The Snookie Question 2

So what are the answers to The Snookie Question?

First, the "investments" the country makes to "win the future" should not be in the hands of Snookie, or a community organizer or someone morally opposed to the internal combustion engine. Investing to "win the future" should be managed by flint-eyed professionals and one of the responsibilities of the government should be to find them. This should be difficult because successful professional money managers are rarely more than random, a fact that must emphasize how difficult charting a course to "win the future" would be for Snookie or any other amateur.

Second, we must recognize that taxpayers, like life, are diversified. Some are astute and can be relied on more than others to "win the future." Taxing a productive investor might "lose the future". One would expect that Snookie might be less likely to invest her entertainment earnings well. Consequently taking money from Steve Jobs or Apple and giving it to a government appointee to invest to "win the future" would be less reasonable than taking Snookie's money. We may not be certain that the government appointee would invest better than Snookie but we can be certain that Steve Jobs would do better than either. Consequently, to "win the future," it may not be worthwhile to take Snookie's money but it certainly is a bad idea to take Steve Jobs'. If the purpose of taxation is to "win the future" it is madness to tax indiscriminately or on the foolish graduated scale of income earned, it is much more reasonable to tax on the basis of how productive taking and redistributing that money would be. Taking money from Snookie is much more reasonable than taking it from a true and proven producer.

Third, after our investments to "win the future", what individuals should get Snookie's money? The tendency of government policy is to subsidize people who have "lost the present". Are they the same people? Is there no distinction among them? Is a man born blind to be counted the same as an otherwise healthy unemployed addict? As time progresses and living standards decline, these questions will no longer be made by bureaucrats.