Maybe I’m just old fashioned, or maybe I’m a bit stiff-necked, but I will never relent in my opposition to tax increases so long as the crowd in Washington is spending money on things that are not appropriate functions of the federal government.
But that’s just one obstacle that has to be overcome. I will also be dogmatic in my fight against higher taxes so long as there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs.
And sometimes, to really get me upset, we have massive waste, fraud, and abuse for programs that are not legitimate functions of the federal government.
Here’s an excerpt from a story in Time magazine, but don’t read it if you have high blood pressure.
The Social Security Administration made $6.5 billion in overpayments to people not entitled to receive them in 2009, including $4 billion under a supplemental income program for the very poor, a government investigator said Tuesday. In all, about 10 percent of the payments made under the agency’s Supplemental Security Income program were improper, said Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr., the Social Security inspector general. …Throughout the federal government, improper payments totaled $125 billion last year, up from $110 billion in 2009, O’Carroll said. In 2009, only two other agencies — the Departments of Health and Human Services, and Labor — had more improper payments than Social Security, he said.
not only NO! but NO MORE TAX INCREASES OR BORROWING before our elected officials get better control!
Why on Earth Should We Consider Tax Increases When Politicians and Bureaucrats Allow Multi-Billion Dollar Losses of Taxpayer Money Because of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse?
Simple answer,
Because most taxes are paid by people who are a minority. So when we go to the polls we vote to take money from the most productive minority. We make sure that the group of people that pays the taxes is small enough to remain a minority, so that we can always outvote them come election time. Now with this money that we from the minority we get to buy:
a) The time, energy and oratory services of politicians who will, of course, serve us by going to great lengths to make us feel good about the redistribution what we are engaging in and thus by morally justifying it in various ways.
b) We get Government goodies, which, though inefficient, are still goodies nonetheless – for which we don’t have to work.
But see things have been getting out of hand lately. The beast we created seems to now finally have grown too big, so we are now at a tipping point. The inefficient spending, waste and abuse has gotten to a level that it just cannot all be be simply financed exclusively by the above minority of most productive people – lest they start going Laffer in significant numbers.
Already, the fact that productive people, subject to all the burdens we have already put on them, have started turning a bit towards indolence has already started a vicious cycle of sub-par economic growth. The more we decline, the more we redistribute at the polls, the more productive people go Laffer, Galt, whatever you want to call it – they are deciding to take it a little easier in any case.
So now our politicians are desperate. They realize that in order to keep this level of spending – which spending is ultimately their source of importance and power as redistributors and central planners – the tax net would have to be cast much wider into the middle and lower class, thus making the above minority of taxed people into a majority. Therefore, our politicians are naturally and desperately gravitating towards revenue collection methods that will hide the new taxes (VAT, indirect taxes on employment etc.) so that they do not have to deal with a majority which finally realizes that, in the end, the inefficient government goodies will have to be financed by the middle class itself, except now with the state acting as the inefficient pimp intermediary. In their efforts they are borrowing heavily from European rhetoric where this movie has already been played many times and the machine of tax concealment, acquiescence to heavy direct taxation, subordination to the lowest common denominator – and decline – is all well oiled.
Except that this is now even worse than the 70’s where the situation was reversible. Now the permanent decline is imminent.
These days, three billion people in the developing world, after decades, if not centuries, of heavy oppression and stagnation are now finally taking advantage of their newly acquired economic freedom. They are a tremendous ascending economic power and have neither the time nor the desire to wait for a mere 0.3 billion Americans to complete their experiment with socialism.
Americans have only two choices: Either
…reestablish all the core American incentives of individualism, self reliance, independence and, of course, resultant productivity which brought America its current prosperity in the first place, and resume growing at a rate comparable to the world average (4-5%) or
…just fade away into economic marginalization being just an average 0.3 billion in a humming world of 6 billion.
The sheer intimidation and despondence the first proposal triggers in most people, tells me that it is too late for America. Her fate of decline has been cast. 2008 was the last fork on the road to serfdom and Americans took it – in spades. A Tea Party garnering 20% voter support represents little more than the expected screams of a society headed for economic marginalization and decline.
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Whenever a politician asks for more taxes, there are at least 3 unspoken premises baked into the cake, First, that government is underfunded. Second, that they are already spending every dollar well. And, third, that it’s the taxpayers fault, ie, that the taxpayer is not paying enough. All three premises are patently absurd on their face, especially the third. Every single politician literally spent months and tens of thousands (or millions) of dollars literally begging the citizens to elect them because they were smart enough to make the tough decisions. For them to get into office and announce that government is underfunded, we are already spending each dollar wisely, so we must raise taxes is an insult to everyone’s intelligence and a failure of leadership and to accept the responsibility they sought. Roger Austin, Gainesville, Florida