Other People's Money

Recently dominating the news has been much discussion in regard to the expiring “Bush” tax cuts. The President has been espousing populist rhetoric about extending the cuts but only to those that make less than $200,000 dollars a year individually or $250,000 for couples. The administration’s stance relies on typical statist tripe in regard to the “costs” of these tax cuts and pontification on the worthiness of the earners in regard to keeping their own money. Of course, being statist, the administration apparently views these earnings as the governments first.

This view is dangerous and is tyranny as it represents a desire to divide the people of this country and demonstrates a gross misunderstanding in regard to the way that our economy works. On the costs of the tax cuts, these costs are simply estimations made on current data what ifs. These estimations are entirely fictional because they rely on assumptions that current conditions would be the same based on higher tax rates for some. This is simply impossible to prove. Second, by ignoring the fictional costs of retaining the tax cuts on the lower brackets their argument omits important information. Last, the 700 billion dollar over ten years figure provided does not carry any seriousness from an administration that spent more than that last year in a single act, the failed stimulus.

Most disappointing is the tenacity in which the President and his administration have taken to attacking a significant portion of the United States population. It is disgusting for the President of the United States of America to accuse decent Americans of being greedy and to tell them that they can afford it without seeking their opinion to cheering from crowds. This act is simply political in nature and is utilized in order to distract the populace from unpopular policies and actions. Because the higher income brackets represent a tiny minority of citizens the President does not believe that their votes matter and cynically believes that the rest of Americans will approve and encourage the demonizing of and taking from “them”.

If the action to only extend rates for some and not all tax brackets is carried out, it is tyrannical because the difference in tax rates will grow ever larger and will represent the will of an overwhelming majority confiscating the incomes of a small minority of citizens. By virtue of our current tax system and common sense, those with higher incomes pay more taxes and at a higher rate. Even if there was a flat tax, those with higher incomes would pay more taxes.

How it was somehow determined to be fair to pine for the incomes of others for ever increasing government “services” is discouraging and was inevitable, resulting from vote hungry politicians promising citizens spending that is neither warranted nor reasonable from a budgetary standpoint. The biggest problem with the tax cuts was that there was not a cut to government to balance any theoretical loss of government “revenue”. Political theatre pitting us against each other is a ridiculous distraction from the real issue and that is a government too big to sustain and too burdensome to understand.