Column: Proposed business sales tax hits everyone
February 28, 2013 at 6:00 pm in Worthington Daily Globe
ST. PAUL – Gov. Mark Dayton portrays his budget as transparent, free of gimmicks and protecting middle-class Minnesotans. Look closely, however, and his plan is lacking on all counts. Continue Reading
The people get the government they deserve. MN has elected die hard tax and spend bleeding heat liberals to run both chambers of the legislature and to the Governor’s office, so this is the garbage we’ll get. There isn’t a tax or a spending proposal these guys don’t love. When I found out they took both chambers to go with Dayton, the first thing I said, was “Oh man, grab your billfolds boys!”.
Couple this with the disastrous spending spree in DC and you might just as well get ready to work for the government because they are gonna take all your money for taxes anyway…
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Very well thought out rebuttal eastender. You’ve managd to point out the only thing lawdog was wrong about.
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The proposed taxes will send businesses out of state since the states that border MN have lower rates. Cut spending instead. It is what people are wishing would happen in this country.
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Whose job is it to decide what is “fair share”?
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“The IRS for starters”
ummm NO, it very clearly is NOT the IRS’s job to set tax policy, they are to collect what policy makers determine they should collect and we the people are supposed to decide what those policy makers do at the ballot box. That statement couldn’t be more wrong, and in many ways just shows why America is in decline. Politcians are so entrenched there is virtually no meaning to re-election contests anymore. Far too many people have accepted the backwards notion that the government is in charge and that they decide what every aspect of our life should be. The government is supposed to be “by the people, of the people and for the people”, NOT the other way around.
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Eastender, I would agree with your analysis of how the democratic process is supposed to work, but we no longer have a true democratic process and have what many are now referring to as crony democracy. The tax code has been used by politicians to effectively buy votes by enacting thousands of preferential deductions, credits and exemptions. Until recently this process worked by simply giving out preferences to particular constituencies; mortgage interest deductions for home owners, earned income credits for poor people with kids, lower capital gains tax rates for investors etc. . . . . On the other side of the ledger politicians have used spending in much the same way; preferential loans for certain industries, reduced regulation for other industries, increased food stamp eligibility, increased public employee pension/benefits, funding for the arts etc. . . We now have a ledger that is completely out of balance with spending that exceeds revenue by over a trillion dollars even though revenue (tax collections) are higher than at any time in our nation’s history; the Federal Government is collecting more than it ever has but managing to spend even more. Congress has given away so many preferential items in the tax code that almost 50% of the country no longer pays income tax and close to a third of the country receives refunds in excess of their withholding (they make money from the income tax code). The Medicare system provides benefits that exceed by over $250,000 than the average receipient ever paid into the system. With regard to Social Security, it is now estimated that the top 50% of wage earners will not receive out what they paid into the system. In summary, the number of taxpayers is shrinking even though the amount of collections are increasing and, on the other side of the ledger, spending is accelerating at a rate that is outpacing the increase in tax collections.
With each passing election these imbalances increase; less taxpayers, more tax collections and even more expenditures. The result is that we now have elections that are specifically targeting small groups of taxpayers with predictable results. Are you really surprised that candidates who promise to tax only 10% percent of the population and provide increased benefits for the other 90% of the population are winning elections? The problem is that the numbers simply don’t add up and the promises are not sustainable. The Federal Government could impose a 100% income tax on the top 10% of earners and the revenue generated wouldn’t pay for a single budget year. The Federal Government could seize 100% of the assets of the top 10% of wealthy individuals and not eliminate the Federal debt. The fallacy of the arguments is evident from the rhetoric alone which calls for “taxing the rich” and “taxing millionaires” but the tax increases are being imposed on people earning $200,000. My personal belief is that increasing the income tax on the rich has very little impact on the rich, unfortunately that type of system also creates a huge barrier for the middle class from becoming rich because the increased tax rates prevent the accumulation of wealth by the middle class. The dream that somehow the middle class will be raised up by imposes higher and higher tax rates is incredible and the real result is to insure that, absent winning the lottery or that one in a billion invention, those in the middle class will never be allowed to accumulate wealth. Personally, I don’t want a tax system that insures that my family will never be able to realize the dream of accumulating wealth.
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Call it what it is the Socialist Party there is no democratic or farm about it. “We have become a nation of whiners, losers and victims”. We have not become we have been made into, that’s what Socialist do except for the whining they wouldn’t allow that.
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