Taxpayer status

I've taken the title for this from some of Jerry Pournelle's old books. Essentially, it was an alt-history where relatively small groups of taxpayers supported a parasitic Welfare class. not too different from real life so far, but with a key wrinkle: Taxpayers had rights that Welfare types didn't, including voting.

Unconstitutional you say? Most likely (though I'll not look it up just now) but I would really like someone to convince me that people who don't contribute to the finances of the nation should have any say in how that money is administered. I don't really want that to happen of course since I don't believe it, but if you're not at least open to being convinced that you're wrong you're not worthy of expressing serious opinions.

This is a step down from the old democratic model that only (male) property owners could vote and seems logical to me; you don't contribute, you don't get a say. As a corollary I would make voting obligatory for Taxpayers (punishable by a fine of a day's pay) in order to ensure that rights come with Responsibilities.

Who would this affect? People on Social Assistance, in prison, or sheltering offshore from Canadian taxes. It would largely (but not exclusively!) affect the very poor, but I'd like to know how many people on Welfare make an effort to vote. I'll stick my neck out and say a low percentage with little risk of losing my head over it.

This system introduces a few democratic safeguards too. "Machine politics" would be limited in effect, simply because the poor and disaffected who are usually the backbone of these systems would not be a voting bloc. If everyone is forced to vote, more of them will feel compelled to take a real interest in who/what they're voting for, further weakening the ACORNs of the world. None of this is utopianism, just human nature; you can't force people to care but they can be encouraged, and it will take with at least a few of them.

The biggest defence against Tammany Hall/ballot box stuffing/dead people voting, etc. is the voter's list. It will be the same as the Tax agency's list and can't (easily or convincingly) be subverted by community organizers. One person, (on the Taxpayer list) one vote. The list will of course change, but since the government really likes it's money that list will be kept up-to-date. And they know everything about you already...

It's not immune to gerrymandering, but that's a separate problem and one that's much more obvious and thus easily dealt with. Anyway, all a bit off my usual beaten path, but that's a good thing since I'm feeling a bit tapped out on the geopolitics right now. When I have something new (for me at least) to say about that stuff it'll be back.