> Suppose I pay an extra $1,000 in income taxes via a donation. This amount will not help anyone or improve the fiscal situation of the United States government.

It sounds like you think government waste implies $1000 is meaningless. Certainly $1000 in some private folks' pockets will materially help them.

> Suppose I pay an extra $1,000 in income taxes via a donation. This amount will not help anyone or improve the fiscal situation of the United States government.

We're talking about marginal returns here, i.e. whether or not the author should donate that extra $1,000 to the government. Donating that extra $1,000 when other people don't will help just as much, if not more, as when other people do.

One person donating a $1,000 when no one else does could be more beneficial than if everyone donated $1,000? Interesting idea.

Yes (on top of existing taxes). Are you familiar with the concept of diminishing returns?

It means the marginal effect of the first $1,000 would be greater than or equal to the marginal effect of the last $1,000. It does not mean that the aggregate benefit of multiple $1,000 donations would be less than just a single $1,000 donation.

You are consistently confusing marginal effect and aggregate effect in your posts. You are consistently misunderstanding that there is a huge difference in effectiveness in everyone in a tax bracket having increased taxes versus a single person paying the increase in taxes. There’s big difference in me wanting to pay $1,000 more in taxes versus wanting everyone in my tax bracket to pay $1,000 more in taxes.

You are consistently misunderstanding and misrepresenting my posts.

What I’m discussing is precisely marginal effects and not aggregate effects. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18836313. Read more carefully next time.

I know you are talking about marginal effects but you should be talking about aggregate effects. You make the claim that a $1,000 donation might be more useful than many millions of $1,000 donations. This is clearly false. It’s true that the marginal effect of the first $1,000 donation is greater but you can’t conclude from this that the aggregate effect is greater. Mentioning diminishing returns is irrelevant when everyone you are responding to is pointing out that a single person voluntarily donating extra taxes is not worthwhile but at the same time think increasing taxes on everyone in a given bracket (due to scale) is worthwhile.

Your emphasis on marginal vs. aggregate is why you are wrong and why your statements are wrong.

> You make the claim that a $1,000 donation might be more useful than many millions of $1,000 donations.

Nowhere did I make that claim.

> Your emphasis on marginal vs. aggregate is why you are wrong and why your statements are wrong.

No. You just can't read, apparently.