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Show 6 Tuesday September 4, 2012 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.corn CAMPUS VIEWS » Students: To vote, or not to vote? Not voting empowers older generation T he most common arguments for voting in an election seem to rely MIMI on fairly flimsy emoMARSTALLER tions such as patriotism or guilt, which might be strong today, but dissipate tomorrow. "Voting honors the vision of the founding fathers." account gets an immense de"Vote because you can, and posit. A huge portion of the so many around the world country just took civic accan't." This is how the logic tion. Now the country is really living large. All citizens, typically goes. In searching for something even those who didn't vote, with more persuasive logic, benefit from that enormous more specific arguments national payday and the emerge. ensuing era of accountability Researchers Kendahl and progress. Melvin and Nelson Warr The next year people seem argue that not voting places to decide voting is a hassle. disproportionate political Not only would voting repower squarely in the hands quire registering and driving of the older generation. to the polls on election day, Citizens older than 65 turn but some states require speout in the highest numbers cific photo ID to vote. to vote, outvoting millenThen the following year, one million more people nials 6-to-i. And although youngsters tend to value don't vote. This time the immigrants' contributions to bank account really sufsociety, see the benefits of fers. Politicians begin to having women in the worktake larger paychecks, fund place and support biracial private jet travel with tax marriage, seniors tend to be dollars and cave to industry far less enthusiastic on all lobbyists at the expense of these issues. their constituents. Forbes columnist Art Carden said one vote is powerful, so don't waste it on the chief two parties. Look beyond the two top candidates and find a candidate who actually represents your views. A vote for one of the lesser known of the 23 declared presidential candidates sends a more powerful message, and does more to expand the political conversation, Carden said. Presented with these arguments, voters might still say voting isn't worth the trouble — but the cost-benefit relationship might not be as straightforward as it seems. Think of a democratic society as a bank. Rather than money, the account contains "the spirit of democracy." Citizens in the democracy make deposits in the bank each time they do something democratic, such as voting, writing a letter to a congressman, attending a political rally or town meeting or even sticking a campaign sign out on the lawn. When the bank balance is high, democracy works beautifully. Citizens' rights are protected, politicians represent the interests of their constituents and people feel well-served by their government. On election day, the StaffWriter The fact that such misuses of power pepper news reports indicates that America's bank account is already dangerously low. What puts democratic wealth in even more peril is a voter's rational nature. He looks around his classroom or workplace and sees that hardly anyone is depositing in the bank account by voting. He becomes much less eager to contribute just so his friends and classmates can have a free ride on his political action. People not voting leads to more and more people not voting. Vote in November to bolster the national bank balance. Don't free-ride on the civic action of others, because that common pool resource is already spread too thin. The costs of not voting — citizen interests fade from political process — accumulate more gradually and subtly than the immediate costs of voting — registering and getting to the polls. Consider that long-term cost now and go to the polls. letters@chronicle.utah.edu Voting age needs to be increased to 21 c ollege kids are the future of society. We are goCLAIRE ing to be the movSORENSEN ers and shakers of the future. We are going to be tomorrow's Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and managing a social life, havMark Zuckerberg. However, the current political ing relationships, finding landscape is not determined internships and sleeping, by our generation. Rather, it we don't have much time to is determined by the older keep up with politics. And generations because they an uninformed voter is a turn out to vote. huge threat to democracy — Since we are the future, more so than a nonvoter. shouldn't we determine If votes are being cast the politics of the future? based on ignorance, your The answer is no. Genparents' views or simply the erally, young voters are obligation to vote, democill-informed and do not racy is being undermined. have a comprehensive grasp According to the Univerof what is going on in the sity of Connecticut's Roper political realm. Thus, the Center, the demographic voting age should be raised that voted the most in the to at least 21 — to allow us 2008 presidential election to have life experiences and were between 45 and 64 become informed voters years old. These middlebefore casting a ballot. aged citizens accounted College students do not for 37 percent of all voters, vote, for the most part, bewhereas i8 to 29-year-olds cause we are busy. Between made up just i8 percent of going to class, working a all voters. part-time job, homework, Meanwhile, 26 percent of participating in clubs, the people who voted made StaffWriter 3Osk \nave so moch in co rArnoN' LUIGI GHERSI/The Daily Utah Chronicle more than $ioo,000 and 21 percent made $5o,000 to $74,999 a year. This means that affluent and elderly people