This spending is so important that if you don’t pay the tax to support it we will take your property and/or your freedom at the point of a gun.
Every spending bill should make that claim in the first sentence. It might help reduce the countless frivolous expenditures our government makes on our behalf.
The principles of capitalism work and have raised more people from poverty than Communists and Socialists ever dreamed of. And even though Liberals literally fail at basic economics, every now and then they accidentally get one right. See Official: NY tax breaks would apply to ‘Tonight’:
The bill expected to be voted into law in coming days would provide a 30 percent tax credit for a “relocated television production.” Past and current tax credits have gone to new productions starting in New York, such as “Law & Order.”
Hmmm . . . so if you lower taxes, a business will be more likely to come to your location. Shocking. And it stands to reason that if you raise taxes then more will leave.
Are the NY officials being irrational by offering the tax break? No, because they realize that luring the Tonight Show will have all sorts of other benefits. Too bad they don’t apply that across the board.
When you consider how the same behavior applies to countries you can see why jobs get outsourced (it isn’t just the wages).
Dwight Schrute, from The Office: [After he didn’t tip the sandwich delivery boy] Why tip someone for a job I’m capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.
That theme fits in well with the tax philosophy regarding what we “need” taxes for. I can’t — or it would be wildly inefficient for me — to defend the country, put out a house fire, etc. But I don’t need the government to get involved in everything in my life. More specifically, I want the right part of government doing the right job. We do not need the Federal Government involved in education at all. Even the smallest states are big enough to run things themselves, and could easily leverage the successful ideas (read: not California’s) of other states.
And note that the government doesn’t really do many of the things attributed to them. They don’t build roads. They collect our money to pay others to build roads. This is probably the best way to do it, even though the politicians often get kickbacks when handing out contracts.
As if we needed more evidence that Liberals literally fail at basic economics, this anti-Tea Party piece is floating around Facebook as if it actually proves something: So you say you hate taxes? … well here is the solution. Here’s a sample of the 102 items listed (they really put a lot of work into this logical fallacy!):
1. Do not use Medicare.
2. Do not use Social Security
3. Do not become a member of the US military, who are paid with tax dollars.
4. Do not ask the National Guard to help you after a disaster.
5. Do not call 911 when you get hurt.
I imagine that most of you will quickly spot the straw man fallacy: The Tea Party never claimed to want taxes to be zero. Never. They even used the “backronym” of Taxed Enough Already. Therefore, the “but taxes pay for good things” argument is meaningless. It proves nothing. It was just an extended-play, petty vehicle to demonize one’s ideological opponents.
And you’ll probably realize that just because we need taxes for some things — and the Tea Partiers agree that some taxes are necessary — it doesn’t mean:
Side note: The commenters on the Facebook page included the typical “tea bagger” pejorative. It occurred to me that the anti-Tea Party people must be real homophobes. After all, why would they consider it to be such an effective insult to refer to Tea Partiers by a term describing a gay sex act?
Reading How Obama’s plan to raise the minimum wage will hurt young black men reminded me of how counterproductive so many Liberal policies are for blacks.
The abortion rate is three times higher for blacks than whites, and Liberal dreams of taxpayer-funded abortions will deliberately take that higher. Yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart? Planned Parenthood kills more blacks in a week than the evil KKK did since their inception (and ironically enough, the KKK is pro-life).
They support teacher’s unions without fail and oppose charter schools, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?
They assume that poor blacks will always be poor and set up the welfare to perpetuate that, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?
Now here’s part of the post about how minimum wage increases hurt young black men. I encourage you to read it all.
Moderate economist Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University lists the policies that are accepted by virtually all economists.
Here’s Greg’s list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:
- A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
- Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
- Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
- Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
- The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
- The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
- Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
- If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
- The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
- Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
- A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
- A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
- The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
- Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)
They are remarkably waterproof. Game the rules all you like and they will find ways around them, or just move their capital to an environment that isn’t so hostile to it. Politicians endlessly create and exploit loopholes but arrogantly assume that no one else is as clever as they are and will do the same.
