Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Comedy

There are times, that I envy the Left. Unconstrained by logic, facts or consistency, they are ardent in their misguided adventures. Some argue that all government spending is good for the economy, except military spending. According to them, if we don't pay for NPR and Planned Parenthood, the entire US economy will collapse into shambles. There seems to be absolutely no awareness of a moral obligation to pay one's debts. Why this is seems to escape me. But that is just one of their advantages.
But the best part has to be how they feel that their messaging is just not quite good enough. Apparently, it's not enough to describe Republicans as being villains who want to starve 6 million old people, kill everyone on Medicare, or who just want to eat the flesh of babies who escape abortion. No, they feel that isn't working well enough, so Matt Singer has come up with a new solution: The Tax Cheat as a villain. From the article:
But of course there's no reason why we can't learn from our mistakes by copying their strategy. And to those ends I'd like to suggest that our new villain is the "Tax Cheat". The name itself tells us a few things. We're not going to say that he's rich, we'll let the voters fill that one in for themselves. Which is great because this lets us play the class card, without offending any of our wealthy allies and donors who happen to have a conscience. But more importantly it says he has tax liability or that he owes something to society. Few people actually enjoy paying their taxes (although most people like what our taxes afford us), but we pay them nonetheless out of obligation to each other and future generations. Most importantly regardless of what we pay, each of us thinks individually that we pay our "fair share." But the Tax Cheat doesn't. He doesn't contribute a dime toward all the things that make our system work. He still uses the parks, schools, and bridges like everyone else, but we the "tax-payers" end up footing the bill.
Emphasis added.
Now, I actually like this one. But there's just one problem, they are viewing it through their ideological prism, and don't see the missteps inherent. First, if you want the rich to pay their "fair share" you have to argue for a tax cut for them. How is it "fair" if we go out for a group gathering and when the bill for the 10 of us comes, one pays almost half, four pick up the rest and five pay nothing? Obviously, to be fair, all should pay, but that apparently isn't the "fair share" that is envisioned. "Fair share" has been beaten into something that no longer represents the common understanding of the word.
But what about all of those people who use our parks, schools, and bridges and don't pay anything? Essentially the 47% of the public that effectively pay no income tax. Or how about using schools and voting for school bond levies without owning property subject to tax, in other words, getting by scot free.
Just further evidence that the Democrats have moved from representing the working man to being the party of government.

2 comments:

Dapandico said...

Is Turbotax Tim Geithner their spokesperson?

Steve said...

Another example of how crooked the tax system is. They reward Democrats who evade taxes while decrying the working man who provides jobs.