The Liberal Lexicon 2: Tax Relief

At every level, Democrats, even a few Republicans, speak proudly of tax cuts and tax relief they supported in some way.  But if you look more closely, most of these initiatives are actually just spending programs.

Take a "targeted" tax cut where you can get a break on your Minnesota Income Tax if you child pays tuition to attend a Minnesota Community College.  Contrast this with a spending program that allows the college to discount their tuition for qualified taxpayers.  Now do the math, to assess the effect on the three checkbooks involved: the State's, the College's, and the Taxpayer's.  The result is exactly the same  either way.  If you have to spend money in a particular way to get a tax break, this is the same as an incentive program.  If you don't engage in that activity, you get nothing.  Instead, you pay for those who do.

"Refundable" tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit are welfare.  Anyone doubt this?  Doing the math on a tax form means nothing.

Another ruse is "property tax relief" that goes not to you, but your city or your school district.  If you live in Minneapolis, you'll never see a dime of it.  And public school finance being so murky, you'll never truly know how much relief you got, if any.  You might even lose money, like when one time programs launch permanent bureaucracies that actually become net tax increases over time.

True tax relief is you keeping your money, to spend or save as you wish.  Accept no substitute!

Comments

[The Big Stink]

The problem, of course, is the government class has won the language wars (with the help of the media). Several generations have learned to think of government - first - as the solution to all of life's problems.

There are two ways to fix this: 1) allow government to become so big as to cause a revolution in the streets, or, 2) decrease the size and scope of government.

If we choose option 2, we must be willing and capable of telling the next generation the measure of their success is determined by their own God-given talents and personal sense of charity.

There's a message you'll never find in the Strib.

[Hiram]

""Refundable" tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit are welfare."

Attaching a label to a policy, particularly when the label carries with it a lot of baggage, adds very little to our understanding. Lots of proposal can be called welfare, and that usually doesn't mean much more than we personally don't like that proposal.

I do agree that it's reasonable to look at tax cuts and credits as a form of spending, as something which costs the government money. That's not a widely held conservative point of view. In any event, we are looking at massive deficits. Any tax relief we see in this session will be basically smoke as seen in mirrors.

[Hiram]

"1) allow government to become so big as to cause a revolution in the streets,"

I find the visual image of the above proposal interesting. Young people thronging the streets holding up signs, "Throw grandma out of the nursing home."

"2) decrease the size and scope of government."

Without new revenues, or for those of you engaged in the language wars, tax increases, that's exactly what we will be doing. Republicans love to talk vaguely of priorities, I am waiting for a very long, and what I suspect will be a very painful list of concrete proposals.

Maybe this is as good a place as any to mention my own personal weariness with a lot of this revolution talk that seems to be going around. In this country, when you lose an election, that means the other side gets to set policy. It certainly doesn't mean that you then have a right to impose your policy by force, metaphorically or otherwise. Looking at the history of revolutions and revolutionary movements with their associated violence and toll in human misery, I just wonder what so many people find in that vision, to be so compelling. Really, isn't it better to have our differences resolved by elections?

[Speed Gibson]

Language doesn't trump money in this argument, not if you truly believe in the individual's God-given right to own property.

[big hands]

"True tax relief is you keeping your money, to spend or save as you wish. Accept no substitute!"

I am glad my parents' generation worked, fought wars and spent to build our infrastructure because there is no way the new generation would do this! Can you imagine people today having to use thier taxes to build roads and schools that didn't exist? If they were like us they would have said "Let the future generation worry about building schools, roads, highways, dams. Let them worry aobut a totalitarian Germany."

We are greedy. We want all our money because we "worked for it". We don't care about a government providing for the entire society. We want ours! How did this generation become so heartless?