War Bonds, Not War Taxes

I think a lot of the things you brought up aren't about 'not enough money' but rather about 'the money isn't properly spent'.

For instance, schools - if money was the problem, why are some of the most effective and schools available to the public the ones with the least money and lowest wages? A balance between 'education taxes' and 'education bonds' would be the choice to send your education credits to whichever school you think is doing the best job... even if it's a private school. This would have the additional benefit of narrowing the gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor, creating a more stable and fair educational playing field. What bewilders me that for some reason, narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor in this manner is considered a Conservative concept instead of a Liberal concept.

Or Katrina. The problem wasn't money. From the way I understand it, originally, New Orleans wanted to do the levees the right way - by hiring the world experts on the subject, from the Netherlands. And they were willing to pay extra money to get the Dutch experts to do the job. But the Dutch experts weren't willing to work with substandard materials or conditions ... which New Orleans was legally obligated to work with, thanks to union laws and city contract regulations. New Orleans was *willing* to spend the extra money ... but wasn't allowed to spend it on the best.

But you're quite right in several ways, as well. There's a big difference between fighting a war that saves millions of non-Americans, and maintaining vital infrastructure inside the US, because the former is non-essential to the United States while the latter is quite essential. Where the political drama would come in is that lots of people would disagree on what's essential and what is not.

Which is where Haikujaguar's comment would come in. Many people do not feel that public health care is essential...

In fact, I think that this is a great example of a difference in approach, because something equivalent to bonds already *do* exist. They're called charities, and they allow you to direct your money in full freedom to whatever you want. An interesting trend you can follow through our history is how charities which previously had been strongly supported through private donations had suddenly faltered when the government took over the job of providing the same service. Once people think the government's responsible for taking care of something, they stop doing it themselves.

So there *is* probably something like a national forest bond that you could invest in, if you wanted, in the form of some charity. Call your closest Forest Service office, ask if there's any volunteer organizations that they work with. The volunteers that work to maintain national forests always like to have new people, or failing time devoted, are always short on money.