As we find ourselves deep in the tax season of 2011 (which is for the tax year 2010 of course) I find some very interesting activities going on with the latest wave of change being driven by the conservative mandate of the 2010 election. Certainly the word of the year for 2011 has already been established as “CUT”. Very unpopular word, but with a debt “Boogie Man” beating at our door preached as the equivalent of a financial Osama Bin Ladin driven home every morning and evening how does one avoid joining a mob mentality?
The individual finds themselves confronted with the question of joining a mob hell bent on righting a spending wrong. Who is the Boogie Man “Wrong”? Is there more than one Boogie Man? If there is more than one then how do we deal with the Boogie Men? What if there is a Boogie Woman or Boogie Women in the mix? When it comes to taxes is there a thread of economic genetics in that Boogie Person?
As clear as it might seem The Sage seeks to understand what The Sage would call the trinity of modern day conservative ideology. Limited government, moral values and a strong defense. There is beauty in simplicity. There is nothing like a trinity to make your life simple and then vague enough for the wiggle room should you need to justify about anything you need. Maybe the one God was a little too simple for some in the old days so we had to add a couple. But three is a lot simpler than say 9 or 12. After all the founding fathers were brilliant in their ability to capture simplicity. As the modern day message pounds the constitution like biblical scripture into our heads to what end is it leading us? The Sage says this after many sessions spent listening to the media exposing the poles of the magnet on the debate on NPR.
The debate about the tax payers funding NPR inspires the Red Neck Sage to reflect on taxes in general. The US tax system is truly a remarkable and astronomically complex social structure. It is a social structure that is most selective in the social groups it rewards. To the untrained conservative eye the US tax system is an instrument of “Big Government” to “Tax and Spend” on the undeserving population whose hard work earns them money that they should have the choice of where it is spent. To the trained eye the US tax system is a vastly complex set of rules to award money through tax breaks to those with influence within the country’s financial complex.
Continuing with NPR as an example. The primary argument for cutting all funding for NPR is that tax payers cannot afford it. It is not about how much per year per person. It is about what the government should be involved in and what it shouldn’t. If NPR is a viable media organization then it will survive on its own and to subsidize the organization with tax payer dollars is against the will of the people as expressed by our elected officials. Given the size of the NPR budget I find it unfortunate that we go looking around for less than crumbs for a symbolic gesture. When the difference between conservative and liberal in the media becomes that which is expressed by Fox News and NPR then maybe we need to rethink our American genetics. Ah, but it is about choice is it. Socialism is about not having a choice.
The trouble with taxes is that it is a social issue and unfortunately US tax policy is complex and intricately woven into the fabric of our economy. If our educational system is failing in one crucial area it is in the area of economics. The education of our young in economics at an early age is a topic for another day, but on the issue of public funding for NPR and how that relates to taxes the Red Neck Sage will put forward the following.
Without a flat tax system where all entities are equally withheld from and money from the government is then openly redistributed to strategic areas, then there is no argument for tax payer money being misused by any specific group whether it be a public union or any other private group. NPR is actually on the forefront as it is transparently funded via a direct subsidy. Without a flat tax baseline any manipulation of taxes to reward either individuals or industry is a manipulation of tax dollars to a specific group. The Sage submits that the philosophical argument that taxpayer dollars should not be involuntarily taken to fund entities is fundamentally flawed simply because there is no tax baseline. Without a baseline there is no means to measure whether tax payer dollars are being wasted as there is no comparison against other subsidies granted through tax loopholes.
We are ever so worried about our economy and we should be. In the late 8Os, with the help of Bill Bradley, the great tax reformer Ronald Regan raised taxes on my rental property by 100% in one year. The great tax cutter raised my taxes and effectively put me under water as my rental payments were based on the tax deduction. It was selective and no one could see it, but I did of course because it put my property under water with no power to raise my rent to compensate. The government has immense power to impact the economy with tax policy without the general population having any idea of how the system really works. “Joe The Plumber – Share The Wealth Fear”s only mislead you toward some fantasy land where the proper incentives lead Americans to their dream. I will say one thing for Joe The Plumber. Joe made a lot more money from political rhetoric that he spewed than he did as a plumber and maybe now he’s started his plumbing business with his proceeds. It wasn’t taxes that were keeping Joe out of the plumbing business it was capital.
Transparency. What does that mean? If there is a grass roots movement that calls itself the Tea Party then it should call for transparency as the highest of principles and it should separate morals from economics. Where is the call to address corruption? Why does every issue have a liberal versus conservative label attached to it. This polarization in itself has the smell of corruption as the issues are broad and emotional with no specifics. While we scrutinize the tiny budget of NPR we gloss over the “No Fly Zone” campaign against Libya as currently within the Pentagon budget. We have billions in inventory to deploy so that we can guard our global strategic interests in the name of humanitarian relief over an oil field. Gadaffi is no doubt a classic dictator and he would indeed slaughter any he thought in opposition to him. We have the hardware and expertise to make that quite difficult for him to achieve. We have chosen to do that with only the slightest of debate.
Which gets me back to taxes. The inventory of assets expended against Libya will be replenished and the notion that it is not costing US tax payers is like saying that burning fuel oil out of your tank that you’ve already paid for is not costing you money. You are going to fill that tank back up when it gets cold and you can bet that the Pentagon is going to refresh inventories and these assets were not planned to deploy so any claim that it is not costing tax payer dollars is left for the foolish to believe. How many of those that are out there is not known. But to use the statement “can’t afford” for NPR in one year and authorize billions over days to weeks requires at least some perspective one might think.