are deciding the fate of our country, not the future generations who will live that fate. And this is as it should be. These people are more experienced, they pay taxes, they have gone to college and they have been in the workforce. They know and have lived what young voters don't know and haven't lived. There have been many get out the vote campaigns, such as P-Diddy's Vote or Die campaign. These campaigns are not just done by celebrities but by political parties and interest groups. The get out the vote campaigns are detrimental to democracy. These campaigns encourage everyone to vote, however uninformed. But there is a huge difference between just voting and making an educated vote, and we need to recognize this when going to the polls to cast our ballot — or when we decide not to go. It is especially important to sort through the media and become informed in today's political climate. The news and candidates don't give the information that is needed for the people to make an educated vote. Instead, they give the information that will have you vote for them. Fox News swings right, MSNBC left, and they are trying to persuade voters to go a certain way, not to make a decision based on sound information and evidence. Those who don't vote are serving the public's best interest by saying they don't know what is best, and that they lack the information to make the informed choice they ought to be making. It is important that certain people don't vote, not because it's not their right, but because they are not apt to make an informed decision. — and a choice is not really a choice if it is not an informed one. This is why we should raise the voting age to 21: We need people to receive their own life experience before they start invoking one of the most important constitutional rights. letters@chronicle.utah.edu Direct taxes make up too much of federal revenues ur nation's Internal Revenue Service runs a program called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, which invites community members to train as pro bono consultants, who then help people of low-tomoderate income prepare their tax returns. The IRS, in an effort to come across as a benign, merciful institution, promotes this program as a chance to "make a difference" and "help in your community." Sure, it is nice to help your neighbors reclaim their personal revenue, but wouldn't it be nicer not to take it from them in the first place? The IRS exists to forcibly extract the hard-earned income of the American people — an action that would be criminal if carried out by a private citizen. Pretentiously setting up a volunteer tax return organization does not mitigate the wrongfulness of that mission. To any who might question this odious characterization of the income tax, think about the programs our tax dollars fund that we want nothing to do with. Take, for example, the military complex. Last spring, "17 Afghanistan civilians, nine of whom were children, were allegedly murdered in the sanctity of their homes by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales," who was likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as reported by the Huffington Post. I, for one, cringe to think that someday my tax dollars will make possible this kind of tragedy — but there's nothing I can do O BEN HAYNES StaffWriter about it. If I refuse to pay, I'll go to prison. Since the income tax is a direct tax, which means it is levied on the money earned by individuals, not on goods or services, one cannot avoid paying, no matter how many objectionable causes will be funded by that money. Indirect taxes, such as sales taxes, are less unjust because one can at least try to avoid paying them by choosing to refrain from those transactions. Because individual income and payroll taxes together make up about 8opercent of Federal Tax Revenue, some have expressed concern that reliance on indirect taxes would make it impossible to fund most of our government programs. Well, yes. That's kind of the idea. Injustice aside, the income tax costs everyone things that could otherwise be accomplished with that money. Rather than turning your hard-earned money over to the vast government bureaucracies and hoping some good will come of it, citizens would be free to invest more resources into efficient, effective charities and other worthy causes. Some academics seem to fear that without government compulsion, citizens would not give enough to charity because of "collective consumption externalities" and "free-rider" problems. Forgive me for being anecdotal, but I know a lot of people who find ways to contribute to charitable causes, despite the taxed depletion of their resources. And if the government didn't take its huge cut off the top, these individuals would be free to give even more generously, and to causes and charities more representative of their values. Furthermore, if the federal government didn't tax our income in the first place, there would be no need for volunteers to help people get their money back As things stand, members of our community could spend their volunteer hours driving to the Redwood Recreation Center to try to reclaim their neighbors' hard-earned wages. Or, they could spend more of their time reading stories with children from poor backgrounds, befriending a lonely widow or gathering supplies to send to victims of Hurricane Isaac. Optimistically, VITA looks like an effort to compensate for the damages done by the IRS. In reality, it is just part of the endless stream of inefficiencies made inevitable by the i6th Amendment. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu SALLY YOO/The Daily Utah Chronicle |