Dan McLaughlin

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To Home Page Latest Newsletter Column Archives Click to get these columns for your local paper	© 2007 Daniel J. McLaughlin Broccoli and Taxes Did you remember it’s mother’s day? It’s an opportunity to show appreciation for all of the many ways that moms have blessed our lives. They put up with so much grief and gave us love and lots of good advice. Do you remember when she said “Eat your broccoli, it’s good for you”. Of course, she was right. Even if you don’t like broccoli, it is a pretty sure thing that you will benefit from finishing your portion. We know that there are certain nutrients in it that our bodies need for proper growth and development. There was another day to celebrate recently, aside from Mother’s Day. April 30^th was Tax freedom day this year. It is a measure of the overall average tax burden for the country. It offers us an opportunity to reflect on the load we have to carry for so many programs and policies that are harmful, misdirected and ineffective, and how much we have to choke down in taxes. Similar to mom, the IRS says “Pay your taxes, they’re good for you.” For some reason, it doesn’t seem to have quite the same ring of truth to it. While we get the benefits of broccoli in proportion to the amount that we eat, there is a real disconnect between the taxes we pay and the benefits received. Indeed, much of what we pay goes toward the support of regulations, agencies and activities that actually make our lives more difficult and less healthy, our food and other goods more expensive and less satisfying, our businesses less competitive, our jobs less secure, our safety more endangered, our future more precarious. The most difficult issues facing our society today all have their origin in the distortions of the market brought about by hyperactive government. Poverty, health, education, safety and the future for our children are all negatively impacted by government programs and policies. There is a fair amount of poverty in this country, just as there was before the war on poverty, like there is in every country of the world. The well being of the poor in America, however, is significantly higher than that of the vast majority of the world’s population, again, just as it was before the war on poverty. The result of the war on poverty was a huge and costly bureaucracy that ignores the real issues of poverty and the real successes of a free society. Compassion is not a characteristic of government, even under the best conditions. It is, however, a real characteristic of individuals. Governmental pseudo-compassion only takes money from the pockets of people who could make a real difference. Health care is a very contentious and difficult issue in this country. Many people blame it on market failure and insist that the government do more to get it under control. In reality, the market is already up to its armpits in regulation and manipulation by bureaucrats. Billions of dollars in government funding drive up prices, distort the market and prevent it from adjusting to appropriate signals. Artificial restrictions on the supply of drugs, doctors, and services make for shortages and rapidly increasing prices. In education, federal funding enables Education Department officials to dictate the policy for all school districts and all students in the entire country. Centralized policy making and control leads to the predictable breakdown in results that our politicians are blaming on everyone but themselves. The biggest problem with present day administration is that we don’t see the whole burden. When taxes get high enough, people will resist. The true burden of government programs, however, is currently being hidden from our sight, so there is less resistance. Ballooning government debt allows spending beyond what can be collected in taxes. A tidal wave of unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other off-the-books programs is bearing down on us as baby boomers prepare to retire, liabilities that will eventually come from your pocket in a big way. In order to pay the tens of trillions of dollars, taxes will have to increase drastically, government will default on debt, hyperinflation will eat away our wealth, or, more likely, a combination of them, none of which is good. From a certain perspective, you can’t really blame the politicians. They are irresponsible because we let them be. They use our own money to buy our votes. Mom used to say “You get what you pay for”. I guess she was right. You pay for more government and that’s what you get.
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Daniel Mclaughlin Copyright © 2006 [Daniel McLaughlin]. All rights reserved. Revised: 03/18/08

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Broccoli and Taxes

Did you remember it’s mother’s day? It’s an opportunity to show appreciation for all of the many ways that moms have blessed our lives. They put up with so much grief and gave us love and lots of good advice.

Do you remember when she said “Eat your broccoli, it’s good for you”. Of course, she was right. Even if you don’t like broccoli, it is a pretty sure thing that you will benefit from finishing your portion. We know that there are certain nutrients in it that our bodies need for proper growth and development.

There was another day to celebrate recently, aside from Mother’s Day. April 30^th was Tax freedom day this year. It is a measure of the overall average tax burden for the country. It offers us an opportunity to reflect on the load we have to carry for so many programs and policies that are harmful, misdirected and ineffective, and how much we have to choke down in taxes.

Similar to mom, the IRS says “Pay your taxes, they’re good for you.” For some reason, it doesn’t seem to have quite the same ring of truth to it.

While we get the benefits of broccoli in proportion to the amount that we eat, there is a real disconnect between the taxes we pay and the benefits received. Indeed, much of what we pay goes toward the support of regulations, agencies and activities that actually make our lives more difficult and less healthy, our food and other goods more expensive and less satisfying, our businesses less competitive, our jobs less secure, our safety more endangered, our future more precarious.

The most difficult issues facing our society today all have their origin in the distortions of the market brought about by hyperactive government. Poverty, health, education, safety and the future for our children are all negatively impacted by government programs and policies.

There is a fair amount of poverty in this country, just as there was before the war on poverty, like there is in every country of the world. The well being of the poor in America, however, is significantly higher than that of the vast majority of the world’s population, again, just as it was before the war on poverty. The result of the war on poverty was a huge and costly bureaucracy that ignores the real issues of poverty and the real successes of a free society. Compassion is not a characteristic of government, even under the best conditions. It is, however, a real characteristic of individuals. Governmental pseudo-compassion only takes money from the pockets of people who could make a real difference.

Health care is a very contentious and difficult issue in this country. Many people blame it on market failure and insist that the government do more to get it under control. In reality, the market is already up to its armpits in regulation and manipulation by bureaucrats. Billions of dollars in government funding drive up prices, distort the market and prevent it from adjusting to appropriate signals. Artificial restrictions on the supply of drugs, doctors, and services make for shortages and rapidly increasing prices.

In education, federal funding enables Education Department officials to dictate the policy for all school districts and all students in the entire country. Centralized policy making and control leads to the predictable breakdown in results that our politicians are blaming on everyone but themselves.

The biggest problem with present day administration is that we don’t see the whole burden. When taxes get high enough, people will resist. The true burden of government programs, however, is currently being hidden from our sight, so there is less resistance. Ballooning government debt allows spending beyond what can be collected in taxes. A tidal wave of unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other off-the-books programs is bearing down on us as baby boomers prepare to retire, liabilities that will eventually come from your pocket in a big way. In order to pay the tens of trillions of dollars, taxes will have to increase drastically, government will default on debt, hyperinflation will eat away our wealth, or, more likely, a combination of them, none of which is good.

From a certain perspective, you can’t really blame the politicians. They are irresponsible because we let them be. They use our own money to buy our votes. Mom used to say “You get what you pay for”. I guess she was right. You pay for more government and that’s what you get.

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