I’ve always liked Ross Git­tens.

I’ve said for years that there should be a list of check-boxes in your tax return for pro­jects you’d like to donate your taxes to. That way, I can tick edu­ca­tion, public health and so on and know that none of my money is going to the army or any other gov­ern­ment body I dis­agree with. The risk is that the right-wing folks of the world are more numer­ous than we like to think and money for wel­fare, for example, might dis­ap­pear. I think public health and edu­ca­tion would be safe because many people have kids and par­ents and need both.

I hadn’t made the con­nec­tion between vol­un­tary stu­dent uni­on­ism and vol­un­tary tax­a­tion though. Nice work, Ross.

The rest of the art­icle is depress­ing read­ing that makes me wonder whether I’m going to want to be in this coun­try in the next few years. It’s good to have the facts out there and espe­cially from a main­stream ana­lyst, but Howard is going down as the man who stole from the poor to give to the rich.