reach out and screw someone
Topics: Democracy
29 Oct 1990
From:
The new budget compromise epitomizes much of what is wrong
with American government. Each voter's point of view is just big
enough to see what is good for him in the short run but not big
enough to see what is good fom him in the long run. The practical
effect of this is that everyone plays beggar thy neighbor.
I, the average voter, want a subsidy and and I know if my
congressman votes for it. I don't know how many other subsidies he voted
for that will ultimately hurt me more (via higher taxes and a less efficient
economy). I know whether or not my congressman raised my taxes. I
want him to raise someone else's instead, never mind if ultimately
we all pay more and have to put with an inefficient system too.
Tobacco tax: A classic case of beggar thy neighbor. The
non-smoking majority says to the smoking minority: screw you, you
are paying for our deficit. We're the majority and we want you
to pay. That's demoncracy in action, tyranny of the majority.
Oh by the way, lest we forget, it's good for you that we are
screwing you, hope you appreciate it.
Liquor tax: same way. In this case a majority drinks,
but the majority perceives drinkers as a minority. Not only
do these taxes screw tax payers, they screw produces. If you are
a small brewery, e.g. Spoetzel (Shiner), selling a relatively cheap
product, this tax hits your disproportionally hard compared to other
brewers, it certainly hits you disproporitionally hard compared to
manufactureres of other products. The taxpayers have decided that
your business will be hurt because your product is consumed by
a minority of the population.
Fur tax, boat tax, car tax, plane tax, etc: I've been
saving for ten years to buy a boat, bad news. I have to pay more
because I'm in the small minority of people who buy boats. That's
totally capricious. Boat manufacturers have been screwed. Jewelry
doesn't seem to be taxed in the new bill (I'm not sure though). Maybe
jewelers lobbied for the boat tax so that rich people would be
encouraged to buy jewelery instead. Capricous laws are bad things.
Congress attempting to micro-manage people's habits is not only
philosophically repugnant but economically destructive. I as a
small businessman am now discouraged from making new ventures because
as soon as I am successful congress will see a new revenue source and
tax my product disproportionally and therefore punish me for my success.
If I have no promise of a rational tax code, I'm going to avoid risk.
Higher income tax brackets: While I'm in favor of a progressive
tax, I'm not in favor of this one. There is no foundation to it. There
is no reason that says, for instance, taxes should be (income-$20000)/$1000
percent. Instead, the logic says the rich are a minority, let's screw
them. Okay, *maybe* they deserved to be screwed, but why? not just because
they are there. As Buckley said tonight on McNeil/Lehr: why should someone
that works hard and drives their taxi 70 hours/week instead of 40 pay
a higher tax rate? Good question.
Each time we go through this cycle of raising taxes, we can
find some minority to foot most of the bill so that it is palatable to
the majority. But what goes around comes around. In the end we will
all be screwed.
The gas tax: Perhaps this is the worst of all because it sets
a new precedent. Historically the gas tax has been used for things
related to travel, mostly new roads. But now, the gas tax is being
used for the general budget. Some guy that drives 100 miles to work
each day pays twice as much for farm subsidies as somebody that drives
50. What kind of sense does that make? None at all, it's totally
capricous. A good example of this is Missouri versus Illinois.
Missouri has a lower gas tax than Illis but it spends it all
on roads. Missouri has much better roads. Once the politicians in
Illinois started tapping the gas tax to pay welfare they took the
most of it. They now have a high gas tax and terrible roads. The
farmer (who uses a lot of gas to run his tractors) in southern Illinois
is paying AFDC for Chicago residents. What sense does that make?
The next step is to bring social security into the system.
Now that gas tax doesn't pay for roads, why should social security
tax pay for social security? When that happens, we will have a
truly regressive tax. As usual for such things, we'll pay more
tax and destroy the social security system at the same time.
For all of these things, I ask: what is the philosophical
basis? Do we tax alcohol to generate the most tax revenue possible?
Do we tax it to lower consumption as much as possible? (both of which
would be bad ideas in any case.) Do we tax
furs because we can demonstrate external costs to the use of
such products? Do we tax gas because gas users are not paying
for the upkeep the roads? The answer to all of these questions is 'no'.
The reaons we tax these things is because a political majority can
screw a political minority. There is no efficiency in that.
There is no justice in that. The problem with democracy is that
It works.
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