While discussing the correct level of dues is a valuable pursuit,
it comes to mind that the one or two dollars more a month being
considered here, won't change anyone's ability to donate or
buy espresso.
The number of members we'll have at either level.
The amount of money we'll raise from membership.
How that money will be spent.
Those are valuable questions.
But, the tiny incremental change on the ability to
contribute over the course of a donor's year is somewhere
close to nil.
Bruce!
I've heard the same "it's such a small increase, that you'll hardly notice it"
argument used repeatedly by politicians wanting to raise taxes. Howard Dean
wants to repeal the few hundred dollars in savings most of us got under the
Bush tax plan, because it's less than a dollar a day, and we spend that much
just on coffee.
Explain how your logic is different. Both are voluntary taxes on my part,
right? I can always renounce my citizenship and leave the United States. I
can always leave the Libertarian Party, too. Of course, both those options
beg the question, "Leave and go where?", since there aren't attractive
alternatives to either the U.S. or the LP. So, maybe these taxes aren't so
voluntary, right?
Millionaires like Harry Browne move from California to Tennessee to get away
from a state income tax that rich guys like them really have no difficulty
paying. They do so solely on principle. Why, then, shouldn't Libertarians
who abhor bureaucratic waste refuse to pay higher dues, also on principle?
It's not ability to pay that's at issue here -- it's principle. You know
principle, right? As in "The Party of..."