of this world would feel compelled to pay for them. Cops, for instance, would have to earn the material support of their rhetorical supporters. Those who live in places like Parkdale, would reasonably consider themselves exempt from payment for services they seldom receive.

The same principle would apply to welfare funding, including profligate hospital insurance. Anyone who believes that this should be free to the poor, would have the opportunity to step forward, and provide the funding. Others, wanting capable assistance, would make arrangements for themselves. Those who complain about “unfairness” would be, as they presently are, ignored.

Arrangements can be quickly sorted out, when “money is talking.” The new voluntarism might cause some inconvenience to those who have foolishly lent a government money, but there would be no risk that this mistake would be repeated. For the public debt will be quickly forgotten, when debt payments are made voluntary, too.