this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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I identify as some sort of a libertarian. My idea of the ideology is that taxes are gathered to fund essential services that cannot be resourced in better ways. Just about everybody who's not insane or an asshole agrees that police, military, judicial system, assistance for less fortunate, some infrastructure (edit: + emergency services like fire brigades and I'm sure I forgot something else too) are part of that, while schooling, healthcare and certain natural monopolies are sometimes debated depending on how strict of a libertarian you are. Personally, I side on thinking that schools and natural monopolies should be publically owned and funded, whereas for healthcare I would model the system based on Switzerland's, which is mostly privatized but works a lot better than USA's.
Debt can be used to fund profitable investments (usually infrastructure and other one-time up-front investments like school buildings), not for upkeeping existing financial structures.
Things beyond those sectors probably should not be funded by taxes. Funding for housing, culture, private sector tax breaks/direct support, and sports (outside of youth sports possibly) are examples of some of such things. In fact, if you do fund other things by taxes, you're essentially stealing resources from those essential services. Sometimes I wonder why so many people don't seem to realize this.
Housing and healthcare are essential for survival. If anyone doesn't get those things because they can't afford them, while others have far more than they need, that's cruel and unjust. You should include both of them under "assistance for less fortunate".
Schools have more benefits than I can list here. It's absurd to not fund them.
Culture attracts people to spend money in your city, which benefits business owners and many laborers, and generates a lot of tax revenue. Usually that brings in a lot more money than it costs, and that turns into extra money for essential services, instead of taking away from them. Sports can fall into this category as well, but those have gotten out of hand lately and sort of turned into a dick measuring contest between different cities.
I'm mostly with you on tax breaks, though. They're supposed to incentivise corporations to create jobs in your city instead of somewhere else, which should have a good ROI, but in practice it's almost inherently corrupt.