Economics And Taxes
Any person who as a child had a little red wagon knows the thrill of riding in it compared to the burden of pulling it fully loaded. Things get complicated when there are more people riding in the wagon than there are pulling it.
The same is true in economics. When there are more people dependent on government than are providing for it a burden is imposed on the providers.
In America we are about there. Under new tax proposals 9% of the population will pay 74% of the taxes while 50% of the population pays no income tax. History reveals this has happened before with dire circumstances.
Pithy comments often communicate great truths. Consider:
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” George Bernard Shaw
“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself by the handle.” Winston Churchill
“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.” Frederic Bastiat French Economist (1801-1850)
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it is free!” P. J. O’Rourke
Further proof that the principle of taking from the rich and giving to the poor is not new. It comes from Voltaire in 1764: “In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.”
Bronze this quote from Thomas Jefferson and put it on the mantel of your mind: “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
This by Benjamin Franklin deserves to be enshrined in our memory hall of fame: “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
Against that backdrop interpret this by James Bovard, Civil Libertarian: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
A collection of quotes without one by Ronald Reagan would be incomplete. “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Economist Milton Friedman confirms this in his quote: “We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidized nonwork.”
Comfort and caution are found in these words by Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
One thing greatly needed in order to preserve our republic form of government and economic free enterprise system is a better informed electorate.
We have in place in America a system that can afford such education. It is the public school system. Educators are objects of my esteem. I appeal to them don’t quibble over what type reporting system to use while failing to educate youth in the virtues that made America not perfect but the greatest nation on earth. Don’t dwell on our imperfections but the principles on which our country was founded and has been enabled to survive.