Voting Plus Lottery Equals Voter Turnout?

qmark_is_mysterious writes "Fortune magazine has a interesting article on how it could be possible to increase voter turnout to 100% by making your vote an entry to a national lottery. By offering a prizes of up to $10 million dollars it's hoped that many people who feel disenfranchised will be motivated to go vote and express their opinion. A group in Arizona is trying to get an initiative on the 2006 ballot to get this implemented in that state. Do you think offering cash prizes will make elections more popular and effective?"

Comments

Re:Do you really want them to vote?

[bryanp]

If you're going to quote Ben Franklin use the entire quote:

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote."

How republicans and libertarians view taxes

[jgardn]

No, you don't understand the philosophy of libertarians and conservative republicans with regard to government income.

We believe that limited government is the best form of government. Government is a necessary evil because it has certain benefits like law and order. However, government has a violent tendency to exceed its role and to exert its power for evil. Thus, limited government is the only tolerable government.

All this spending that the government does is unjustified, and in some cases, specifically outlawed in the constitution. The federal government doesn't need to spend nearly as much as they do. Consider what it has to do: run some courts, pay some legislators and officers, and do this foreign relations thing by sending ambassadors and diplomats to foreign countries. Raising an army is not part of the federal government - that's for the individual states to do. The president only commands troops in times of war, as declared by congress. Until that time, the states control them.

The Federal Government could probably do everything with a couple hundred million dollars, not the couple of hundred BILLION dollars budget it has now. A couple hundred million dollars equates to about a buck a citizen in the US.

We believe that the federal government should only collect taxes from specific sources, namely a per-capita tax charged to the individual states, or a tariff on imported goods. The per-capita tax, if it were levied today, would amount to thousands of dollars per person, which is unbearable. But with limited government, it would be in the range of a few bucks. The tariffs are useful as a negotiating tool. Since the purpose of federal government is to handle all the foreign relations stuff, it could be a handy tool to them. (In particular, tariffs are levied with unfriendly countries, and will build up the coffers before a war with said country.)

We believe that governments shouldn't incur debts, enslaving the next generation, but build wealth. They should have extra money that they either loan out or deposit in a bank account and earn interest on. This way, eventually the government could function in times of peace *without* taxes! Maybe with a big enough reserve, we could survive a war without incuring any debt.

Consider that if you put your cash into any decent fund, it will return about 10%. If you stick it in the stock market, say, the Dow Jones index, historically, you will get a 20% return over time. If the government had a reserve of only a billion dollars, that would bring in about $300,000,000 to $600,000,000 of revenue without collecting taxes or tariffs. That should be more than enough to run the federal government - tax free.

We believe that states are free to tax however they like, provided it is in accordance to the state constitution. In my state of Washington, that's property taxes. What has happened recently under democrat rule is that we have been nickled and dimed to death. First we had a state sales tax. Now that tax is up to about 9% in most areas, and they're talking about raising it another "penny", or a billion dollars. There are other unconstitutional or extra-constitutional taxes that our state burdens us with, but thanks to Tim Eyman, we are able to tell the government that we don't want the spending and we don't want the taxes. We want to be free.

We believe that fines are appropriate, provided that they are used as a means of extracting damages or punishment of the offender. I believe that jail time or perhaps physical punishment or humiliation is more appropriate than a fine. So you were caught speeding? You'll spend tomorrow in the stockades with a sign "I can't obey simple laws like the speed limit" around your neck. Fines are something that favor the rich. Jailtime, humiliation, and physical punishment favors no one, and all are equal under the law.

Fines shouldn't be used for the government. If they are collected, it should be destroyed, increasing the value of the dollar. Otherwise, it will encourage the