The Trouble With Democracy...

After years of over-spending and over-taxing by New York State politicians and with new reports indicating that Governor Paterson may shutdown state government in a dispute with other state-level Democratic lawmakers, surely residents there are looking for a change to the failed policies of the past, and are embracing a fresh start with polices focused on reasonable tax rates and balanced budgets?

Uhhh, no.

A recent survey poll indicates that residents in parts of New York are unsurprisingly in favor of increasing taxes on "millionaires" in order to retain the current unsustainable funding of education.

"The [New York State United Teachers] union surveyed voters in three swing districts and asked them whether they would be more or less likely to vote for their representatives if they supported a millionaire's tax as a way to avert deep education cuts.

In all three districts, voters by a 37-18 point margin said they'd be more apt to support their lawmakers if they moved to raise taxes for the wealthy if it meant saving their schools from budget cuts.

Two temporary income tax hikes were included in the survey: An additional 1 percent for those earning more than $1 million and 2 percent for incomes over $5 million.

The state's top income tax bracket is 8.97 percent so the rate cited in the survey would go up to 9.97 and 10.97 percent respectively."

So once again, voters indicate their willingness to address massive and systemic overspending by government by raising taxes. Their willingness would be a bit more noble if they were actually agreeing and willing to raise taxes on themselves. But what is actually occurring here is that survey responders are indicating agreement with raising taxes on the "other guy", not themselves.

Hence, the problem with popular democracy. A well-worn summary of the issue is as follows:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." (Author unknown, at least to this scribe)

The solution to this issue, which rears itself not just in New York state but in other states and at the federal level, are Constitutional amendments limiting the amount of income that can be taken in the form of an income tax and requiring an annual balanced budget.

Until such time, productive members of society will increasingly see themselves as a target by the less-productive and non-productive members of society, who seek the property of the former to live beyond their own means.