Congresspeople either do, or they don't, know what keeps people running. If they don't know what keeps people running then they really shouldn't be spending our taxes.
If, in a pragmatarian system, people choose to allocate their taxes themselves, rather than give them to their congresspeople, then this would indicate that there was insufficient evidence for people to believe that congresspeople know what keeps them running.
By comparison, when you give your money to a baker it's because he knows what keeps you running... bread! Is this the only thing that keeps you running? Nope. There are plenty of things that keep you running... and you allocate your money/time accordingly. For example... here you are!
Everybody wants to keep themselves running. So if people allocated their taxes themselves, rather than give them to congresspeople, then it really wouldn't seem like congresspeople were doing anything that keep people running.
Right now we give a lot of money to congresspeople... which is a huge problem... if they don't do anything that keeps people running. It should be pretty straightforward that we have plenty to gain and nothing to lose by giving people the option to directly allocate their taxes.
Congresspeople either do, or they don't, know what keeps people running.
Wrong. It's not binary.
Quotes are a unique enough medium of expression that I'm interested in viewing quotes that people have found collectable, emotionally impactful, useful, memorable, or otherwise noteworthy - perhaps others are similarly interested. To clarify, these need not be even remotely related to rationality. I'm hijacking the mandates traditionally used for the Rationality Quotes thread, with a few modifications:
Please post any meta discussion in the top-level comment named "Meta".