Message from @F.Pazuzu
Discord ID: 540236731706769438
I honestly don't have a big problem with taxes, I get that the government needs money to function, but I feel like if we got rid of all of the pointless spending, taxes would be able to be lowered.
my opposition to taxation is on ethical grounds, so there's no much need in arguing utilitarist points and so on
I think the fact that everyone pays taxes means that, for example, I should never see a road and go "fuck, I really don't want to drive down there because there are pot holes big enough that I've popped a tire." Shit like that should not be an issue.
And yet there are highways in MD that make me feel like I'm playing Frogger with my wheels and potholes
exactly
decentralizing the management of pathways would make it easier to well, manage them
even the centralization on municipal level is problematic
too bureaucratic
My thing is I don't care who gets it done, but my tax money is supposed to go to shit like that. It clearly isn't, so something is wrong.
...and then now that I think about it, what usually happens is the local government contracts a company to fix it, and probably overpays like crazy.
sometimes i think its better if people just fix the roads themselves and make the govt reimburse them
that way its faster
lol
Probably
If you want a private company you need a good contract
voluntary solutions are always the best and most ethical
I don't know about that part, you might get someone that doesn't know what they're doing but is trying to help but makes things worse.
I saw that a lot when I was a cable tech. People would have problems, determine it was their inside wiring, try to fix it themselves and sometimes cause more issues
but you can voluntarily higher someone who gets the job done well, no need to have the government as the middleman and overbudgeting the shit out of it
And then have the govt reimburse based on receipts? I could support that. Personally I wouldn't be excited about still having to pay out of pocket at first, but if reimbursement was done pretty quickly I wouldn't mind as much
the government shouldn't be doing that to begin with, so the least they could do would be reimburse and not include that on their budget anymore
including upkeep
What about situations where a whole section of road needs to be redone though? Try to get a bunch of people to crowdfund it?
yeah
For example on that same highway in MD I remember one time they shut down like 5 miles at a time for repaving, no idea how much that costs
Shut down one lane rather
i read about the case of an entire community who crowdfunded the building of a bridge and ended up managing to pay like 5% of what the municipal government had estimated
Now that you mention it
Didn't Donald Trump do that with an ice skating rink?
Like the government couldn't get it done, he said he could do it and got it done under time and under budget?
they didn't get refund, but it was a great case to show the glaring differences between what the government pays and what private citizens pay
yes
before he became the evil boogyman he is now, a lot of people loved him for that
One of my favorite things he did that I never have had someone able to explain after calling him racist...when he bought Mar A Lago in Florida, it was segregated. He bought it, immediately sued the govt and got it desegregated.
But somehow, he's a horrible racist.
Orange man bad
At least more people are realizing how much of what the media puts out is bullshit
didn't he also get some sort of prize from black leaders?
OH GOD
Help
I'm in a mandatory anti harrassment lecture at work