Driven by a combination of bad planning, a lack of understanding of basic economics and plain old coveting*, California is now doomed to fail.
See Californians flee to red states at Haemet.
In the five-year period from 2005 to 2009, 870,000 people left California. Most of them went to red states, like Arizona and Texas, wherein jobs are more plentiful, taxes are lower, and housing prices are lower.
Problematically for California, the type of people who leave a failing state are the ones that a state most needs. The educated, the wealthy, and the ambitious are the ones who will pack up and move, taking their human capital, their assets, and their earning capacity to other states. Most of the people who stay are the ones who need the strong and able to carry them. California is on its way to a death spiral, wherein everything it will need to do will only exacerbate its problems.
This why we need simplified tax structures. Yes, some will take advantage of them, but they always will. Having a tax code multiple times the size of the Bible is doomed to fail. It just increases bureaucracy and wastes money. We also need to get rid of public-sector unions and radically cut back the welfare state.
* Remember that one? It made the top 10 list.
See Governor Christie is actively courting Illinois businesses to move to New Jersey (and he is not the only Governor to take advantage of Pat Quinn’s chronic stupidity) – Ah, the free market at work! That pesky law of unintended consequences will get you every time. Make your state difficult to do business with and people and companies will leave.
This works on the national level as well. If you raise taxes and raise barriers to effective commerce, capital funds will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them. And that lowers tax bases that further erode employment, and the spiral continues.
These are basic economic principles that a 7th grade Junior Achievement student can grasp yet these highly paid politicians cannot. Like horrible chess players, they can’t think one simple move ahead. And more and more people will suffer for their ignorance.
This is a must read for anyone following the super-rich who portray themselves as selfless do-gooders who want to be taxed more: Hey, Warren, put all your money where your mouth is « Hot Air.
First, let’s state the obvious: These folks have been free to send in extra money to the government. No one is stopping them. Did they take advantage of that? Apparently not.
Did you notice how they didn’t propose this novel idea when they were “just” millionaires?
Did you notice how they use all sorts of ways to avoid taxes? I don’t object to that, of course, as long as they play by the rules. What I do object to is them pleading for someone to please, please tax them now!
Did you notice how this might just hurt their competition more than it hurts them?
Do you think they might find ways to avoid these increased taxes?
Don’t let these guys fool you into believing they are being altruistic.
Also see When “I can” Becomes “You Must.” These “altrustic” types who want to take other people’s money to solve a problem have the ability to solve it themselves. Just write those checks, guys!
Government employees who have little, if any, business experience are bound to come up with wasteful ideas. Here’s another one:
Via Obama Announces $33 Billion Hiring Tax Credit for Jobs – ABC News.
Under the president’s proposed tax credit, businesses would receive a $5,000 tax credit for every net new employee that they employ in 2010. The total amount of credit will be capped at $500,000 per firm to ensure that the majority of the benefit goes to small businesses.
This is simple: While a few companies might hire employees they otherwise wouldn’t have due to these incentives, the vast majority of businesses fall into one of two categories:
Leave the $$ with the taxpayers and let them spend it how they like. That will stimulate demand and lead to real hiring. Don’t give it to an inefficient government that will take its cut then waste the rest by giving it to companies that were going to hire people anyway.
Listen to the President talk about why he would raise capital gains tax rates even though cuts by Clinton and Bush both increased revenues.
Amazingly enough, the liberal commentator Charles Gibson knows and tells the truth about what happens when the capital gains tax rate is reduced:
History shows that when you drop the capital gains tax the revenues go up.
But note how Obama ignores the facts and says he wants “fairness,” as if having a higher rate for those evil rich people will make things more “fair,” even though there will be less tax revenues to fund his liberal projects.
As I said in Jobs!!! Part one, here’s a huge part of the problem: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Self-identified liberals and Democrats do badly on questions of basic economics. The video is just more evidence of that, not to mention the failure of putting Utopian ideals above financial facts.
And you wonder why unemployment is so high? It is just like when ideology and feel good finger-pointing unnecessarily cost tens of thousands of jobs with the offshore drilling moratorium.
Eternity Matters 