#UnpopularOpinion : Good ideas that are political suicide
I would love to run for office one day. The whole election process sounds utterly terrible and frightening but I think it would build a lot of character to peak behind the curtain of public office, elections, and public service in general. There's one problem. The research that I have done on policy has convinced me that almost every idea that I believe to be subjectively 'good' is at the same time painfully unpopular. And it's not like these ideas are unpopular because of ideology, because I have ideas that get panned from both sides of the political spectrum.
Here is my list of unpopular opinions and why I think they are good ideas. Have an open mind, I'm open to the fact that I could be, and most likely am wrong on many of these, nonetheless, until I see contrary evidence, this is where I stand.
This list sticks to fiscal ideas although I concede that every fiscal policy has social implications. They are in no particular order.
1) More consumption taxes. Taxes have two main consequences; money to fund government programs and behaviour modification. Basic economics explain that in most cases taxes disincentivize the behaviour being taxed, ie. all things being equal if you had a tax on red cars, dealerships would sell less red cars. If you're going to raise money through taxation you might as well kill two birds with one stone and curb some of our bad habits. Currently, we tax income. But why would be want to disincentivize work? A consumption tax is when you collect funds according to goods and services purchased. Now of course, for the economic wheel to turn we need people to spend money but in today's society, with consumer debt at record highs, I think it's safe to say we are spending enough to stimulate the economy. In fact, I would argue that we spend too much. A tax on consumption is relatively fair in that it will draw more from the wealthy than the poor because wealthier people spend more money (you could also establish rebates for people in the lowest income brackets so that they are not overwhelmed by the inevitable increase in cost of day-to-day goods). In a perfect world I would like to see consumption tax replace income tax altogether but I recognize it would be an extremely difficult shift. There would be no incentive to hide your money in a bank in Turks and Caicos and then hopefully most of that money would be spent within your state or province and we're all the wealthier for it, not to mention this also pulls revenue from anyone visiting the province or state as every business transaction would collect from visiting consumers.
2) Tax Unhealthy Behaviour. As mentioned above, taxation will change behaviour to some extent. Instead of taxing products and services equally across the board, legislators, with the support of public vote, could target items that are clearly bad for our society and tax them at higher rates. We already do it with tobacco and alcohol with positive results. For instance, jurisdictions with higher taxes on alcohol have lower instances of driving under the influence. As marijuana is legalized and regulated we will do the same with it. We can tax pollution, drugs, violent media, whatever the voters can get behind. One of the most heinous offenders to our society's physical and financial well-being are sugar and other processed foods. By increasing the cost of junk food we can even the field, making fresh fruits and vegetables comparable in price to spaghettios and oreos. That would bring in extra funds to bolster our health care system all while changing behaviour to make us healthier overall. Win-win.
3) Consolidate School Divisions. The biggest cost of education is manpower. Teachers, assistants, and other support staffers are expensive but well-paid educators are a pillar to quality education. Any attempts to cut supports or reduce teacher pay will have a negative effect on the learning of our future generations. There are, however, some administrative costs that I see as redundant and wasteful. In Alberta, for example, there are separate public and catholic school divisions that each employ their own human resources, transportation, technology specialists, and other administration. That's twice as many superintendents, who command large salaries. By consolidating school divisions, Catholic, public, and perhaps even some rural divisions that cover large areas but small student populations, the administration costs can be significantly reduced, putting more money in the classrooms. To be clear, I'm not suggesting getting rid of Catholic schools altogether, but I don't think we need additional layers of unnecessary and redundant personnel at the school division level.
4) Legalize drugs. Not all of them though right? You ask... Yes, all of them. Drugs are bad and incredibly unhealthy for the most part. We have more addiction issues than ever. So why would we allow drugs to flow freely? First of all, the healthcare and policing costs involved with illegal drugs is astronomical and largely ineffective. For every drug bust there is another wave of illicit, dangerous, and unregulated drugs coming in. The largest social and economic cost of drugs has more to do with prohibition than the drugs themselves. Prohibition of alcohol was a messy, costly, and ineffective experiment. Today, alcohol is still a significant social problem, causing thousands of deaths due to overdose (we call it alcohol poisoning but if we treated it like other drugs we'd call it overdose) and impaired driving, and other alcohol related illnesses. We do not however, have liquor stores killing each other over who gets to sell booze on which corner. We use education and media to prevent alcohol related injury and death, and we tax the hell out of it to make it financially cumbersome to get drunk. We should be doing the same with drugs. We have legal drug dealers already called doctors and pharmacists. By controlling substances we can prevent thousands of deaths. For instance, after decriminalizing all drugs in Portugal, consumption of drugs dropped in half. Drugs work like multi-level marketing, you can only afford to do it if you get other people to do it with you. This high price is due to it being on the black market. Legalized and made available, people no longer have to sell to friends, steal from their neighbours, or prostitute themselves in order to get their fix. Organized crime is taken completely out of the business, funneling millions if not billions into government coffers where we can spend that money on getting people better and healthier. If you're not convinced read more Johann Hari or Gabor Mate and come back to me.
5) Universal Income. [insert sarcastic tone] Nothing worse than a social welfare leach right? All these entitled free-riders who want something for nothing, if anything, we should cut social welfare programs and let them sink or swim. Most will figure it out. [end sarcastic tone] There is a problem with people abusing the system, it's human nature to do so. Who would decline a government benefit that was legally their right just because they didn't want to burden other tax payers? One of the less than perfect features of our welfare system is that there is a level of disincentive when it comes to work. You lose your job, you get employment insurance which isn't a lot but enough to get by while you look for employment. The problem is, you might find part-time or seasonal employment, but you won't take it... Why? Because for every dollar you earn, that's a dollar taken away from your benefit. So essentially you're working for nothing. Why not eliminate EI and some other social programs and replace it with a basic income. This basic income would be slightly less than the benefits of EI. Let's say that EI paid you $1800/month. Basic income might give you $1000/month, enough not to starve but not enough to live comfortably. This way, if you find part-time or seasonal work, you are still incentivized to take the job because it wouldn't effect your basic income, it would add to it. In trial programs in the Manitoba they actually saw more people go back to work when they received their basic income benefit. The only two groups who worked less were new mothers (who opted to stay at home with their children) and teenage boys (who opted to stay in school longer). By substituting other social programs with one basic income to everyone the net cost might not be much higher but the results are more favourable for society on the whole. Poverty is reduced significantly and, potentially more people go to work, not to mention less hospitalizations, especially due to mental health reasons. Think of the entrepreneurial opportunities that could come from having a modest safety net. I find this to be a stronger option than raising minimum wage. In fact, with basic income you could even lower minimum wage, taking some financial pressure off of business owners but still result in a net increase in personal income for the labour force. More jobs, more income. More people spending money and paying that consumption tax mentioned earlier.
6) Eliminate corporate tax. We often want to tax corporations because we want the rich to get taxed more than the poor. I agree with the sentiment but I think there are a few holes in the corporate tax argument. First of all, large companies pass their expenses (including the corporate tax) on to the consumer, you and me. So we are ultimately the ones paying for this tax. I think that if we eliminate many business deduction loopholes and tax more on the income side, then we can more effectively collect funds from the rich. A corporation only has to pay taxes on profits, so they could operate at a loss and still pay their executives giant bonuses and not pay a cent in tax anyway. We want to encourage businesses to reinvest their capital, hiring more people and expanding their operations. I don't believe they should be taxed if they are doing so. On the other hand, if a corporation is buying luxury vehicles and lavish meals and then writing them off as a deduction, that is not effective taxation. Tax the income and the bonuses and the benefits and the perks but don't tax the expense of hiring more people or regular operating costs.
Could buy in to any of these ideas? Let me know what I have wrong.
Here is my list of unpopular opinions and why I think they are good ideas. Have an open mind, I'm open to the fact that I could be, and most likely am wrong on many of these, nonetheless, until I see contrary evidence, this is where I stand.
This list sticks to fiscal ideas although I concede that every fiscal policy has social implications. They are in no particular order.
1) More consumption taxes. Taxes have two main consequences; money to fund government programs and behaviour modification. Basic economics explain that in most cases taxes disincentivize the behaviour being taxed, ie. all things being equal if you had a tax on red cars, dealerships would sell less red cars. If you're going to raise money through taxation you might as well kill two birds with one stone and curb some of our bad habits. Currently, we tax income. But why would be want to disincentivize work? A consumption tax is when you collect funds according to goods and services purchased. Now of course, for the economic wheel to turn we need people to spend money but in today's society, with consumer debt at record highs, I think it's safe to say we are spending enough to stimulate the economy. In fact, I would argue that we spend too much. A tax on consumption is relatively fair in that it will draw more from the wealthy than the poor because wealthier people spend more money (you could also establish rebates for people in the lowest income brackets so that they are not overwhelmed by the inevitable increase in cost of day-to-day goods). In a perfect world I would like to see consumption tax replace income tax altogether but I recognize it would be an extremely difficult shift. There would be no incentive to hide your money in a bank in Turks and Caicos and then hopefully most of that money would be spent within your state or province and we're all the wealthier for it, not to mention this also pulls revenue from anyone visiting the province or state as every business transaction would collect from visiting consumers.
2) Tax Unhealthy Behaviour. As mentioned above, taxation will change behaviour to some extent. Instead of taxing products and services equally across the board, legislators, with the support of public vote, could target items that are clearly bad for our society and tax them at higher rates. We already do it with tobacco and alcohol with positive results. For instance, jurisdictions with higher taxes on alcohol have lower instances of driving under the influence. As marijuana is legalized and regulated we will do the same with it. We can tax pollution, drugs, violent media, whatever the voters can get behind. One of the most heinous offenders to our society's physical and financial well-being are sugar and other processed foods. By increasing the cost of junk food we can even the field, making fresh fruits and vegetables comparable in price to spaghettios and oreos. That would bring in extra funds to bolster our health care system all while changing behaviour to make us healthier overall. Win-win.
3) Consolidate School Divisions. The biggest cost of education is manpower. Teachers, assistants, and other support staffers are expensive but well-paid educators are a pillar to quality education. Any attempts to cut supports or reduce teacher pay will have a negative effect on the learning of our future generations. There are, however, some administrative costs that I see as redundant and wasteful. In Alberta, for example, there are separate public and catholic school divisions that each employ their own human resources, transportation, technology specialists, and other administration. That's twice as many superintendents, who command large salaries. By consolidating school divisions, Catholic, public, and perhaps even some rural divisions that cover large areas but small student populations, the administration costs can be significantly reduced, putting more money in the classrooms. To be clear, I'm not suggesting getting rid of Catholic schools altogether, but I don't think we need additional layers of unnecessary and redundant personnel at the school division level.
4) Legalize drugs. Not all of them though right? You ask... Yes, all of them. Drugs are bad and incredibly unhealthy for the most part. We have more addiction issues than ever. So why would we allow drugs to flow freely? First of all, the healthcare and policing costs involved with illegal drugs is astronomical and largely ineffective. For every drug bust there is another wave of illicit, dangerous, and unregulated drugs coming in. The largest social and economic cost of drugs has more to do with prohibition than the drugs themselves. Prohibition of alcohol was a messy, costly, and ineffective experiment. Today, alcohol is still a significant social problem, causing thousands of deaths due to overdose (we call it alcohol poisoning but if we treated it like other drugs we'd call it overdose) and impaired driving, and other alcohol related illnesses. We do not however, have liquor stores killing each other over who gets to sell booze on which corner. We use education and media to prevent alcohol related injury and death, and we tax the hell out of it to make it financially cumbersome to get drunk. We should be doing the same with drugs. We have legal drug dealers already called doctors and pharmacists. By controlling substances we can prevent thousands of deaths. For instance, after decriminalizing all drugs in Portugal, consumption of drugs dropped in half. Drugs work like multi-level marketing, you can only afford to do it if you get other people to do it with you. This high price is due to it being on the black market. Legalized and made available, people no longer have to sell to friends, steal from their neighbours, or prostitute themselves in order to get their fix. Organized crime is taken completely out of the business, funneling millions if not billions into government coffers where we can spend that money on getting people better and healthier. If you're not convinced read more Johann Hari or Gabor Mate and come back to me.
5) Universal Income. [insert sarcastic tone] Nothing worse than a social welfare leach right? All these entitled free-riders who want something for nothing, if anything, we should cut social welfare programs and let them sink or swim. Most will figure it out. [end sarcastic tone] There is a problem with people abusing the system, it's human nature to do so. Who would decline a government benefit that was legally their right just because they didn't want to burden other tax payers? One of the less than perfect features of our welfare system is that there is a level of disincentive when it comes to work. You lose your job, you get employment insurance which isn't a lot but enough to get by while you look for employment. The problem is, you might find part-time or seasonal employment, but you won't take it... Why? Because for every dollar you earn, that's a dollar taken away from your benefit. So essentially you're working for nothing. Why not eliminate EI and some other social programs and replace it with a basic income. This basic income would be slightly less than the benefits of EI. Let's say that EI paid you $1800/month. Basic income might give you $1000/month, enough not to starve but not enough to live comfortably. This way, if you find part-time or seasonal work, you are still incentivized to take the job because it wouldn't effect your basic income, it would add to it. In trial programs in the Manitoba they actually saw more people go back to work when they received their basic income benefit. The only two groups who worked less were new mothers (who opted to stay at home with their children) and teenage boys (who opted to stay in school longer). By substituting other social programs with one basic income to everyone the net cost might not be much higher but the results are more favourable for society on the whole. Poverty is reduced significantly and, potentially more people go to work, not to mention less hospitalizations, especially due to mental health reasons. Think of the entrepreneurial opportunities that could come from having a modest safety net. I find this to be a stronger option than raising minimum wage. In fact, with basic income you could even lower minimum wage, taking some financial pressure off of business owners but still result in a net increase in personal income for the labour force. More jobs, more income. More people spending money and paying that consumption tax mentioned earlier.
6) Eliminate corporate tax. We often want to tax corporations because we want the rich to get taxed more than the poor. I agree with the sentiment but I think there are a few holes in the corporate tax argument. First of all, large companies pass their expenses (including the corporate tax) on to the consumer, you and me. So we are ultimately the ones paying for this tax. I think that if we eliminate many business deduction loopholes and tax more on the income side, then we can more effectively collect funds from the rich. A corporation only has to pay taxes on profits, so they could operate at a loss and still pay their executives giant bonuses and not pay a cent in tax anyway. We want to encourage businesses to reinvest their capital, hiring more people and expanding their operations. I don't believe they should be taxed if they are doing so. On the other hand, if a corporation is buying luxury vehicles and lavish meals and then writing them off as a deduction, that is not effective taxation. Tax the income and the bonuses and the benefits and the perks but don't tax the expense of hiring more people or regular operating costs.
Could buy in to any of these ideas? Let me know what I have wrong.
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