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1. It is said that a national lottery was one of the early suggestions from some of the founders of the republic. I am not sure about that, given their opposition to gambling as a vice.
2. I do find this from objectivisit Amber Pawlik:
Many Objectivists claim that in a "rational" society; all individuals should be allowed to initiate payments to the government of their choosing thus exchanging money for governmental services in a free market transation. This method of voluntary taxation is the arbitrary method. Citizens can choose which government their donation will go to, thus it is entirely possible that more than one government can exist. This method is one in which the government that citizens fund is arbitrary, the amount that they will pay is arbitrary, and thus what government exists and how stable it exists would be arbitrary. This method is an irrational and impractical idea. Having a government "voluntarily" paid for, with its citizens voluntarily initiating to pay for their government, would defeat the purpose of a government, and would turn the government into a market function. The existence of the government would be dependent on pleasing its customers. Who will determine what the government is? The customers. If the customers want to prohibit drugs, tax the rich, or institutue slavery -- that is what will happen. The government, operating like any business, would be in the business of pleasing as many people as possible with the biggest donations. Who would stop citizens from choosing different governments? This method of paying for a government, in which citizens could choose and pay for whichever government they wanted, is identical in nature to free-market anarchism. Indeed, arbitrarily paying for the government and free-market anarchism are not merely similar, they are exactly the same. This method is free-market anarchism.
http://www.amberpawlik.com/Funding.htm
3. Personally, I have no problem with a national lottery. I do not care if gambling is a vice. However, it does put the government into the gaming business. Why not make money from a government steel mill, then people can voluntarily support the government by buying steel? See? That does not work, does it? A national lottery commits the same error.
4. Ayn Rand suggested that corporations could pay a fee to have their contracts certified. That sounds good if you are thinking of U.S. Steel and General Motors. However, we live now -- and really we lived then -- not in a world of USS and GM but of home businesses and self-employed individuals. That means that we are not entitled by right to protection via the courts, but must pay for it up front. It would make "handshakes" unenforceable -- and as Alan Greenspan (and later Newt Gingrich) pointed out in touting the ethics of capitalism, much business is done on the telephone, i.e, via "handshake."
Further, it would make the government aware of every transaction -- whether or not the deal ever generated a problem requiring adjudication.
You could not buy something from Amazon (or TOC or ARI), without at least having the option to click the "Enforce" radio button and send some of the money to the goverment as "insurance" that the supplier will actually deliver and the buyer actually pay -- which is what PAYPAL does now. So, again, we would have the government operating in a market.
(In fact, adjudication and defense are thriving markets today, whether you are aware of them or not. That, however, is a different topic.)
5. A flat tax is necessarily regressive, falling heaviest on those least able to pay. For those people the few cents here and there are the difference between some joy and no joy. Read what Ayn Rand said about the importance of lipstick to a girl working as a sales clerk. A regressive tax takes the girl's lipstick away -- unless she does without something else. And it is a brutal fact of poverty that rent, etc., being more or less fixed, the only variable in the budgets of most poor people is food. Regressive taxes take food off the table.
6.I traveled in one state (Virginia, I think) where food and clothing were exempt from sales tax, but that created a complicated schedule of allowable goods, so that a plain white t-shirt was not taxed, but one with a corporate logo was taxed. In Ohio (I think), if you go to McD and take the food out, it falls under "groceries" and is not taxed, but if you eat in it is the "luxury" of a restaurant and is taxed... and in Michigan (sorry, I am not aware of the cents I get nicked for -- it happens so often) if I am correct, the situation is the opposite. Taxation is theft -- of logic.
7. Personally -- hold on -- I favor a progressive income tax. (Bam!) I know it got out of control there for a while, but that is a different problem entirely. Right now, in America, the top 1% of wage earners ($1.2 million pa and above) pay 32% of taxes, the top 5% pays 51.4%, and the top 10% pay 63.5% and the top 20% pay 78%. (Congressional Budget Office 2001.) The lowest two quintiles pay next to nothing or negative rates. The "middle class" (so-called, i.e., the middle two quintiles) pays about 10% less than its "fair share." This works out well. Those who can afford taxes pay them. Those who benefit most from society pay the most for the benefits. Since the rich control the goverment, they get to say who pays what and they decided to pay more, being the nice people they are. The evil of the income tax -- as most governmental evils -- reared its ugly head during a time of increased democracy and populism. That is an inherent danger. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Wilson seized the railroads and radio sets. No system of government is perfect. Some are obviously better than others, but all have weak points and democracy is the weakpoint of a republic. Short of that caveat, a progressive income tax is the most equitable way to pay for a constitutionally limited government in a free society. (Sorry, I know that pill was bitter, but now that it is swallowed, we can all feel better.)
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