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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   3434 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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I wouldn't consider this punitive or coercive, just making people internalize their externalities.

To misquote Lincoln, you might consider a tail to be a leg, but that don't make it so.

If it's punitive or coercive it's only so in the way all taxes are, and less so because it more fittingly distributes fruits amongst those who planted fruit trees. Society needs a next generation to survive no less than it needs a military to survive. And at war if you're spared the draft you'll still need to pay for the tools our brave soldiers use to maintain your society.

Everyone claims their punitive, coercive, redistributive tax is somehow more fitting than the ones they don't like. Still doesn't make it so. You're not proposing to tax the childless to pay for their own retirements (nor even pretending to do so the way FICA does); you're straight up proposing to tax them to pay for the other people's children. Of course the effect this can have is limited; as with any sin tax, if it actually reduces the sin it also reduces the tax base.

as with any sin tax, if it actually reduces the sin it also reduces the tax base.

With this one, at least, that problem is self correcting long term, as the children had form the tax base.

Everyone claims their punitive, coercive, redistributive tax is somehow more fitting than the ones they don't like.

Is military spending punitive and coercive?

You're not proposing to tax the childless to pay for their own retirements [...] you're straight up proposing to tax them to pay for the other people's children.

These are the same thing. The parent's children are who will perform labor necessary for childless retirement. I'm not saying people should subsidize the life choices of people who selfishly want to be parents, I'm saying in your own self interest you need them to be parents, it's a bargain for your future self to not have to live in a demographically collapsed society just like funding the military is a bargain for your future self to not have to live in a conquered society.

Of course the effect this can have is limited; as with any sin tax, if it actually reduces the sin it also reduces the tax base.

I'm not framing this as a Pigouvian tax, but if you insist it is one then to the degree it shrinks the subsidy it is a pareto improvement, not a self defeat.

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