In a column (12/19/10) devoted to attacking others for “the intentional manipulations of language to obscure truth,” Washington Post columnist and CNN host Kathleen Parker spends most of her time targeting Democrats over the tax cut debate:
Democrats are equally guilty of obfuscation through language distortion. How many times throughout the tax bill debate have you heard some variation of the following? Giving tax breaks to the rich will add to the deficit.
Pardon? How does money in someone’s own pocket add to another’s debt? This sort of logic is possible, of course, only under confiscatory rules of wealth redistribution.
In case that wasn’t clear enough, Parker comes up with an analogy where “Joe” (the federal government) is in debt and pressuring “Mary” (a wealthy person) to loan him some money. Mary knows he’s just going to waste it. Of course, you can turn this analogy around pretty easily–as when Joe loaned several Wall Street giants money because, we were told, they would crumble without Joe’s “loan.” Or you could point out that Joe gave Mary a huge break on the money she owed for the past decade, and now Joe needs Mary to start paying what she used to pay.
Parker’s argument doesn’t make any sense, but her point is clear enough: Taxation is just “wealth redistribution” and Democratic rhetoric “stokes class warfare and demonizes the doers who create jobs for others.” The irony is that she is declaring that anyone who points out an obvious fact–that tax cuts diminish government revenue, which makes the deficit and debt larger than they would otherwise be–is engaged in some kind of dishonest trickery.
………she is declaring that anyone who points out an obvious fact–that tax cuts diminish government revenue, which makes the deficit and debt larger than they would otherwise be–is engaged in some kind of dishonest trickery.
Well said FAIR, well said.
The logic of Parker’s argument is that all taxation is illegitimate. If she and other conservatives had the courage of their convictions, then they would be arguing that all government should be funded on voluntary contributions.
If they don’t believe that, then they believe society does have the right to demand money from individuals as the price of living in civilization–in other words, that people do legitimately owe money to the government. That’s how leaving that money in people’s pockets can add to the debt of society as a whole.
The bottom line on what is wrong with today’s Income tax system is that this “system” is at best erratic and at times psychotic.
Inhabitants and businesses of this country spend billions of dollars a year and then spend billions of hours in attempted tax compliance. This just to figure out what they owe or don’t owe in Income taxes.
The Income Tax code itself is made up of 9,834 sections comprising more than 16,845 pages of arbitrary and contradictory laws and opinions.
This plus an additional two-and-a-half million more pages of Income Tax Regulations, Income Tax Revenue Rulings, Income Tax Letter Rulings, Income Tax Memorandums, Income Tax Publications, plus Tax Court, Appeals Court and Supreme Court Opinions. These are all written in an effort to explain and/or argue about the mind-numbing Income Tax laws.
Most personal, financial and business decisions all have to take into account this Income Tax system and generally require expensive assistance from tax accountants and lawyers who all have different opinions on how to apply the Income Tax legal code.
They themselves do not understand many facets of the Income Tax code, the same way most government officials do not understand it (try calling them up and getting a consistent answer to the exact same tax question â┚¬“ good luck on that).
If you are ever the victim of an Income Tax Audit based on the income and deductions you reported on your personal and/or business Income tax return, it could easily cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars to defend yourself if you hire a tax lawyer or tax accountant to defend you.
The Income Tax laws are written so that you are automatically guilty and you must prove your innocence. Thus you have to â┚¬Ã‹Å“prove your innocence’ against an Income Tax system that is arbitrary, mind numbing and contradicts itself within its own code.
Every single inhabitant of the country is required by law to keep an accounting of their yearly income and deductions (for the Income Tax) and is required by law to maintain ongoing lifetime balance sheet and net worth calculations (for Estate and Gift taxes)
This accounting is subject to government scrutiny and must be proveable.
So the psychosis of this Income Tax system is embedded in every single facet of your life, from the government to the courts to tax lawyers to tax accountants to financial advisers.
Unless something is done to get rid of this â┚¬Ã…“systemâ┚¬Ã‚Â, the current Income Tax scheme is going to continue to wreak financial havoc on the United States economy and its inhabitants.
While I thought Kathleen argument that extending tax cuts to very rich did not affect our country’s growing debt to be on the disingenuous side, nevertheless I applaud her ability as one of the few current writers to use the word “notoriety” properly — contrary to common usage, it does not mean famous in a good way, it means means famous in a bad way.
Tax cut for rich do not work at all