Is it better to have companies pay taxes that can go toward programs like this OR have them "give" money to help form/direct programs like the example here?
I guess they could do both, but what should the standard be?
I guess they could do both, but what should the standard be?
Taxes and their distribution are controlled by elected representatives who are ultimately beholden to democratic voters.
Companies and philanthropists are beholden to nothing but their personal whims.
Can we at least have Swedes decide “what constitutes incompetence and corruption?” Like democracy, except only Swedes in Sweden get to vote in US local elections. Once a year, a committee of Swedes will have to come over here and ride BART/the NYC Subway/Metro and report back before voting.
This sounds like a great way of only diverting resources to those who already have it, and also of creating company towns that have historically been bad for workers.
Do you think the government officials would create better iPhones?
Government suffers from bureaucratic overhead and tyranny of the masses. But most of the other things it suffers from — control by special interests, regulatory capture, buying elections and politicians, are caused by billionaires and rich corporations. At least going through taxes and government has some amount of public influence instead of just abdicating the whole thing and submitting to becoming an complete oligogarchy.
Billionaires and rich corporations caused WMATA and MTA to completely neglect maintenance for decades and let their systems literally catch on fire (despite being just as well funded as European systems?) Billionaires and rich corporations cause our education system to underperform (while being among the most well funded?) Billionaires and corporations cause our intractable housing issues?
I just don’t buy this. European countries have billionaires and big corporations, regulatory systems that can be captured, etc. In fact they’re often the ones more overtly pushing pro-corporate policies. (Trump’s corporate tax cuts, for example, came long after similar cuts in Sweden, France, Ireland, and the U.K. Trump is fighting to cut the capital gains tax, for example, while many OECD countries don’t even have one.) Yet their trains somehow run on time, their schools are good, their crime rates are low, and their cities are generally nice and orderly.
They don't want affordable housing. If they do start wanting it then relief funding won't be necessary.