Deficit - why the left has the wrong idea on how to solve it
I really ought to stop watching “The Cost of Freedom” block on Saturdays on Fox News. Granted, watching a bunch of Wall Street types try to intelligently discuss tax policy is amusing, but please.
To wit - the Estate Tax (death tax) is being discussed. One guy is arguing that people shouldn’t be allowed to get a head start because their parents did well. Let’s play the old “class envy” card, shall we? If that’s the case, then we should say the same of political dynasties, shouldn’t we? I mean, should Ted Kennedy really have gotten into the Senate? Absent his inherited wealth and his inherited fame, he really has nothing to recommend him for service, does he? Life is unfair. Get over it.
Another is arguing that government has made promises that it cannot afford to keep. Well, the solution seems obvious, doesn’t it? I’ve gone into debt up to my eyeballs, I think I’ll hold up my customers for a 50% rate increase. Oh, wait - they’ll just go somewhere else. Government has one advantage I don’t — they can legally take your stuff, and threaten to kill you if you don’t give it up. What government needs to do is stop making promises it can’t keep.
And Ben Stein - no liberal he - has advocated for raising taxes on “the rich” to increase military salaries. I have no beef with raising the salaries of military personnel, especially those on active duty. In fact, when a soldier is deployed, his family should not have any need of welfare, food-stamps, or mommy working a job so that she can feed the kids. My problem is the assertion that the government should stick up overtaxed citizens once again to pay it. How about this idea instead: end all government subsidies to private businesses. And for all countries that we trade with that subsidise their industries? Import duties in the amount of their subsidies to level the field.
And this is why liberals piss me off. The answer to everything is “tax the rich”, and never “hey, maybe we ought to stop promising to steal from the sheriff to give to the peasants.”