A Pilgrim’s Digression

Congress Votes to Extend Tax Cuts (washingtonpost.com)

The issue of taxes is probably the single reason I usually vote Republican rather than Democrat. Four tax cuts in as many years, as President Bush has done, is pretty impressive. Whether the latest tax cut, or any of the tax cuts, will survive the need to control the deficit next year remains to be seen. What if John Kerry is elected President?

Kerry has expressed support for the cut passed yesterday, as well as the President’s other tax breaks to the middle class. He says he will keep the middle class cuts in place, while repealing the cuts for people who make over $200,000.00 That Kerry has promised to protect the tax breaks for people like me is probably the one factor that allows me to support him for President. That may seem unduly selfish, even anti-Conservative, since ideally, no one should have to pay more than anyone else just because they earn more. We live in a world of compromises, though, and Kerry is my compromise candidate. I’ll sacrifice some of my values in order to hold the President accountable for mistakes that have been disastrous for the United States.

The interesting thing about the issue of taxes is the language used to speak about the matter. Both sides, Republican and Democrat, use misleading rhetoric to inflame passion on the issue. I’ll start with a Republican comment mentioned in this artiicle:”"Anyone voting ‘no’ is voting for a tax increase for the American people, especially on the middle class,” warned Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.)” How does a decision not to cut taxes mean a vote for a tax increase?

Democrats, on the other hand, speak of tax cuts as if they were a new federal program. “How can we afford them?” They ask, or as the New York Times helpfully puts it, using the same incorrect language, “Democrats had made it clear they would vote to extend the tax cuts, but they tried during the conference committee to attach amendments that would have paid for them with either a surcharge on families with incomes above $1 million or by closing some corporate tax shelters.” The government doesn’t have to “pay” for a tax cut; it just has to decide to do with less money so that ordinary people can keep more of their income. Ultimately, who does a tax cut hurt? It doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t hurt my family. Even my wife’s family, poor as they are, are not hurt by tax cuts; they still get large amounts of money back from the IRS every April. My Mother, who is very poor, is not hurt by tax cuts. My experience has been that the working poor get money back every April, especially if they have kids. I, on the other hand, usually have to pay even more taxes when April rolls around.

As I see it, the only way the government “pays” for a tax cut is by cutting programs which are probably unnecessary anyway.