Inspired by another idea proposed here.

When you pay your taxes, there is a box you can check so that $3 will go to federally financing political campaigns. You do not have to pay anything additional if you check this box. Instead, the government will take $3 from its general funds, and so everyone's taxes will be have to be raised by the tiniest fraction of a penny to pay for your generosity. The politicians who designed this system thought that everyone would check the box, since they have no reason not to. Unfortunately, they forgot to consider the flip side. Many if not most people do not check the box, since they have no reason to do so. The amount of the box must therefore be increased from time to time to help cover the shortfall.

To encourage people to click the box, why not offer people an incentive. Every year a tax return with the box checked would be chosen at random, and the person who filed it will receive one million dollars tax-free. People would then be faced with an unusual situation. They can receive the equivalent of a free Lotto ticket, and everyone else will have to pay for it. If everyone checks the box, then everyone's taxes will go up by $3. But even if you don't check the box, everyone else will, and so your taxes will go up by the same amount anyway. You may as well check the box then, and so receive the same potential benefit as everyone else.

The federal political financing program would gain far more than the cost of the million dollars they would have to give away. The supporters of this program would do well to consider a variation of this idea.

What do you think of this idea or comment?
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