It looks obvious

I always resist the term “Free” when it was attached to government services. After all, those services aren’t really free - someone is paying for them. It can be either my tax money, or someone else tax money. But the appeal of increasing government services, and the notion that they are given for free, is pretty obvious when looking at this set of data:

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

It is pretty obvious why no seeking re-election politician would want to really change the tax system - this is the best way to appeal to large group of voters. Is it the right thing, morally and economically, to do? that was never an issue that bothered politicians.

This recent survey by Gallup is encouraging:

Sometimes I do agree with our elected leaders. Here, for example, I agree with one of the architect of the disastrous Farm Bill - this Bill is very hard to justify…

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.) acknowledged that the payments are “very hard to explain to our urban colleagues.” But negotiators, under pressure from farm groups, made a token cut of $30 million a year in the current program.

Advocates of the bill stressed that eligibility will be tightened by prohibiting anyone earning more than $500,000 from off-farm sources to participate in the farm programs. Those earning more than $750,000 from farming would also be ineligible for the automatic payments. Currently, only those with more than $2.5 million in income from all sources are ineligible.

We are probably aren’t eligible for the tax refund that intend to be the major act to stimulus the economy. On the one hand this isn’t a bad news to earn more than other, being on a higher level of earning is a great thing - mostly when one want to buy things (and stimulus the economy ). But I have to wander how taking from me and giving to other will stimulus the economy better than let me spend my own hard earn money to begin with?

The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

The Forgotten Man

This story make me angry, really angry:

“Clinton also proposed a fund of as much as $5 billion to help communities suffering from high rates of foreclosures. The moratorium on foreclosures would be at least 90 days and only apply to owner-occupied homes.”

When We bought are house we took a conservative mortgage, based on our current income, and didn’t listen to all those advises to take riskier loans. Obviously I wanted bigger house, or actually a bigger lot, but my ability to pay the mortgage - and to afford other things that are important to us - were a major consideration when we bought are house. This should be the normal process, not the exception. The idea that I, that saved my pennies to afford my house, should pay for those who bought above their means is simply outrageous. The idea that I need to cut on other plans I had for my hard earned money to pay for those who bought houses they couldn’t afford is immoral.

And what is really upsetting is the appearance of morality and generosity of those who suggest this idea.