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Comment by msgodel | Hacker News Reader

>that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut

The federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money.

> federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money

This is silly. I prefer the money be spent on things that have a larger ROI, collectively, than I can attain individually. Destroying the money doesn't achieve that aim.

Well, the rest of us disagree. You need consensus for public institutions and no one on the left or the right has been willing to build that.

Actually, the "rest of us" largely agree, as reflected in the laws our elected representatives have established. We have collectively appropriated the money and set up the institutional framework for spending it. Folks smashing down that system are doing a significant part of it illegally, with no credible justification or public support, in several recent cases in contemptuous violation of direct court orders.

> the rest of us disagree

Irrelevant to the silliness of suggesting destroying money as a solution.

The federal government has, pretty much always, accepted donations, but recently the time and effort were spent to make those contributions available via digital instead of the old check and mail method of yesteryear.

The current government would take any money you give them and give it back to rich people in the form of tax cuts.

So no, I don't want to Venmo cash to somebody who doesn't need it.

That has always effectively been how government programs work, even if they launder it through poor people and immigrants first.

Except for in your example, the poor people and immigrants get to eat and sleep indoors and maybe one day become educated.

I won't make any assumptions about your politics, but I'm assuming that doesn't move the needle for you.

I'd definitely donate if it meant that billionaires also had to give a proportionate amount of their wealth.

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