Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Taxes: They're a Good Thing
The Great Lakes IT Report newsletter (archive web site here) reports:
Sometimes you have to raise taxes to attract business. At least that's the opinion of more than 300 Michigan leaders who met Monday in East Lansing and Marquette. The session, sponsored by the moderate think tank Center for Michigan, was held to figure out what replaces the state Single Business Tax, which expires next year - leaving a $2 billion hole in the state budget. The theory is that raising taxes will attract and retain development through improved services - public safety, education, infrastructure. This was the conclusion of eight out of 14 breakout groups at the event. Five other groups backed a revenue-neutral approach. One group was split and couldn't decide whether to raise taxes or remain revenue neutral. Not a single group backed further tax cuts. All 14 breakout groups called for a cut in prison spending, and 10 of 14 called for more spending on higher education.What a radical notion: Government spending is good for business, because government provides essential infrastructure and services. For that matter, it's a radical notion these days that infrastructure and public services are important enough to spend money to keep them functioning. Take that, Grover Norquist.
The TABOR bills all were shot down this year; many didn't even make it onto the ballot, and those that did were all defeated. The American public is at long last realizing who's screwing them, and why.
Imperial China and the Salt Tax is a classic.
While you're spending my money, why don't you get a clue?
Conservatives aren't against building infrastructure or providing public services; they just know that government is incredibly inefficient at running anything, which is always the case when a politician is spending someone else's money.
Privatizing public services makes them more expensive and degrades the end services. Just ask the power customers in California, or the pensioners in Great Britain or Chile.
Liberals, by contrast, rescued this country from a depression created by those oh so efficient corporations, simultaneously beat a Germany and a Japan run by "conservatives," ended racial segregation against the resistance of southern conservatives, rescued the country from economic failure and massive deficits in the 1990s, and all-in-all showed that government worked very well-- as long as "conservatives" weren't in charge.
It will be a joy to watch the self-destruction of the crackpot cult that calls itself "conservative" while shaming any real conservative by their dishonesty, failures and extremism.
So be sure to assert your freedom by smoking and not wearing a seatbelt, Anonymous.
<< Home
More blogs about politics.