Arguing for secession starting from taxes - what do you think?

Miscellaneous General
1

I invented a novel argument for secession today (or, at least, dissolution of the Federal government). I tried it on a (non-anarchist) friend with somewhat ambivalent results but he’s not much into politics to begin with.

Basically, the argument goes like this. Imagine two senior Wal-Mart floor managers who are married, let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Sancez. Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez each earn about $40K. Between them, they earn $80K and the government considers them “very well off.” Their tax burden - unless they have special deductions - will come out to around $20K Federal and $5K state (ignoring payroll taxes).

So how is it that over three times as much of the Sanchez’s money is shipped off to a remote Capitol as stays in their home state? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t they be paying $20K in state taxes and $5K Federal? Particularly if you believe the UN’s baloney about what a light burden a world government would be.

I live on the West coast where this argument is particularly poignant. My Federal taxes are sent to a city 3,000 miles away. How many of the roads that I drive on has this Capitol paved? How many powerlines that deliver my power has it maintained? Just what has this magical Capitol that I’m paying three times the tax burden that my home state imposes on me ever done for me?

The state at least polices the highways I drive on. It’s a marginal return for my taxes but at least it’s something. The state provides worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance. The state paves a lot of the roads I drive (and the county and city even more of the roads without charging me a dime in taxes).

I can think of a lot of things that the Sanchez family could do with an extra $20,000 and I can’t think of a lot of harm to anybody except the Pentagon and SS/Medicare recipients if all the Sanchez’s were relieved of their Federal tax burden and their State picked up the slack for whatever “services” the Federal government is supposed to be providing us.

What do you think?

In light of these thoughts, here’s the Clayton Reform: No taxed money shall be transported - by any means - more than 200 miles distant from the persons taxed. I’m tired of money being taken from my children (yes, I have kids to feed, clothe, educate and raise, goddamn it!) and sent off to an opulent Capitol a continent away so that some mid-level Education Dept. bureaucrat can buy his kids’ clothes at Baby Gap! To hell with the Feds!

Clayton -

2

Silly neocon, your problem can just be fixed my having the state tax you much more! That way you won’t have more money go to the Feds than to your state. You and your secessions!

3

In a similar vein, I think ‘libertarian’ parties should focus on the single issue of decentralisation - especially of taxation and ‘regulation’ (i.e. strangulation).

4

Agreed. People are much more likely to be persuaded of the efficacy and ethicality of less government, than of no government at all (that is, people who are totally unacquainted with libertarian views). I’ve frustrated many of my own efforts to convert friends by moving too quickly into talk of a completely private society. The fact of the matter is, most people truly believe we need government in our lives, and such ideas are far too “radical” to sway them.

However, forceful, commonsensical arguments, like the one presented here by Clayton, are very persuasive and can be successful in leading people in the right direction. The takeaway is: if government is to exist, it should at least provide some benefit to society. The federal government is simply incapable of doing that. It’s not a difficult point to grasp when illustrated as simply and powerfully as it is in this argument.