Opposes more taxes
Phil Dillon
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
AT FIRST BLUSH, John Peterson’s populist ideas on taxes published on Aug. 9 seem quite appealing, especially for folks like me who are retired and living on fixed incomes. Why not add a tax surcharge on the wealthy. After all, “it is our magnificent cultural and economic system which gives them the opportunity to be rich. They should give back.”
The problem with first blushes, though, is that they are much like puppy love, where emotion overwhelms good sense. The first blush says that it’s love. Given time and reflection, the emotions of the moment give way to the truth that it was nothing more than raging hormones.
Must we all pay taxes? Unfortunately, yes. We’re taxed on every hand. The federal government taxes us, the states tax us, municipalities tax us. They tax our income, our purchases and our homes. They tax gasoline, food and clothing. They tax the books we read and things that seem sinful like cigarettes or a glass of Zinfandel.
If we occasionally eat at a restaurant, they tax the meal. Our check stubs reveal that government withholds additional taxes for government programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They even tax us when we die. By the time they’re done with us they’ve taken 50 percent or more of the money we’ve earned by the sweat of our brows.
Will Mr. Peterson’s ideas work? No! They won’t, first of all, because they’re not as fair as he would have us believe. It’s easy to say that income and wealth of others should be surcharged. It’s not Mr. Peterson’s ox that’s going to be gored, nor will it be mine.
I suppose it might not mean much to some these days, but as it was once observed, the eighth commandment expressly prohibits theft (taking something that belongs to someone else and using it for another’s purpose, agenda or pleasure) and the 10th commandment also prohibits coveting our neighbor’s house, his goods or anything that is his or hers.
I don’t know how long Mr. Peterson has been hatching his plan, but I do know that the eighth and 10th commandments have been around a lot longer than his notions of fairness, and came from a far more credible source.
Second, it won’t work because it encourages government at all levels to find ever more creative ways to redistribute our wealth. The last thing we need here is more creative ways for government to mug us. And, lest you think they won’t, I’ll remind you of a California case some years ago.
The state was plagued by drought and the answer to the problem was conservation. The tool used to conserve was an increase in the water use tax. The more water people used, the higher the tax rates went. It worked so well that it created another problem when the rains came. Lower water usage meant shrinking government revenues.
Another creative solution was implemented to solve the problem government had created. A nonuse tax on water was proposed. As Orwellian as it seemed, government bureaucrats were going to tax people for something they weren’t using because they were trying to conserve the resource and reduce the tax load government had imposed on them for using too much of it to begin with.
Mr. Peterson might think it quite clever to give government ideas on how to tax us more. I don’t. Our representatives are clever enough without his help or anyone else’s.
Third, it won’t get the desired result. Here in Emporia our city’s leaders are seeing that truth painfully played out in the current budget processes. The people of this city are tapped out and many who can afford to leave are voting with their feet.
Few people, other than Mr. Peterson, are in any mood to encourage increases in taxes. The recent messages from the public have been “Hold the line.” Hopefully the various entities have gotten the message and taken the pledge.
Fourth, and most important, the power to tax is becoming increasingly the power to control. In 1999, historian Daniel Pipes sent an ominous warning:
“Such immense concentration of citizens’ wealth in the hands of the government carries with it obvious dangers to individual liberty, because the government, by dispensing or withholding its largesse, is able to influence the behavior (and secure the conformity) of a large segment of the population. It is not fortuitous that the foundations of Western liberty were laid when governments controlled but a small fraction of the nation’s assets.”
Prior to the ratification of the 16th Amendment government controlled about seven percent of our gross domestic product and employed about four percent of the total workforce. By 1995, our federal bureaucracy employed nearly 20 million Americans and controlled one-third of gross domestic product. That’s as staggering as it is sobering.
In about a year and a half the page of history will turn and in all likelihood there will be a complete shift of political power in America. I can only imagine how much more of our property and wealth will redistributed when that day dawns.
How could we ever survive without taxes? I suppose we might ask our founding fathers, who funded a revolution without levying taxes. In fact, wasn’t one of the principle reasons we shook off the tyranny of George III the matter of taxation without representation? How did we ever manage to secure our liberty without so much as a hint of an Internal Revenue Service?
If I had my way, unlike Mr. Peterson, I would require him and government leaders at all levels read Laffer curves into the wee hours of the morning, much like sleepless people count sheep.
I’d also require them to read the works of economists like F.A. Hayek, Hernando DeSoto or Thomas Sowell until the ideas sank in.
Maybe if that were to happen they’d see that tax reductions actually produce increased government revenues or that our freedoms shrink as government’s share of what is ours is increases.
Phil Dillon was a candidate for the Emporia City Commission in the most recent election.
admireed (anonymous) says...
Phil, great idea but how can government employees get their yearly raises without more $$$?
August 22, 2007 at 3:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Phil_Dillon (anonymous) says...
One way to get city employees at the rank and file level the raises they deserve is to reduce management head count. In my last corporate assignment with FedEx there was a move toward what were called "self-managed groups." In all cases this was done, one level, sometimes two or three, of management were eliminated. The result was increased productivity, efficiency, and morale. The reasons were obvious once it was done. Productivity increased when barriers to customer service and good performance were pulled down. Morale increased significantly because the rank and file employees at the point of attack became true stakeholders in the value proposition.
Another way was to reduce spending. I'm still not convinced that the golf course is something the city should be burdened with. I've noticed that when some mentioned privatizing the golf course and the airport that the idea was dismissed pretty casually by our city leaders. The golf course is a big ticket item, costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
The RDA is another big cost drag, about $300K per year. The current city formula for funding calls for the city's contribution to increase incrementally over time. The question of what benefit the RDA has actually gotten us still needs to be asked. The current RDA strategy appears to be the same as things have been here for years - bring manufacturing jobs in, give the companies relocating incentives, and everything will be okay. The reality on the ground here is much different.
August 22, 2007 at 5:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )