February 23, 2005
House vs. Senate: A Battle of Wits??
Quincy’s producing more and more good ideas lately. His current idea involves restricting government spending by pitting the House and Senate against each other:
Today, it occurred to me. What would happen if we pitted the House of Representatives and Senate against each other on spending? Give the Senate sole control of authoring the budget, and give the House sole control of tax rates.
The principle here is that the House would represent the interest of the people to bear as little taxation as possible, while the Senate would represent the interest of the government to put money towards different problems.
Now, that’s the kind of radically reasonable idea that will get you laughed out of Washington. But, as you all know, I’m an idealist, so let’s give this idea the attention it deserves. I think there is a lot to be said for this sort of plan. The founding of this country was based upon a system of checks and balances. Constitutional authority was supposed to be a check on legislative power, but we see what judicial activism has done to that idea. So, if we set our bicameral legislature at odds in this sort of manner, it could easily bring us some badly needed checks on spending. As an added benefit, it could reduce pork, because it’s a lot harder to justify pork spending for one small community if you (as a Senator) represent an entire state.
Yet I believe this proposal has one basic flaw. I have spoken on many occasions about how taxation is hidden from the general public. The general public has an insatiable appetite for government, and a profound aversion to paying for it. As long as taxation is hidden and indirect, the public will not truly fight to ensure the House reins in taxes. As long as they assume they can soak “the rich”, despite the fact that the government finds all of us richer than you would like to think, they won’t rein in government. If we can bring about a simple, direct method of taxation that all people can understand and is not hidden, I think the above proposal would bring benefits in spades. But perhaps thinking our government would end the special-interests boondoggle that is our tax code makes me more idealistic than even Quincy.
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Brad –
Thanks for catching the missing piece!
My simple change to the law that would make people much more aware of the tax they paid is to stop withholding and make people pay their taxes like they would a phone or electric bill, i.e. sitting down and writing a check at the beginning of the month. If people started writing a check for the amount they had withheld every month, they’d feel it a lot more. This wouldn’t be nearly as big a reform as the kind you suggest, but would get quite a few people off their butts to fight high taxes.
Should’ve read your tax withholding post first! LOL.
Anyway, do you think that this post is enough to get me out of the Non-Partisan part of your blogroll and onto the libertarian part, wherever that may be?
Yeah… I’ll move it ASAP. I just saw many of your first posts were about education in general, so I figured I’d withhold judgement.