Of course tax cuts don't "cost" the government anything because it's not the government's to lose.

I don't understand this. Are not taxes the bill we incur for government services like the national defense, roads, justice, etc.?

The electric company sends me a bill every month for the electricity I use. Are you saying that if I don't send them next month's bill, they shouldn't say they lost the amount of my payment because it's not theirs to lose?

Should I just tell Cinergy not to bill me anymore for electricity and instead just borrow, from someone else, what I owe them?

greg

• Apr 1999: 266
• Apr 2000: 295
• Apr 2001: 331

-- enter tax cuts --

• Apr 2002: 237
• Apr 2003: 231
• Apr 2004: 220
• Apr 2005: 277
• Apr 2006: 315

Finally, back on track where we were five years ago.
Just imagine where we'd be if he hadn't cut taxes.
http://fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html

Of course we're only back on track after having to cover the differences between receipts and expenditures through massive borrowing, such that the national debt is now twice as large as it was when Bush entered office and his administration has amassed more debt that all previous administrations combined.

So much debt, in fact, that interest payments alone now come to over $300 billion dollars a year.

greg

I don't understand this. Are not taxes the bill we incur for government services like the national defense, roads, justice, etc.?

We're overbilled.

In some cases, we're billed for services not rendered. One example is childless property owners whose taxes pay for schools.

Grammar correction: make that "services not ordered." The property tax example is the equivalent of buying a pizza and being billed for a salad that was sent to someone else.

We're overbilled.

I don't understand. The federal government spent $427 billion dollars more on our behalf in 2005 than it collected in taxes from us to pay for them.

If I went to the supermarket and handed the cashier $2 for a $3 carton of milk, and she borrowed the difference from the guy behind me in line, how could I claim I was "overbilled" for the milk?

In some cases, we're billed for services not rendered. One example is childless property owners whose taxes pay for schools.

Perhaps (I just got my property tax bill and I'm coughing up $1200 a year to educate children I don't have, which really presses the need for a reproduction tax, but I digress). But this is a state and local tax issue and I thought we were talking about federal taxes, no?

Unlike John Kerry, I was an opponent of the Iraq "war" from day one. Since military spending is, by far, the greatest part of the federal budget, are you arguing that I shouldn't have to pay my part for the Iraq war (a couple thousand dollars so far) because I'm being "overbilled" for it?

greg

One example is childless property owners whose taxes pay for schools.

I know that as a conscientious soul, Alan, before that ER physician performs any life-saving procedure on you, you will query her as to whether she received any schooling funded by property taxes that included monies from childless property owners.

To do less would be an unethical burden and break faith with all those childless property owners, wouldn't it? You could not in good conscience benefit from something as unfair as that, could you?

Josh wrote:

Of course tax cuts don't "cost" the government anything because it's not the government's to lose.

greg wrote:

I don't understand this. Are not taxes the bill we incur for government services like the national defense, roads, justice, etc.?

Obviously, we're arguing semantics here. To say that tax cuts "cost" the government $70 billion implies somewhat that the government is giving away money that belongs to it in the first place. It's even worse when tax cuts are described as *giving* money to taxpayers. Tax cuts are not a form of spending or a giveaway, they are letting citizens keep more of their earnings.

To say that tax cuts "cost" the government $70 billion implies somewhat that the government is giving away money that belongs to it in the first place.

I don't understand. Are you saying that the money that I pay Cinergy, in return for electricity, doesn't belong to Cinergy in the first place? If Cinergy delivers $100 worth of electricity to me, but I don't pay the bill, doesn't that cost Cinergy $100?

Tax cuts are not a form of spending or a giveaway, they are letting citizens keep more of their earnings.

I agree that if Cinergy allowed me to use their electricity but not pay my bill, that would allow me to keep more of my earnings. But I don't see how that wouldn't constitute a giveaway.

Please explain. If it makes it easier, substitute "Federal Government" for "Cinergy" and "national defense" for "electricity."

greg

Government is doing far more than it is contractually authorized to do. The Constitution doesn't authorize welfare statism, income "redistribution," or government-mandated-and-operated retirement plans - all of which suck up a huge percentage of the budget. That's how I can claim that we're overbilled.

Right, Alan. Greg's metaphor is flawed. If Cinergy decided on their own to provide you $200 worth of electricity, plus landscaping service and broadband internet access and then charged you $400 at the end of the month--even though you only used $100 of electric, never hooked up to their broadband, and would prefer to mow your own lawn--that is like what the federal government does!

It's also like what virtually every private corporation does -- from loss leaders to category-killers.

When I go to the grocery store, I notice a whole lot of items in which I have no interest. Yet the store has to devote real estate, sales training, inventory control, etc. to those items. Sometimes the cost of those items isn't even internalized to those who actually would buy them (i.e. in the case of loss leaders), thus part of the purchase price for the items that I buy goes to subsidize those items -- in which I have no interest.

Government is doing far more than it is contractually authorized to do.

In which case we have a constitutional crisis. Should we start another thread? I'll start off:

Only Congress, per the Constitution, has the power to declare war. Therefore we cannot be at war now, nor have we ever been since WW II. Under which authority, then, can the current president claim "wartime privilege?"

greg

Eric's altered Cinergy analogy only works if you did not agree to the extra services or charges in advance, which (for that reason) I assumed was implied. (I do not mean that you would have to be able to choose the services that you will receive and pay for a la carte -- if they offer a package of services that makes payment for the extra services a condition of receiving the electricity, and you voluntarily agree to it, then you have agreed to the parts, even if you would not have chosen to pay for them individually. People do not pay for government programs that they do not want, however, because it is part of a package of programs and taxes that they agreed to as a whole -- they pay for them because they are required by law to do it.)

Also, the reason for the appearance of confusion over whether the government is "overbilling" and whether the government is entitled to what it has decided to tax is actually a simple one. When conservatives say that the money really belongs to the taxpayers, not the government, it is a philosophical statement. Because the laws are made by the government, the government is, of course, legally entitled to anything that it says it is (as long as it follows its own rules in coming to that conclusion). As a result, it is appropriate in at least some sense for the government or anyone else to call it a loss when the government cuts taxes, giving up something that it would otherwise have been legally entitled to receive. However, some laws are unjust, and taxes for some purposes can be unjust and illegitimate (in that sense), even though they are necessarily legal. The conservative point of view on this is that calling tax cuts a "gift" to taxpayers or a "cost" to the government suggests inappropriately that the government's claim on that money was legitimate in the first place, or more legitimate than that of the taxpayers (which it was, legally, but not as a matter of justice).

(Also, when we call a tax unjust, it is not necessarily the method of taxation that is unjust. Usually, a tax or a part of a tax is unjust because it is not justified by the spending that it exists to support.)