The Fallacies of the Tax "Cut" Arguments

A couple of thoughts.

A lot of the talk about whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts includes words like "will cost $700 billion over 10 years" and "will increase the deficit by n dollars", and "are not paid for".

All of these lines of thought must be based on a premise that the money is the government's to start with, so rather than a perspective of allowing people to keep more of what they earn, they like to paint this as a "cost" to the government. By that logic, any tax rate less than 100% represents a "cost" to the government, and increases the deficit by the amount that is not being confiscated by the government. This is a very, very dangerous way to view taxes.

It is also true that talking about extending the Bush tax cuts as tax cuts at all, trying to portray the extension of the current rates as "the Obama tax cuts", for instance, is the same as claiming that not raising your taxes to 100% represents a tax 'cut' by the amount of the difference between your current rate and 100%.

Many Democrats do not view the money you earn by working as 'yours'. They view it as theirs, except for the portion they graciously allow you to keep (and they view whatever they allow you to keep as a 'cost' to them), and they believe they should be able to 'adjust' that portion you are allowed to keep at any time, and in any amount according to their perception of 'fairness'.

Our founding fathers would have viewed the current tax scheme as theft of private property - because the sweat of your brow, the money you earn, is YOUR private property, which is protected by the Constitution. But many Democrats do not give the Constitution more than a passing thought, and if they do at all, the thought is along the lines of "Does it matter? Nah, it doesn't."