Monday, August 29, 2011
Revenues or Taxes?
Which word do you think describes the act of the government taking money from you to fund it's operations? Revenues or Taxes?
Of course, taxes is the word. But you wouldn't know it from listening to the current President or his followers. Suddenly revenues is the preferred choice of words.
It has become revenues because it is so innocuous sounding, kind of uplifting. Increasing revenues means the government can help more people. That's a good thing.
Taxes, however, evoke a hard, cruel image of mean-spirited, faceless collectors robbing you of your hard-earned money. Increasing taxes means the government hurts more people. That's a bad thing.
Cognitive dissonance again. The true word is TAXES. Taxes are taken from the working people to generate revenues for the government. Increasing either of these means the government can continue on its merry way doing as it pleases with little regard to whether it is actually doing the right things or even making things better.
Nobody likes to pay more taxes. Everyone is in favor of increased revenues. But what is often overlooked in any of these discussions are the numbers of people actually paying any taxes to generate this increased revenue.
When roughly 50% of the people in the country pay ZERO income taxes, it is so much easier to convince them that revenues need to be increased. After all, those people aren't paying anything at all now so why should they even care. Go ahead and raise my neighbor's taxes, see if I care.
When many of these zero income tax workers are actually getting money back when they file their taxes it isn't hard to realize why they are in favor of government increasing revenues. If government revenues increase, perhaps the no taxes people can actually get even more money back that they didn't pay in the first place.
How long can this situation continue? Not very. I think I can already feel Atlas's shoulders shrugging.
My nickel.
OH
Of course, taxes is the word. But you wouldn't know it from listening to the current President or his followers. Suddenly revenues is the preferred choice of words.
It has become revenues because it is so innocuous sounding, kind of uplifting. Increasing revenues means the government can help more people. That's a good thing.
Taxes, however, evoke a hard, cruel image of mean-spirited, faceless collectors robbing you of your hard-earned money. Increasing taxes means the government hurts more people. That's a bad thing.
Cognitive dissonance again. The true word is TAXES. Taxes are taken from the working people to generate revenues for the government. Increasing either of these means the government can continue on its merry way doing as it pleases with little regard to whether it is actually doing the right things or even making things better.
Nobody likes to pay more taxes. Everyone is in favor of increased revenues. But what is often overlooked in any of these discussions are the numbers of people actually paying any taxes to generate this increased revenue.
When roughly 50% of the people in the country pay ZERO income taxes, it is so much easier to convince them that revenues need to be increased. After all, those people aren't paying anything at all now so why should they even care. Go ahead and raise my neighbor's taxes, see if I care.
When many of these zero income tax workers are actually getting money back when they file their taxes it isn't hard to realize why they are in favor of government increasing revenues. If government revenues increase, perhaps the no taxes people can actually get even more money back that they didn't pay in the first place.
How long can this situation continue? Not very. I think I can already feel Atlas's shoulders shrugging.
My nickel.
OH
# posted by OH @ 11:04 AM 
