Spending Other People's Money: A Simple Explanation

Voluntaryist, The, Fourth Quarter 2009 by Watner, Carl

July 21, 2008

Mr. Ernest S. Christian, Executive Director

Center for Strategic Tax Reform

800 Connecticut Avenue NW # 705

Washington, D.C. 20006

Dear Mr. Christian:

In looking over some old WALL STREET JOURNALS, I recently came across your article, "Stupidity and the State," (June 7-8, 2008, p. A9). You cite examples of waste, loss, inconsistent policies, and inadequate balancing of costs vs. benefits, and conclude that "Washington never learns from its mistakes."

I would like to offer a simple explanation of why agents of the State act this way.

The large majority of government revenues comes from taxation of one sort or another. Taxes are a compulsory levy upon the citizens of a government. Generally, if you don't pay, you either end up in jail or have your property confiscated, or both.

Consequently, when government officials disburse the taxes collected, they are "spending other people's money," which the government revenue agents have coercively collected. In short, taxes collected represent stolen money.

How careful would you be if you had nearly unlimited access to other people's money, to spend as you pleased? Both individually and institutionally, nearly every connection between cost and consequence, between responsibility and authority, and between ownership and stewardship are broken when the government "collects" taxes and then spends someone else's money on its own projects.

When Coca Cola markets a new product, and the product fails to achieve customer acceptance, we don't call its attempt "stupid." We simply observe that the product could not secure enough voluntary acceptance on the part of customers to survive. As you know government programs don't operate this way because taxes, not voluntary payment, are their essence.

You probably disagree, but I conclude that the State will always remain stupid so long as it is an organization that survives by using coercion. Stupidity and abuse of power are inherent in its form, which is dependent on taxation. Spending other people's money without their permission is clearly a violation of the commandment "thou shall not steal." Why are we, as a society, so blind that we don't recognize the obvious?

Sincerely,

Carl Watner V

"[W]hen any body of meh have the power of collecting money from the people, and to be accountable to nobody for it, and have at the same time power to make war or peace, then that body of men having that power once established, have the people under the greatest bondage that it is possible to express."

- A Lover of Liberty in the Providence, RI GAZETTE, Jan 25, 1783. Quoted in RHODE ISLAND HISTORY (1949), p. 8