"In a fully free society, taxation - or, to be exact, payment for governmental services..." - Ayn Rand
"In a fully free society, taxation - or, to be exact, payment for governmental services - would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government - the police, the armed forces, the law courts - are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance." - Ayn Rand
But I certainly agree in any case that the legitimate functions of government are very limited and indeed wouldn't be that much trouble at all to pay for, especially out of such abundance as would ensue if government was forbidden to interfere in anything whatsoever that did not involve some initiation of force or fraud.
You would think they could make everybody happy in a reasonable world. I think a basic tax with two voluntary extra levels would cover everything. It isn't hard to imagine.
Defense, law enforcement, Courts and government functions required in the constitution could be the bronze tax. This would be the only tax you would "have" to pay and there is always Rand's idea of having a contract tax to pay for that. It could be made optional in that you wouldn't have to pay anything if you didn't engage in activities requiring an enforceable contract.
Roads, NASA, National parks, etc could be the Silver tax, which you could support if you wished.
The Gold tax, would support all of the above and come with the safety net programs. If you want to be eligible for that stuff, you got to pay for it in your tax rate. This goes with Rand saying "If you want to help the poor, you won't be stopped".
Of course the progressives would say,"Oh, but we couldn't fund the safety net just off the people who would voluntarily pay for it".
That begs the question, "If social programs are so great, why wouldn't people want to participate in them?".
Personally, you could probably talk me into supporting "silver plan" stuff like the weather service and Highways. I wouldn't think business could stick their necks out to run those things cause they would end up getting their pants sued off of them. Thinking of what would happen when a tornado or tsunami warning didn't go off, stuff like that. Maybe they could be partially privatized, not sure how that would work.
Gold Plan?, Well I kind of like the idea of disability insurance, but if it was an optionial government service, I am certain you could buy it yourself without having the government provide it. Right now it is part of Social Security isn't it?
The point of all this (sorry it is so long) is that voluntary taxation levels could be a platform that actual conservatives could run on. Everyone could have what they where willing to pay for and not be forced into supporting what they didn't want. But none of the candidates ever dare mention making taxes "pay for the government you believe in". I can see the progressive argument against it, but what is the Conservative basis for not proposing this?