Comment by hoseyor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hoseyor | Hacker News Reader

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Not only that, but the whole system was such that the very type and nature of the support led to ever more dependency and creation of yet more need that the system could then further argue needed more support, i.e., a self-licking ice cream cone.

Worse yet, at the cost and expense of people who are damaged by being forced to support this system against their will.

I propose that everyone that supports things like USAID be able to willingly and freely sign up to have their taxes increased by whatever proportional amount is necessary to fund it every year. We need to move to a voluntarist system for anything but the tightest core functions of government.

It is a win-win, USAID continues and people get to feel good about themselves, while others are not damaged by being forced to support it against their will.

The average federal tax rate is 14%, and the USAID budget was about 0.8% of the federal budget, so you’ve been paying about a 0.1% tax to fund USAID.

This is pointless math instead of bad math. 0.1% isn't the issue, the issue is that it isn't actually paid by taxes, it is instead paid by money printing. It's not 0.1% of peoples taxable income going to USAID, it's billions in additional debt that is "funding" USAID.

The actual true cost to the people for the additional debt is hard to measure and likely hits a different generation that the people who created most of USAID. Instead of saying people payed 0.1% to fund USAID you should say they made at least that much additional debt every year. You could not spend 0.1% more than you earn over the course of like 60 years but USAID did that for everyone.

This assumes that people involuntarily paid for the last 60 years or so but they didn't. USAID was paid for by money printing and more debt making not by taxes. If you want volunteer to chip in they would first need to pay of the debt causes by USAID over the last 60+ years.

Also lets be real here, no one in their right mind would donate to USAID. There are near unlimited way to donate money for good causes and very specific ones, where you can see results. If your goal is to have your money be efficiently used to help people you would never give it to the government. Any other organization that isn't straight up a scam, will be more efficient than the gov.

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