by: Brian Johnson September 27, 2010
Here in California we are, like most states, getting bombarded with the usual election season political ads, news stories about the campaigns of local, state, and national races and all of the spin that goes with that territory. In California we probably get more than our share just based on the sheer population and the number of representatives needed to represent constituents.
One of the biggest issues this year is taxes - both on the national and the state level. California is going broke just as quickly as the Federal government, maybe quicker, due to the gargantuan percentage of the budget going to entitlement programs in the state California spends more than $119 billions dollars per year on education, yet the teachers unions refuse to make any concessions, such as a temporary pay freeze. A couple of years ago the teachers union ran adds claiming the the governor had "cut education funding to the bone" even though funding was increased by 3+ percent. The problem as the union saw it was that they were expecting a 5.5% increase, so they saw it as a cut. This is how politicians and unions define a 'cut' in funding: a decrease in the amount of increase.
Right now California is spending $49 billion on welfare, and another $39 billion on state subsidized(welfare) medical care, or $88 billion total. On the other hand, California spends only $25 billion on police and fire protection combined!
This brings me to the point of this article. Every time I see a liberal speak of taxes, especially tax cuts, they speak of how much it is going to cost. The one I really love is when they talk of the rich. In the new Jerry Brown for Governor ad, he speaks of Californians can't afford to 'give' the rich all that money. Both arguments are flawed in their premise.
1. Tax cuts don't need to be funded. They always result in more tax money being taken in by the government within the first couple of years after enactment. The Reagan tax cuts resulted in double the revenue to the federal government in less than 8 years. Deficits increases during that same period due to the fact that Congress increased spending even faster than the increased revenue.
2. "Giving" the rich money with tax cuts assumes that the money belongs to the government. This is the trick of every redistributionist progressive since the beginning of time. The government doesn't create wealth - the private sector and people do. The idea that we are giving money to the rich is class warfare at its worst, to make those at lower income levels believe that the wealthy are taking more than their "fair" share. Aside from creating some kind of jealousy towards the "eevil rich", it has the much more insidious side-effect of giving those at the lower end of the spectrum a sense of hopelessness and that the system is set up to be against them, that they are destined to always be poor, or stuck in their "class".
This is the truly despicable thing about liberalism and statism. It takes away hope. It destroys the souls of those who get sucked into the lies, and removes any hope of improving their place economically, leaving them dependent on a soulless government which is more than happy to accommodate them.
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