"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."
- Voltaire (1694-1778), French author and philosopher
In his Townhall.com column, Neil Cavuto utilizes an elementary approach in discussing tax cuts with guests who favor higher taxes. Using a dollar bill as a prop, he asks, "How much of this dollar do you think the average American worker deserves?"
In a post I wrote last year I discussed how long an average American has to work each year to satisfy all his tax liabilities. I linked to another columnist who estimated it takes over half the year to meet those obligations. That seems to me an overly burdensome thing for our governments to ask of us.
Having said that, I'm not in favor of banning taxes. They're a price we pay for being citizens of this country, and I feel that everyone should pay his fair share. What is a fair share? American salesman Cullen Hightower once said, "There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little--and it's always somebody else." He may be talking about the "rich," those robber-barons in the top 25% of Americans who already pay over 80% of our taxes. Is that a fair share?
"But if we don't raise taxes, how will we pay down the deficits that the irresponsible Bush administration has created?" I hear someone ask. Did you know that Kerry and Edwards both plan to increase spending, making the deficit even worse? The more of our money politicians have, the more they spend.
So how much is enough? Tough question. I'm happy now, but I won't be if the tax cuts aren't made permanent. How about you?
2 comments:
Is Voltaire's quote all there is to tonight's posting??? That is all I see here.
If I'm not mistaken, the legislative and executive branches of our government are supposed to both be fiscally responsible. If one gets out of line, it is up to the other to rein it in. As it has gone recently, both are running like a leaky faucet. When I read that presidential candidates plan on spending more keep in mind that congress has to go along which may or may not happen.
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