In retrospect, I missed an opportunity with this
column. Instead of going into much detail
about the various “someone-else-will-pay” schemes noted, by which I had hoped
to stimulate a discussion about the nature of our tax system and how so much of
it is predicated on the assumption that we are all getting things that are/will
be paid for by someone else – and what an ultimately self-defeating proposition
this really is – I should have just enumerated them and proceeded to pose a
series of related rhetorical questions.
Such questions would have concerned such things as the
morality of expecting others to pay for the things that we (or at least many of
us) want government to provide rather than pay for them ourselves and why is it
moral to catapult over the “fiscal cliff” on the basis of not screwing high
income earners even more that is currently the case (and who, by all objective
measures of which I am aware, are already paying a disproportionate share of
their incomes in taxes). You know, what
is the philosophical justification of taking someone else’s wealth just because
they have it and we (or at least many of us) want it?
I have been saying for a long, long time that government at
all levels does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. And until the spending side of the equation
is addressed, there will never be enough revenue. Government at all levels is going to be so
desperate for money that it is going after whatever dollars come to its
attention – and if that means trafficking in class discord and the politics of
envy, so be it. And it is only because
so many people are economically illiterate that government can get away with
what it does.
A related series of questions for another time would deal
with the way we “budget” on the basis of continuing resolutions rather than
pass real budgets, the overtly fictitious nature of economic growth
projections, the overtly fictitious nature of budget deficit projections, the
overtly fictitious nature of unemployment rate calculations, the overtly
fictitious nature of inflation rate calculations, etc.
Oh well, perhaps next time.
Be that as it may, I tried, unsuccessfully, to find the web
sites of the advocacy groups pushing for the most recent Unified Government’s
SPLOST and CCSD’s E-SPLOST for the purpose of showing their claims that half,
if not more, of the levies will be paid by those who do not live here; I
suppose that those sites no longer exist.
Regarding the Stamp Act, see this:
For some details of the Falcons’ stadium proposal, see this:
For the agenda of the Commission’s December voting session,
see this:
For the Economic Development Strategic Plan Review Committee
Recommendations, see this:
Finally, the Review Committee’s recommendations were
approved by a 9-1 vote, with no discussion whatsoever (see beginning at about
23:40 of the video):
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