Building a mega-state to fight corporate power…
…is like giving yourself AIDS to fight the flu.
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Category: too much government
He’s never met a government monopoly he didn’t love, or a free market service he didn’t distrust or despise…
…but don’t worry, he’s not really a socialist!
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Bernie Sanders is worse than merely wrong about the rich not paying their fair share of taxes.
It’s we, the much-lauded “Ninety-nine Percenters,” who don’t pay enough!
At least, when we figure taxes paid against direct subsidies/services rendered: taxes minus transfers. And, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only the top quintile of income earners — including the much-abhorred One Percenters — pay appreciably more in taxes than they receive in “benefits.”
In a republic, you would expect the masses to pay taxes, receiving only indirect benefits, like a broadly defined “security” and “the rule of law.”
The calculation of who is and is not a net tax-payer or net tax-consumer has to be difficult. I certainly haven’t vetted the studies carefully. But previous accountings also show that the super-rich pay the bulk of income taxes in America.
How to put the system aright?
Don’t tax us more!
Bernie’s preference, to tax a whole lot more as well as to provide more subsidies and “benefits,” will only make a bigger mess.
Unfortunately, doing the right thing (cutting back on the giveaways at all levels) is politically . . . tricky.
But there’s something missing in all this: the indirect hazards of the “benefits” . . . the opportunity costs involved when we get hooked on hand-outs. The most trapped people in America are those who pay the least and take the most. The dollar-value of their received transfer payments measure neither their dependency nor their consequent lack of upward mobility.
How could we figure real harms and helps embedded in the current system, when some “benefits” are, in fact, detriments?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Both Germany and Japan now transfer money, on net, from the young to the old. Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary, The Economist reports, do the same.
The instrument of this transfer? Well, the elephant in the room: those nation’s entitlement programs — their versions of our “Social Security.”
John O. McGinnis, George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, explains how unnatural the direction of the transfer is. Normally, societies “give more to the young than the young can ever repay.” Remember the truism, “the children are our future”? Families, McGinnis explains, “exemplify this principle. Socially too, the intergenerational flow of resources is what creates civilization as each generation receives benefits from the previous one.”
Taking from the young to give to the old, on the other hand, is not just counter-intuitive. It stifles innovation, entrepreneurship, progress itself.
What drives the trend? It is complicated. But the politics behind redistributionist programs is the main culprit:
The elderly vote more than the young, who have more distractions, and politicians are thus all too eager to give them goodies. And while individually the elderly would like to direct more resources to their young relatives, when they act in politics they face a kind of tragedy of the commons. They cannot prevent others from living off the state, so they might as well do themselves.
As my generation, the infamous Baby Boom, retires, the demographics turn Social Security against society’s main purpose: building a future. The culture refocuses on retirement . . . preparing for death.
Another way — on top of growing debt and increasing regulatory burden — we’re leaving our kids with less than we had.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The presidential campaign officially begins in Iowa. The Hawkeye State is also the nation’s corn-growing champion. Each year, Iowans sell 47 percent of that crop to produce ethanol, which accounts for a not-insignificant 8 percent of the state’s gross product.
Ethanol has friends in Washington, too. Congressional wizards have mandated that the gasoline pumped into cars throughout the land be diluted with ethanol — talk about a market guarantee!
At National Review, Jeremy Carl explains that “energy-policy experts of all political stripes can agree . . . mandates and subsidies to promote the use of corn ethanol (a policy first implemented by Jimmy Carter) are wasteful boondoggles that harm our environment and food supply while imposing billions of dollars of hidden costs on consumers. However, most energy-policy experts are not running for president in the Iowa caucuses.”
In 2008, both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain flip-flopped to support the ethanol subsidies they had previously opposed.
But, this year, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul haven’t pandered along.
When Cruz rose to first place in the polls, Gov. Terry Branstad attacked, arguing, “It would be a big mistake for Iowa to support [Cruz]” because “his anti-renewable fuel stand . . . will cost us jobs, and will further reduce farm income . . .”
Yesterday, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Cruz, “Why should [Iowa] voters side with you over the six-term governor of this state?”
“I think there should be no mandates and no subsidies whatsoever,” Cruz replied.
In today’s Iowa caucus, can Cruz overcome the forces of crony corn?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“Local Moralist Doing His Part to End Income Inequality”
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