During the 1750's and 1760's British colonist, in the thirteen colonies began talk about and rebelling because of the idea of taxation without representation. Specifically, this came into play because the second point of their Bill of Rights, signed in 1689, said the people could not be taxed by the Royals, it had to come from the parliament, where they would be represented. Then with acts like the Sugar, Stamp and Tea acts they taxed the colonists, even though they had no voice in parliament. You could debate whether they were represented in parliament, or if that is exactly what that Bill of Rights meant, but the point the logic is a pretty good one. You shouldn't have your property taken and used if you have no say. Can you imagine if China or Libya got to choose how your personal money was spent? Basic, right?
For the record, the Native American population before the colonies got a kind of land taxation without their representation (just to be fair).
Anyway, this was so basic, so gut punching that it made appearances in speeches by Patrick Henry, writings by Thomas Payne and made one of the clauses in the Declaration if Independence. Jefferson wrote, "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: ". We are a nation formed, in part, by the idea that it is not right to extract money because you can.
It seems to me that across time, the power of this virtue has been somewhat lost. Because it may not be us who pay the price, or the truth is veiled or perhaps we just don't want to rock the boat, we don't feel the blows. I am thinking, perhaps we should.
The first principle I want to show you is a mathematical one. Not about the complete elimination of your representation, but watering it down to such a degree in some cases it would be meaningless. Remember the issue with taxation without representation is other people deciding what will be done with your property. Even with representation, people will decide what to do with you property, but the idea would be you collectively are hiring him or her to make decisions in your best interest. You hire him, because part of the way the system works is your money becomes their paycheck and their budget.
Now, if I am in a group of five people and we each pay our taxes and get our representative, then at worst three out of five of us are happy and likely, because we all have skin in the game, more than that. Now, pretend for a moment, one of us doesn't pay taxes. That means for more skin in the game, I get the same vote. What if two of them don't pay taxes? Now, my actual representation starts to get watered down by people who have no risk, who can use my money foolishly. They get free representation, while I am compelled to pay for it. Now pretend, if you will a candidate is put forward who makes part of his platform spending the taxed on the non-taxed, we will call it "redistribution of wealth" and pretend for a moment that more than half of the population like this idea. Then are the payers get represented? When consumers outnumber contributors, how can the contributors be fairly represented anymore?
Second, not all taxes are paid by us for the things we do today. We have have this thing, this very dangerous thing, called the national debt. On of the reasons this thing is so dangerous is it is a little like Frankenstein's monster. It was created because we could and it freed us up, but once it was alive it quickly got out of control. See a national debt lets a lawmaker do what they want to do, but not make their constituents pay. You don't have to raise taxes to fund that war, you just dump it into your debt. The debt gets too high, you just vote to raise the ceiling. What you are really doing is deferring that taxes, which will have to be paid. You are spending today so your kids can foot the bill, deal with the mess. They, as best as I can tell, can't be represented. Some of the ones who will have to be taxed haven't even been more, much less consulted about the use of their property or who would best represent them. They have less chance to be represented than the Lenape chief who watched the founding of Manhattan island. They are too young to too unborn to be outraged, but they certainly will be taxed without their consent.
I don't have solutions to these things that work 100% for this state we find ourselves in, but I have a philosophy I want my representative to adopt. No taxation without representation. This means everyone needs to have skin in the game, perhaps with a consumption rather than income tax, or a drastic reduction in federal programs, such that people can't take more than they give. Also, this means no taxing our children. This means real change in the way we operate. You want to have a war in Syria, put the price tag upfront, let the people pay for it before the operation begins. Let us by the products we want, not pay for the products you have selected for us at and unknown and uncapped price.
