Post by Moose on Feb 27, 2009 15:10:19 GMT -5
April 12, 2008
That's right.
I know. Nobody wants to pay taxes. After all, the evil government eats away your hard-earned money and funds stupid special interest groups with your blood money.
If you're a financial institution who is looking to loan out more money, of course you hate corporate taxes. They mean less money in your reserves, which translates to you being able to lend out less money and therefore make less profits.
If you're a middle class American, you hate taxes. You're not poor enough to get all kinds of government aid programs. You pay taxes to take care of the Baby Boomers who are retiring, other people's kids, other poor people, big businesses (I'll explain later), etc..
If you're poor, you hate taxes. You already live paycheck to paycheck. The unskilled job you have at the local factory isn't economically viable anymore thanks to globalization. Globalization means that factory job that you're getting paid for minimum wage will either get shipped to some third world country you didn't even know existed or it will be given to the next lowest class on the totem pole (illegal aliens, anyone?). Because you're not economically viable, you can't afford to pay any taxes. Stupid government should be helping you instead of collecting taxes from you.
If you're rich, you have every reason to hate every kind of tax ever imposed on anyone. After all, you're filthy stinkin' rich! You're on top of the world! Of course you don't want to help out everybody who's beneath you. It's their fault they can't be as rich as you are.
If you're a politician, you hate taxes. You hate taxes because you know that saying you need to raise taxes (even if it's inevitable because of the economic situation) will automatically cost you any hopes of winning.
If you're a Reaganite, you hate taxes. You know that lower taxes will guarantee that the economy will grow regardless of current and prospective circumstances. That's why you say that lower taxes will always result in higher tax revenues in the long run no matter what.
So why do taxes suck so much? Because you give away your hard-earned money to help somebody you hate that you don't want to support.
Then one day something bad happens. An economic recession hits. The lenders lent out all the money they could lend, and nobody can pay them back. Who do they go to? They go to the GOVERNMENT to give them blank bailout checks.
The middle class shrinks and many of its members join the poor class. The poor stay poor or get poorer. The poorer, more numerous poor demand more tax dollars for social services like Medicaid and food stamps.
The rich argue that none of this is their fault. Well, they were affected by the economy too. In fact, they lost all of their millions of dollars in corporate shares. With the reduced payout, they want the government to give them more tax breaks to make up for the loss in capital gains.
While the federal politicians have some leeway, the state and local politicians know that they can't have budget deficits. However, even in the Federal government, you can only sustain a budget deficit for so many years before a real crisis forces you to balance the budget. That means during a recession, the politicians have to raise taxes or cut spending to make up for the lost revenue. They scramble trying to figure out how many programs they have to cut or how many taxes they have to raise before they commit political suicide. Why did George H. W. Bush lose to Bill Clinton in 1992? "Read my lips: no new taxes."
If you're a Reaganite, you have no idea what the hell you should say about any of this. Oh, I know: damn all the stupid Liberals for ruining everything!
This is where we are right now. If you're stuck in a tough situation and you want any help from anyone, shut up and pay your taxes. You heard me. If you don't want to pay any taxes, you're a freeloader. EVERYBODY benefits from tax dollars in the form of social services. The only discrepancies that exist do so because some people pay higher taxes than others and some people benefit more from tax dollars than others.
If you don't think you benefit from tax dollars, go live a self-sustaining life in some remote jungle somewhere.
---------
I'm not saying that the New Deal (which didn't get us out of the Great Depression) is any better than Supply-Side Economics ("Reaganomics"), it's clear that Reaganomics don't work. If it did, we would have a trillion-dollar budget surplus right now, even with the ridiculously high amounts of military spending.
That's right.
I know. Nobody wants to pay taxes. After all, the evil government eats away your hard-earned money and funds stupid special interest groups with your blood money.
If you're a financial institution who is looking to loan out more money, of course you hate corporate taxes. They mean less money in your reserves, which translates to you being able to lend out less money and therefore make less profits.
If you're a middle class American, you hate taxes. You're not poor enough to get all kinds of government aid programs. You pay taxes to take care of the Baby Boomers who are retiring, other people's kids, other poor people, big businesses (I'll explain later), etc..
If you're poor, you hate taxes. You already live paycheck to paycheck. The unskilled job you have at the local factory isn't economically viable anymore thanks to globalization. Globalization means that factory job that you're getting paid for minimum wage will either get shipped to some third world country you didn't even know existed or it will be given to the next lowest class on the totem pole (illegal aliens, anyone?). Because you're not economically viable, you can't afford to pay any taxes. Stupid government should be helping you instead of collecting taxes from you.
If you're rich, you have every reason to hate every kind of tax ever imposed on anyone. After all, you're filthy stinkin' rich! You're on top of the world! Of course you don't want to help out everybody who's beneath you. It's their fault they can't be as rich as you are.
If you're a politician, you hate taxes. You hate taxes because you know that saying you need to raise taxes (even if it's inevitable because of the economic situation) will automatically cost you any hopes of winning.
If you're a Reaganite, you hate taxes. You know that lower taxes will guarantee that the economy will grow regardless of current and prospective circumstances. That's why you say that lower taxes will always result in higher tax revenues in the long run no matter what.
So why do taxes suck so much? Because you give away your hard-earned money to help somebody you hate that you don't want to support.
Then one day something bad happens. An economic recession hits. The lenders lent out all the money they could lend, and nobody can pay them back. Who do they go to? They go to the GOVERNMENT to give them blank bailout checks.
The middle class shrinks and many of its members join the poor class. The poor stay poor or get poorer. The poorer, more numerous poor demand more tax dollars for social services like Medicaid and food stamps.
The rich argue that none of this is their fault. Well, they were affected by the economy too. In fact, they lost all of their millions of dollars in corporate shares. With the reduced payout, they want the government to give them more tax breaks to make up for the loss in capital gains.
While the federal politicians have some leeway, the state and local politicians know that they can't have budget deficits. However, even in the Federal government, you can only sustain a budget deficit for so many years before a real crisis forces you to balance the budget. That means during a recession, the politicians have to raise taxes or cut spending to make up for the lost revenue. They scramble trying to figure out how many programs they have to cut or how many taxes they have to raise before they commit political suicide. Why did George H. W. Bush lose to Bill Clinton in 1992? "Read my lips: no new taxes."
If you're a Reaganite, you have no idea what the hell you should say about any of this. Oh, I know: damn all the stupid Liberals for ruining everything!
This is where we are right now. If you're stuck in a tough situation and you want any help from anyone, shut up and pay your taxes. You heard me. If you don't want to pay any taxes, you're a freeloader. EVERYBODY benefits from tax dollars in the form of social services. The only discrepancies that exist do so because some people pay higher taxes than others and some people benefit more from tax dollars than others.
If you don't think you benefit from tax dollars, go live a self-sustaining life in some remote jungle somewhere.
---------
I'm not saying that the New Deal (which didn't get us out of the Great Depression) is any better than Supply-Side Economics ("Reaganomics"), it's clear that Reaganomics don't work. If it did, we would have a trillion-dollar budget surplus right now, even with the ridiculously high amounts of military spending.