Hi, my name is Elon, and I have a great idea! We should tax Americans $42 billion/year indefinitely and pay much of that money to my company SpaceX. We'll build something on Mars, eventually, if possible.
Let's have the US Congress fund this because as we all know they, like me, have no conflicts of interest, make decisions based purely on the science, have a very low time preference, are good stewards and very wise spenders, and plan for the future. And if Congress funds it then Americans must be willing to pay for it because, ta da, democracy!
I'm pleased to announce that I have made a personal and very generous contribution of $10 million to increase public awareness about the need for this project.
> We should tax Americans $42 billion/year indefinitely and pay much of that money to my company SpaceX.
Sounds like a better use of taxpayer dollars than spending trillions to bomb brown people on the other side of the planet. And it will cost me less personally to fund a trip to Mars than I pay for a trip to Starbucks, so it's quite the bargain.
Almost no one who advocates for government spending makes it conditional on eliminating other government spending. This would be in addition to the current military spending.
Also, he wants 0.25% of US GDP indefinitely, so ignoring all the complexities of taxes maybe an approximation would be 0.25% of your gross income, every year for the rest of your working life, or like, maybe 10,000 times the the cost of a trip to Starbucks.
Let's have the US Congress fund this because as we all know they, like me, have no conflicts of interest, make decisions based purely on the science, have a very low time preference, are good stewards and very wise spenders, and plan for the future. And if Congress funds it then Americans must be willing to pay for it because, ta da, democracy!
I'm pleased to announce that I have made a personal and very generous contribution of $10 million to increase public awareness about the need for this project.
You're welcome humanity.