The real problem here is that modern politicians use special interest
tax breaks like a magician uses misdirection. This is the Ted
Kennedy / Bill Clinton / Al Gore / John Kerry principle. You tell
all the "poor" people that they'll pay less taxes, because of your
"targeted" tax breaks for children, education, yadda, yadda, yadda,
while you simultaneously increase the marginal tax rate for everyone
in the country. This has the net effect of increasing tax revenues
and growing the government. I'm sure Ron Paul always votes against
these across-the-board tax increases, but that's why there's always
one "No" vote. Everyone else in Congress, having already placated
their constituents with these "targeted tax cut" goodies, has no
problem voting "Yes". Unfortunately, by then, the press and the
voters have stopped paying attention. And the New Democrats, as
expert magicians, spin the tax increase for "the rich" as being
"fiscally responsible", because we need to "pay for" those targeted
tax breaks.
If we didn't have a totally uninformed electorate and an almost
criminally negligent press, I'd be totally with you on this, Michael.
As recently as JFK's administration, every tax cut really was a tax
cut (his "winning" the debate against Nixon was the same kind of
media-enabled misdirection, but they'd not yet learned how to do that
same trick with taxes). Unfortunately, the reality of the modern
world is different. Sometimes, "targeted tax breaks" are just expert
misdirection by politicians who magically make an overall tax
increase and expansion of the government look like a
fiscally-responsible tax cut.
Rob
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