With the tax deadline rapidly approaching, I thought it a good time to discuss the concept of paying taxes (this column is topical, if nothing else). No one likes paying taxes. This might not seem a profound insight, but it is a sentiment that accounts for the totality of the Republican Party’s economic policy.
For instance, Republicans believe in bad times you cut taxes to spur economic growth. They also believe in good times you cut taxes because the surplus is your money, not the government’s. Republicans also believe in times of peace, you cut taxes because you don’t need the money for war. However, in times of war (refer the Iraq War, costing $2,000 a second), you cut taxes because, well, because you just do.
Cutting taxes is really more of a religious faith in the Grand Old Party than basic economics. Some Republicans even believe when you cut taxes, revenue to the government increases. This concept is called the Laffer Curve (it really ought to be spelled "laugher," but it is named after Arthur Laffer, who must be one heulluva budget keeper in his household). If you are really paying attention, the Laffer Curve falls apart at some point because otherwise you logically would reach maximum revenues without any taxes whatsoever (in Republican terms, this place would be called paradise).
That well-known deity in Republican circles, the late President Ronald Reagan (bow your head), was a great believer in the Laffer Curve, but even he wound up raising taxes to pay for the great defense buildup, which eventually buried the Soviet Union, according to Republican folklore. But the real true believer is the current inhabitant of the White House, George W. Bush. Mr. Bush not only believes you can wage war and cut taxes at the same time, he also believes you can do it all while outspending traditional liberals. With President Bush, the Laffer Curve never stops laughing.
Mr. Bush’s unique brand of economics turned a surplus from the Clinton years into a ballooning deficit. Not even the master of illusion, David Copperfield, could have done a better job of making a healthy economy disappear. Of course, being a Republican, Mr. Bush continues to blast "tax and spend" Democrats because he has a better idea: "Cut taxes and spend."
The Republican Party also is the self-styled Party of Patriots. A Republican politician without a flag pin in his or her lapel is more rare than an Eagles big-play wide receiver. You would think one could make an argument paying taxes is a form of patriotism. After all, tax dollars are what pays the bills for your government — bills for decent roads, good schools and multimillion dollar ballparks where we spend our leisure time. But you would be wrong. The tax man is the domestic equivalent of al-Qaeda in our midst, according to the party once exemplified by Lincoln, but now represented by yet another Bush. The theory is if a rich person has to pay their share of taxes, they will stop creating capital for the rest of us shlubs. However, rich people have always been able to find tax shelters, so their motivation for making wealth never seems to falter.
Now you might understand after running up a huge deficit and insisting on prolonging a war in Iraq that is already longer than World War II and the Civil War, President Bush and Sen. John McCain still favor tax cuts for the wealthy. Those opposed to this policy have been purged from the Republican Party, having been accused of "class warfare." Class warfare sounds so harsh, as if we liberals are bent on riding into Washington and decapitating anyone that looks remotely like King Louis or Marie Antoinette. It’s as if we were planning to bring back the guillotine instead of restoring some balance to the gap between rich and poor.
You might expect middle-class citizens would be up in arms, ready to storm the White House (the modern version of the Bastille). But then again there are those $600 checks in the mail we Average Joes will receive to keep us snoozing while our pockets are robbed. We are so grateful for so little and it doesn’t take much to buy our loyalty, does it?