The philosophical foundation of how we should spend our money as a society in order to protect and “better” our society the Sage believes should first and foremost be reflected in as simple a tax code as possible. It is truly unfortunate that we have this so called Tea Party movement that is so angry about the wrong things. The true leadership of the Tea Party certainly has its objectives, but the average Joe or Mary who is angry should be pushing for a flat tax across the board and then they might see the real cockroaches come out of the woodwork. What does it mean to cut taxes if you don’t have a baseline in the first place? Furthermore, this confusion between corporate entities like GE being on the level of individuals is truly for the uninformed. Equating corporate entities as if they are individuals as we recently declared with the Citizens United case on free speech is linked to power and corruption not free speech.
As religious as America is on Sunday it worships Darwin the other 6 days of the week. Survival of the fittest leads to the optimal society and as that is the basis for freedom and liberty. Aside from all of the natural advantages that America has benefited from in its short rise to the world’s leading economy there is an element of gambling that excites us and drives us. If God gave us Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand then the Devil surely gave us Marx. The question is who gave us Darwin?
The Sage’s message about Darwin is – “do your statistics”. The beauty of America is that it still has genuine elements of a big lottery. We even run legitimate lotteries for buying tickets, but that compares nothing to the environment of starting a business that can propel one meteorically to billionaire status before age 30. As we chase the lottery with our hopes that we will find ourselves one day with the winning ticket we lose sight of where we are going and we do hope that our religious institutions will keep us on track. Isn’t it that our moral convictions will keep us on the straight and narrow path?
Taxes know no religion and they shouldn’t. A flat tax knows no religion. Or any other interest group for that matter. After all, supply side economics is really an American thing. Haven’t we enough experience with the Laffer Curve over the past 30 years to get an idea of where that leads? The Sage does not believe in tax deductions. These are clandestine reimbursements that artificially complicate our government and our economic life. Why the government overhead of tracking complex tax deductions is not an issue for the Tea Party is a mystery to me given the level of concern about fiscal affairs? The Sage understands the freedom, liberty and government take over stuff, but could we spend some quality time on the tax system too? And while we do can we talk about something other than tax cuts for our buddies?
The Sage is a radical when it comes to taxes. The Sage does not believe in progressive taxation. The Sage believes that in a society where all have the right to vote, the poor should pay taxes at the same rate as the rich. The Sage could go on and on about this, but the real trouble with taxes is that it is a social issue whether we like to admit it or not. Anyone who lives across the street from their neighbor who at tax time discreetly lets them know of what the Sage would call a tax “exploit” needs to look themselves in the mirror.
What is one to do when their local Pool Hall, that they frequent and know the owners, is pocketing significant cash from illegal gambling machines? Report them? What is one to do when their neighbor views the world as their individual struggle against the “Government” to minimize their own individual taxes.?
The trouble with taxes is the tax system itself. It truly is a musical instrument played by the virtuosos of corruption and until it is simplified beyond corruption it will remain the primary foundation of inequity in our society.
Inasmuch as is that it is so broad nearly any policy can be justified under the framework for me especially when these terms appear to be used for purposes inconsistent with the conservative philosophy of the broad terms. To expose the inconsistency of which I speak that I maintain exists requires
I certainly believe there to be one huge difference between the Regan administration years and today and that is that the political electorate has considerable historical data in which to evaluate the core principles of conservative economics and how the application of these principles have played out. The Sage believes that people would be wise to use their head for a little more than a media hat rack for empty sound bytes founded in emotion carefully constructed to garner power within our electorate.
No ordinary citizen should complain about the US tax system without first devoting some attention to understanding exactly how that tax system works. In the day and age of scrutiny of our public educational system one area where it has truly failed us is in educating the masses that our tax system is not this simple withholding from your paycheck where you get pissed off every pay period at the withholding. Our tax system is actually a hideous complex beast with a multi-tier structure of local, state and federal taxes that makes the head swim. The brain cries out for simplification which is just lower my taxes. It gets worse when it gets competitive with who is paying their fair share. Where is one to turn other than to stir up their anger and chase Sirens like the Tea Party as dogs chase cars. No one knows why, but something about those cars lures those dogs needing something to mindlessly chase. Maybe it is the sheer boredom of ignorance looking for an outlet.
When the Sage looks at it for the average Mary or Joe the Sage does get concerned. The Sage sees one disturbing trend with which the supposedly educated population of the US has no problem. Concentration of wealth. One interpretation of the vision of the founding fathers that is somehow tied into a modern Darwinist system of the ultimate freedom and liberty of survival of the fittest that provides the motivation for all to is in the unregulated system that rewards the fittest that win and sends the message to those that lose that they need to work a bit harder.
One may as well associate taxes with any of the classic demons from our icons of governments past be them monarchies, dictatorships or some amalgam. As we struggle in 2011 to truly understand the predicament in which we’ve arrived via our own social decision making system we call a democracy my question is can we escape a mob mentality decision making as our response. Mobs are beautiful creatures that more than resemble a power reset on your desktop computer just before you saved several hours worth of work. The one thing you can say about a mob is that for a defined period of time it has a primary focus and then there is hope its purpose was in support “positive” reform.