This one's definitely going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. I ask you to lay down your predispositions and media-fueled bias concerning taxation and government spending and just take a step back. Put aside what you think you know and keep an open mind, just for a few minutes. Once I make the case, please think about it objectively, then critique honestly.
I don't want to insult anyone, and although I know I'm coming across as condescending, I really just want to shed light on an issue that has been eating away at me for years, but most intensely of late. My assertion is this:
Government tax revenues are not "our money", which we would "keep" if they didn't "take". More important, budget deficits today do NOT equate to borrowing money that "our children will have to pay back".
These are narrow, uninformed and simplistic Republican memes, which are used again and again in political debates to score cheap, stupid points against rational public policies. And unfortunately, a huge segment of the progressive population also seems to buy into them lately, without questioning the fact that they are carrying the right wing's water for them.
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Start with this basic premise: what determines how much you pay in taxes? (1) What the tax rates are, and (2) how much money you make. If your income goes up or down, regardless of the tax rate, your taxes go up or down.
Now, in the short run, assuming you have a steady job at steady pay, your taxes will increase if the government raises the tax rate. But over the longer term, the question is: how will your income change? And in what ways will the government's policies affect your income? At any point in time, and for any particular worker/taxpayer, the answers will depend upon countless factors. But in the aggregate, if government policies have the effect of improving economic conditions, then it's not unreasonable to assume that your increase in income is at least partly due to those policies.
That's a general assumption, and we could define specific examples that would be more or less pertinent: On one extreme, if the government increases the budget for policemen, and you happen to be a policeman, then that expenditure of "your" taxes may be a direct cause of increases in "your" income. At the other end, certainly there are plenty of policies that can lead to higher costs and lower incomes for some workers in the private sector, such as environmental regulations, for example.
But major macro government policies, such as the Stimulus bill, the Wall Street and homeowner bailouts, and spending increases in the Administration's budget outline, cannot easily be directly linked to any one individual worker's job and income prospects. It's far too complicated for that. Yet in a nose-diving economy like we're now experiencing, it's pretty clear that a large chunk of the workforce is at risk of losing their jobs and their income. If the Obama policies succeed in diminishing the negative impacts of the recession/depression, and ultimately in turning around the economy more effectively and quickly as a result of these massive spending influxes, then, guess what? Many millions of workers will have earned much more income than they would otherwise.
So, in that scenario, where all of these spending policies successfully save and create jobs, should those of us who benefit complain about the resulting tax "burden"? To put it simply, which would you prefer: to be out of a job for a year, or to keep your job and pay slightly higher taxes than in the past? Is the government really taking "your" money?
I hope that this simplistic analysis is obvious to most people here, although we seem to have a loud minority who don't grasp how the concept of stimulating, and preserving, economic growth and income is an adequate justification for the eventual tax payments that will be required to offset the resulting near-term deficits.
Taking the topic a step further, we can also shoot down the misguided notion that, by spending all this money now, we are creating an immense financial (tax) burden for "our children," so-called "inter-generational theft". That is pure bullshit.
The taxes that the next generation(s) will pay will be determined by the economic and political climate of the country, and the world, when the time comes. If the U.S. runs up a few trillion more in debt, that does not in any way ensure that future tax rates will have to be higher than today's. Under Reagan, the U.S. ran some of the biggest deficits in its history. The "next generation", during the Clinton years, enjoyed strong prosperity, along with, yes, modestly higher taxes, which ultimately led to a surplus. Again, which would you prefer? Prosperity plus a small tax increase, or malaise and lower taxes?
Above all, we should keep in mind that taxes will be, and should be, paid progressively in proportion to the individual economic benefits that workers and businesspersons achieve in the future environment that results from today's policies. Somebody's going to get rich producing green technology or inventing a holographic mind-control device or whatever. If the government's policies create incentives and opportunities for entrepreneurs to strike it rich, then those winners should have no qualms whatsoever about paying back a small portion of those gains in taxes. You win the prize, you help foot the bill for the party. Those who merely scrape by, or are left behind, will NOT be called to shell out for the future national debt.
So again, when you hear people saying that the Obama spending increases, from stimulus to bailout to budget, are "stealing our money" or our kids' money, or "burdening us" with unsupportable debts, please stop and think: What are you really losing? And if you do end up "paying" some of the bill for all this, shouldn't you be glad that it worked out that way?