Lileks on Taxes

Lileks on Taxes


This one is a chrome-plated doozy of disengenuousness. The drift seems to be that taxes are bad. Never mind that JL:

• Went to public schools in the 1960's, when schools were very much aided by Federal taxes, due to Sputnik. Public schools staffed by many teachers who went to college on the GI BILL, another govt handout.
  
• Lived in North Dakota, a state that receives far more from the Feds in taxes than it supplies. I have never heard JL complain that his home state got an unfair proportion of tax money. JL, can you find the check stubs where NoDaks sent back federal dollars, on principle?
• Went to the U of M, where the state and feds coughed up about twice as much as he paid in tuition to educate his dark soul in the liberal arts.
• Learned the journalism craft at the student paper, subsidized by a student service fee, in effect, a tax. You'd think on principle he would not take a salary there.
  
• Has been employed by newspapers, which probably would not exist if it was not for the first amendment, and subsidized logging and postage subsidies, from, argh, the Feds, skimmed from taxes.
• Lives on the Internet, a development of a large govt beuraucracy, DARPA, you know, the Feds, fully paid for by the very same taxes he now abhors. Private industry tried many times to build large networks, but somehow the lousy govt that should be strangled in a bathtub outdid the invisible hand of the market. How strange.
• Has not said a peep that I've read of about the growing national debt, which could be interpreted as the current generation borrowing, or taxing, our children. Not a peep. So he has no problem accepting tax benefits in the past, complaining about current taxes, plus grabbing them from the future too. He's a fully equal opportunity tax-grabber.
  
• He has roads he can drive on, civil order so he can sleep at night, zoning laws to keep smelly industries out of his wooded Eden, the FAA to keep airplanes from falling onto his mansion, the FCC to keep order on the airwaves for his iPhone and radio shows, school bus safety laws to protect his children, a huge legal framework that provides all kinds of security to property and employment. Oh I forgot the FDA and USDA to partially mollify his germophobia.
  
• And he has the NRC to keep nukes relatively safe and out of his backyard. And an Army, Navy, AirForce, Marines, and Coast Guard to protect him and his.

None of these things come for free, or could be replaced by private industry. But still in the bible according to Lileks, taxes are awful. He wants to have it every which way and still be able to spout off about how unfair it all is.

All that, and he still can complain about the straw man of "higher taxes for the rich". Yes, 33 to 36% is 3% higher, in a purely theoretical and mathematical sense. But many studies show that the rich actually end up paying fewer taxes, like 20% thanks to all the tax lawyers and tax deductions that Congress has put into tax law. The actual rate kinda peaks and then drops off when one's income gets high enough that you start looking for tax shelters. So the rich schlep that makes his money sitting on his butt off family wealth, pays like 15% tax, while the guy that delivers your papers at 5AM pays 30% in the end.

Somehow JL's long screed can go on and on huffing and huffing about taxes as theft, but he never gets around to mentioning any actual tangible facts.

Facts like how in the glory years of Eisenhower, with very high economic growth, personal and corporate taxes were much higher than now, like 50%. And in the Clinton years, 40% taxe, and huge growth. Funny, high taxes and huge growth over and over again. Somehow these facts don't make it into his screed.


Next there's a huffy fit about how charities work so much better than govt handouts. Never mind that most needs are not photogenic enough to build up public support. Free needles for heroin addicts and condoms for hokers are unlikely to get their hats filled up with spare change. Most things that govt tosses money at are not pretty-- single mothers, addicts, appalachian orphans, lepers, AIDS victims. Yes, helping in those areas is inefficient, but that's the nature of the beast. We as a society long ago made a simple social contract-- we give the govt some money, and the govt keeps the streets free of limbless lepers, crying children with eyes covers in flies, and all the painful cries of the downtrodden. Somehow JL has not heard of this social contract or thinks he can unsubscribe at will. I suggest he spend a year touring Mexico, India, Haiti, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. See how swell things are where the rich can keep all their money.