Higher Taxes make for the Happiest People on Earth

I saw this article this morning and had to come back here.  This guy lived in The Netherlands and at first thought that getting a check every year to take a vacation was pretty nice.

In other words, you have to cringe only once a year when you see 52 percent of your income go to state coffers. In exchange, every time you look at your bank account, you see money deposited by the nanny state. Every year you enjoy Mojitos on the beach, courtesy of the compassionate government. The evidence of the politicians' benevolence is everywhere, all the time. It sounds like a fantastic deal, doesn't it?

I can see how it can suck people in to think that many are getting something for nothing.  But you need to look at the big picture and understand what's really going on.

The average Joe simply doesn't understand that, on average, every dollar individuals "get" from the government comes directly from more than one dollar that individuals were forced to give to the government in the first place. When Joe sees a $600 "stimulus" check in the mail, he completely forgets that it comes from $1,000 he was or will be forced to give to the government, which spends it on bureaucracy, interest, etc. before it comes back to him in its diminished form. This is to skip a lengthy discussion about the misallocation of money and the destruction of incentives for innovation and growth, not to mention the sociological side effects of the welfare state and its copious opportunities for corruption.

The toughest thing to remember about government programs is not what is seen being done with the money, but what isn't seen that that same money could have been doing instead.  Do you want the government deciding how to spend your money or do you want to decide for yourself how your money is spent?  Again, it's the freedom of choice. If you're not free to spend your money the way you want, are you really free?  I understand that government needs taxes to function but I believe in having the smallest government possible and allowing the free market to make the decisions on how most of the  money is spent.  I love the democracy of the free market.  People voting with their dollars.

This comment gets down to the basic question:

"Liberty and freedom seem like empty promises when they do not include basic human compassion for all."

I think that it is a given that no matter what economic system you prefer, we all want basic human compassion for all.  We just seem to disagree with the best way to show our compassion.  I think that caring and compassion should be on the individual level through charity with no government interference.  Others think that it should be done through the force of government.  They don't seem to think that freely organized charities are enough.  They want government to force everyone to be compassionate as they are.

I trust that people naturally want to help others.  I saw it with Hurrican Katrina.  Individuals jumped into action without waiting for a government program to tell them what to do. 

Government forced compassion strips away the joy of giving from your heart.  To me, the free market system is the most compassionate system on earth because it creates the most overall wealth. Caring about others is one thing but having the wealth to do something about it is much better.  Unfortunately, we don't have a free market in the US but that is the path that we should be going down.  The path towards socialism is the path towards more poverty for all. 

The story of the Pilgrims is a great example of a socialist experiment in America.  If it didn't work in a close knit faith based community back then, it's hard to imagine it working today.