[lit-ideas] Re: Paying taxes for months on end
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 09:42:30 -0700
Help me think this one through, perhaps as a test case of whether or not
governments spend money wisely. On the face of things, the numbers seem as
absurd as umpteen hundred dollar toilet seats, yet more proof that taxes are
wasted. And yet every time I've looked into particular examples of
government spending, I've found the mix that is familiar to most military
historians: corruption, ineptitude, diligent good-hearted people doing their
best, confusion, muddling through. Putting civil servants in charge of
anything has always been a risk, but as Mike says, who better to do the
things that a conscience-less market will not do? Everyone here is well
read on these issues, but should someone be casting about for a new
perspective I recommend, rather than a tub-thumping lecture on nineteenth
century social misery from someone like Dickens, the nuances of an annotated
Pepys, a volume that might be sub-titled, "how to be a somewhat-honest civil
servant and still get on in the world."
So here goes. The latest "news" from Iraq is that Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi
may have been wounded. Stories about this "news" mention that the U.S. is
offering a reward of $25 million for this man. I can see the very old
fashioned notion here that it is a wise use of resources to offer a reward
for one's enemy--getting someone to betray him is cheaper than finding and
killing the fellow oneself. But why $25 million rather than say one or even
two million? Are we hoping a very large group of people will band together,
twenty five at a million apiece? Or are we reasoning that a man tempted by
a reward of one million dollars will be twenty five times more tempted by
twenty five million dollars?
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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