no third solution

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Category Archives: Taxation is Theft

Of Greed and Charity

June 25th, 2007

Yet more evidence that greedy Americans aren’t so greedy, afterall; and that compassion and charity needn’t be legislated:

Donors contributed an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006, a 1 percent increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05 billion in 2005…Individuals gave a combined 75.6 percent of the total. With bequests, that rises to 83.4 percent.

That works out to an average of about $1,000 per capita – for every man, woman, and child in the country. Almost all of the money comes from individuals and their estates. This money goes to fund what most people, most of the time, would think of as “good causes.” Some people give far more than $1,000, and of course, some people don’t give anything; these are primarily the very people who constitute a “good cause.”

The argument, afterall, is that people are cold and callous, self-motivated – and that they will not help their fellow man unless they’re forced to do so by the barrel of a gun. The continued existence of private charity disproves the myth of selfishness in one fell swoop.

Anyone who wants to increase taxes – especially the Estate tax – wants to see private charity replaced by government. There is no third solution (LOL). If they do not wish to eliminate private charity, then they suffer a serious misconception with regards to basic metaphysics: every dollar taken by government is a dollar that cannot be given to charity. And every charity that shuts its doors will become the next rallying cry for more government “solutions” you see, because charity will no longer be enough.

Shifting the Burden

June 7th, 2007

It’s ironic that Michigan Governor Granholm will soon be convening on Mackinac Island to try and hammer out the details of whatever god-forsaken plan will replace the State’s archaic SBT, which was eliminated last year – because the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has figured out how to eliminate the budget deficit and replace it with nothing.

Mackinac also notes, with regards to new proposals, that:

[T]hese meager efforts are dwarfed by the centerpiece of the plan: $410 million borrowed from future payouts of Michigan’s lawsuit settlement with the tobacco industry. Because the settlement is effectively a court-ordered tax on cigarette makers, borrowing from its future-year payments (with interest) is comparable to taking out a loan against future income tax payments to pay for current spending.

Like all politics, this is the equivalent of sweeping the dirt under the proverbial rug. Your house appears to be in order to the untrained eye – which is most people who are subject to politicians. Any successful politician succeeds by doing precisely this: shift the burden forwards to consumers, backwards to producers, laterally to competitors – but this is the most vile of them all, because like Social Security, it shifts today’s burden onto the generations of tomorrow, which conveniently haven’t been born yet, and so cannot protest or object.

So much for your “social contract.”

Trick Question of the Day

May 18th, 2007

Which is bigger?

    a) $400 million dollars
    b) 100%
    c) it doesn’t fucking matter when it’s someone else’s money

The State of Michigan underestimated it’s budget deficit, which was supposed to be $400 million, by a whopping $400 million. A fucking-hundred percent. It’s almost inconceivable that anyone, anywhere, ever, could be more wrong, or less accurate in their forecasting.Fortunately, the State Budget Director, Bob Emerson believes that “People are done with [tax] cuts.”

You are a no-talent-ass-clown, Mr. Emerson, nobody has ever been taxed into prosperity. The solution you offer, for gross financial ineptitude, is more financial responsibility? The state has mismanaged the money tribute that it’s extracted from us – about as badly as is humanly possible, and the best solution you can come up with is “people will want to give us more money!”

I just spit a steaming-hot mouthful of Ramen cup-a-soup noodles all over my screen – that is just too funny.

…Someone once said, “When the only tool you have is a hammer, sooner or later, everything begins to look like a nail.”

no third solution

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