Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
The world doesn't exactly work like a big check-list of things we can decide to pay for with our taxes and not. If that was the case no one would ever pay for anything they don't use and all of a sudden we'd screw over the less fortunate to a much higher extent and probably ourselves too, without oil subsidies, business tax breaks, etc. Probably real quick people wouldn't contribute any money to the military or national defense, being able to "choose" what to spend money on. Why would I send my money somewhere that doesn't instantly benefit ME? The idea is just ridiculous with the concept of social contract.
The world may not have this big checklist but the social contract you speak of does exist, it's our constitution. And within it is an actual big check-list of things we have already decided what to pay for with our taxes and what not to pay for. It's in Article One Section Eight, a list of 18 things that enumerate exactly what our federal tax money is supposed to pay for. You'll notice that nowhere in there is anything about essential air service. Also within it are things like the military and national defense. But the social contract (our constitution) does say that anything not in the contract or prohibited by it, can be taken up by the states or the people (tenth amendment). To me, this means that if EAS is important to Alaskans, that state can pay for it. Or they can persuade fellow citizens that it's also important to all citizens and deserves a constitutional amendment to add it to the big checklist. Of course, this is only true if we believe in this social contract. If we don't care what it says, we just do what we want without actually changing the wording.