Tuesday, May 15, 2007

On taxes

Is there no connection between taxes and what is going on in our country? You notice that when our politicians nowadays talk about withdrawing our troops or adding troops or whatever they always say something to the effect that "it depends upon what is going on on the ground," or some such thing. A sort of practical idea. But when they talk about taxes they say they'll never raise them. How can they be so sure? What if something unusual happens that requires additional revenues, like a Katrina disaster, or an additional war, or whatever? Of course we all know what they say isn't what they will do, but even so, why do they always announce they will not raise taxes (the implication being, no matter what). Remember Daddy Bush, "watch my lips, no new taxes?" Now today Romney said he would never raise taxes. This seems to be just another mindless Republican credo. You have to give John Edwards credit for saying he wants universal health care and he'll pay for it by increasing taxes on the wealthy. What a refreshing statement. Republicans are fond of saying "tax and spend liberals." The obviously favor borrow and spend. Eventually we will have to raise taxes in order to bail out of this enormous debt. It will probably happen during a democratic administration (see the self fulfilling system here). Democrats will have to raise taxes to pay for Republican irresponsibility, they will then be seen as raising taxes, which will result in a new Republican administration. At least thats the way it's supposed to work. I suspect this won't work any longer because the current Republican administration has been so discredited it may not survive at all.

I'm all for taxing the rich. No one needs a hundred million or more a year that they cannot spend no matter how hard they might try. The only conceivable result of having that much money is that they will have much more money the following year, and the year after that, and eventually they will have all the money and the rest of us will return to serfdom (is this not what is happening right now). What ought to happen in the best of all worlds is that we would not only tax the rich, we would also reduce our false "defense" budget by half, and we would have so much money to spend on health care, education, infrastructure, and so on we might actually become the greatest country on earth. Imagine that, the greatest country on earth, instead of just another third world has been.

I guess the Republican ten had another debate tonight. I didn't watch it. I couldn't watch it. I might have had a heart attack as listening to their mindless drivel enrages me. Besides, it's all we're going to hear and read about for the next few days anyway. Unless, of course, there's another high speed chase in L.A. or some blond bimbo gets bumped off, or they manufacture another fake war hero, or O.J. claims to write another book, or whatever. Anything to keep our little minds off the failed "war," or the prosecutor scandal, or the Abramhof scandal, or any of the other countless scandals of this administration. Oh, I forgot, Falwell died. We'll hear a lot about that for a while. Thanks Jerry, it's just what we needed.

Would it not be sensible to acknowledge that there is indeed a relationship between taxes and what a society requires instead of just mindlessly repeating the manta, I WILL NOT RAISE TAXES!

No comments: