Janez Janša came to a brilliant conclusion after the referendum on the RTV licence fee. RTV should be paid for by those who voted against abolishing the fee, while everyone else should not have to pay. Because if you don’t want something, apparently you don’t have to pay for it. Simple, isn’t it? I’m immensely grateful to him for this idea, because it has opened up an entirely new way of looking at how the state works and how public services are funded. Why hadn’t anyone thought of it before? Warning: this is sarcasm!
For instance, I don’t want to pay for this government. I didn’t vote for it, I don’t support it, and I don’t want to fund its ministers, state secretaries, advisers, official cars and all the other perks paid for from the budget. Why should I support with my money something I disagree with? Let the people who elected the government fund it, since they’re the ones who wanted this kind of government. If there were enough of them to win the election, there will surely be enough of them to pay the bills too. I’d rather spend my share on something else.
While we’re at it, we could extend this brilliant idea to other areas as well. I don’t go to church and I don’t need priests, so I see no reason why their social security contributions should be funded from public money. Let believers pay for them, since they use their services.
I don’t have children at school either, so I wonder why I should have to contribute towards children’s education. Let parents fund the teachers, classrooms, sports halls and everything else their children need themselves. If they want educated children, they should pay for them. I’ve already finished my education and I don’t understand why I should fund something I no longer need.
The same goes for pensions. I’m not a pensioner at the moment, so I don’t need a pension and therefore see no reason why I should pay contributions into the pension fund. Let pensioners arrange the funding of their own pensions, and I’ll think about it when I’m old enough. If I even want a pension then. Perhaps I’d rather choose another service, since we’ve established that every individual must have the right to decide what they will and won’t fund.
I don’t need firefighters at the moment either, because my house isn’t on fire. So why should I fund volunteer fire brigades and professional firefighters? If my house ever catches fire, I’ll call them and pay for the service. I imagine they’ll offer different subscription packages, from a basic one where they arrive with a bucket of water to a premium package that includes a fire engine. For an additional charge, they could also offer firefighting by helicopter. Naturally, only to those who have paid their subscription on time.
The same applies to healthcare. As long as I’m healthy, I don’t need doctors, so I see no reason to fund other people’s treatment. When I fall ill, I’ll simply pay for the examination, operation or chemotherapy. If I don’t have the money, I’ll obviously have to put up with it. We can’t expect other people to pay for my problems, can we?
If someone robs me, I’ll call the police, who will send me an invoice once the intervention is over. I only hope they’ll offer instalment payments, because robbers don’t usually leave much cash behind.
In fact, we could start wondering why we fund the army at all. I don’t intend to attack anyone and nobody is threatening me at present, so I see no reason to pay for tanks, armoured vehicles and other military equipment. Let the army be funded by those who feel threatened, while I save my contribution. If somebody attacks us, I may change my mind, but until then I see no need to spend my money.
Then there are roads, railways, culture, sport, libraries and everything else the state funds from our shared money. If I don’t drive on every road in Slovenia, I don’t have to pay to maintain those roads. I don’t go to the opera in Maribor, so I don’t want to fund opera singers. I don’t follow every sport, so I don’t want to fund athletes I don’t follow. And because I don’t read every book in libraries, I see no reason to pay librarians. Let everyone pay only for what they use, and we’ll finally have a fair system.
What I like most is the idea of applying this principle to the funding of politics. Why should all taxpayers fund all political parties and MPs? Let every voter pay for the MP they elected. Each parliamentary group could open its own bank account, and voters could transfer voluntary monthly contributions towards the salaries of their political favourites. If there wasn’t enough money, MPs would simply have to find additional work. It would probably even do some of them good, since for the first time in their lives they would discover what it is like to earn money outside parliament. On the labour market. But I’m afraid they wouldn’t last long.
By this logic, the costs of referendums should also be paid exclusively by those who propose and support them. Why should I fund referendums I disagree with? Let the organisers raise the money, hire polling stations, pay electoral commissions and run the vote. If they want to organise a hundred of them, let them organise a hundred, but at their own expense. I don’t want to take part in that, because I’ve decided I don’t need that service.
And so we slowly arrive at the most brilliant part of Janša’s idea. Slovenia clearly no longer needs a tax system, but subscription packages. Every citizen could put together their own tailor-made state, much as they choose television channels today. One person could subscribe to the police, healthcare and education, another only to the army and church, while a third could choose the cheapest package without public services. For an additional charge, you could also get the rule of law, a functioning judiciary and democracy. The latter would probably be slightly more expensive, as it clearly isn’t intended for everyone.
Of course, such a system has one tiny problem. The state isn’t a self-service shop where you choose the products you like and pay only for those at the till. We fund public services together precisely because we need them as a society, even when we don’t personally use them at any given moment. Today I fund someone else’s school-age children, tomorrow someone else will fund my treatment, and the day after tomorrow we’ll all need firefighters who won’t first ask whether we’ve paid our subscription.
But if Janez Janša can suggest after the referendum on the RTV licence fee that a public service should be funded only by those who voted for it, then I see no reason why the same principle should not apply to his government.
Because I didn’t order this government, I’m not happy with how it operates and, consequently, I don’t want to fund it. I’d like to remove it from my shopping basket, cancel the subscription and demand a refund for services I never wanted. Janez, thank you for the idea. Now just tell me where I can send my cancellation notice for funding your government.