The benefit principle is a concept that has been proposed as a system by which taxation rates are calculated according to the value of the benefits received by the taxpayer from the government. In theory, such a principle would seemingly serve to provide the fairest outcome, as opposed to equal taxation for example, which would fail due to how low the taxes would have to be in order that the poorest of society could pay them.

There are, however, several pitfalls with the benefit principle that must be explored. For starters, it would be rather difficult to determine just how much each individual benefits from the government, and to put a monetary value on this. Yet even despite the logistical concerns of the benefit principle, obvious dillemmas arise. Government salaries are one; under the benefit principle, a government bureaucrat whose salary is paid by the government would technically be obligated to pay their entire salary in taxes, due to the benefit received from the government in the form of employment and a salary.

Yet even greater fundamental issues exist with the benefit principle. The whole objective of those who promote progressive taxation is that the wealthier in society be taxed at a higher rate; yet it is the poorer who benefit far greater from the government than the rich. Be it welfare programs or the higher crime rates in poor neigborhoods–leading to more need for law enforcement–there are a number of reasons that under such a system, the less well-off would be obligated to pay far more than their wealthy counterparts, whose protection costs are far lower and who are unlikely to benefit from government programs.

The Washington Monument Syndrome is a political phenomeon that occurs within the government when budget cuts are threatened. So named after an infamous 1969 incident in which the monument in our nation’s capital commemorating the first president limited its days of tourist operation in response to budget cuts imposed on the Department of Interior, the Washington Monument Syndrome refers to the response of an organization–be it government or government-subsized–to government budget cuts in which, rather than cut unnecessary or extraneous costs, the organization in question deliberately cuts items that are most important to the public, so as to cause public outrage so that the budget cuts can be reversed.

Extreme instances of this principle in effect have included during the Cold War, when the military suggested cutting costs of crucial first-alert calvary rather than such extraneous costs as marching bands. A more recent example occurred in 2009, when officials on behalf of Zoo New England in Massachusetts threatened to euthanize animals and perhaps shutter its zoos in response to a reduction in its government subsidies–a sure-fire means by which to create public outrage.

Policymakers attempting to craft government programs with the intention of alleviating various unfortunate circumstances are inevitably met with a series of dillemmas which seem to be impossible to remedy. Political scientist Charles Murray outlined the core issues in his book Losing Ground, in which he presents a powerful example of a theoretical government program intended to reduce smoking as a means of illustrating his three unavoidable laws of social programs.

Perhaps the most striking of these laws is the law of unintended rewards. In his example of an anti-smoking program, Murray determines that in order to attract people to such a program, a reward would be necessary that is great enough that it might attract those who would otherwise not bother quitting the habit–but not so great that it would give people an incentive to start smoking, continue smoking, or increase smoking, depending on the program’s eligilbilty rules.

Murray concludes that achieving such a goal is impossible. This can be likened to social programs, such as welfare programs or job training programs, in that the degree to which such programs must incentivize in order to effectually attract their target populations subsequently results in the state of behavior which is being combatted–poverty or unemployment, for example–becoming itself more appealing than the state of, say, finding employment or being above the poverty level required to participate in a welfare program.

Government anti-poverty programs have altogether proven to be overwhelmingly unsuccessful in the last six decades. Not only have they failed to resolve the poverty problem and in many cases worsened it; they have actually caused further harm within society. After all, the inefficiency of government programs speaks for itself when it is considered that it takes roughly $5 for the state to provide what amounts to $1 to the poor by the time it reaches them. Despite increasing amounts of money poured into government programs to help the poor, the poverty rate has remained fairly steady since the 1960s.

According to June O’Neil, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, welfare dependency has had exeedingly negative effects on youth, including an IQ decrease of as much as 20%, behavioral issues, learning disabilities, and increased crime rates. Moreover, welfare programs have been shown to statistically increase rates of family breakup: a series of experiments in various U.S. cities during the 1970s indicated that, in all but one city, divorce rates were substantially higher than average; the revealing lone exception was Gary, Indiana, where pariticipants were under the mistaken impression that divorce would result in a loss of benefits.🔹