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Public services aren't free; we have to be prepared to pay
In this interminably long election season, the topic of taxes has been frequently raised, and you can bet it will be brought up many times between now and Election Day. Politicians think it’s an easy way to endear themselves to voters, and they can’t pass up the opportunity. Notice with the exception of Walter Mondale in 1984, they never campaign to raise taxes, only to lower them. After all, we all hate taxes and want them lowered, right?
Well, maybe not. While most taxes are enacted by legislators, a few are subject to referendum. Local option taxes in Iowa are approved by the electorate, almost always when the uses of the tax are clearly defined.
If people hate taxes so much, why do they vote to impose or increase them? The answer is clear: They approve of the uses of the tax revenues.
But this doesn’t happen at the national level. Raising or lowering the federal personal income tax is done by Congress and the president, not the voters. Of course, with a population of more than 300 million people, there is no way we could have a national vote on taxes, so we have little recourse. This has some strong disadvantages as well as advantages. Few if any dollars raised by Uncle Sam are earmarked for particular purposes. Instead, the money pretty much goes into the general fund and is then allocated by legislators to various purposes. The result is while we see the immediate cost of government programs in our pay stubs as taxes are withheld every week or month, the benefits are many times delayed or distant. It’s hard to connect costs with benefits and decisions are difficult to make. After all, who doesn’t occasionally feel as if their tax dollars were going down a rat hole?
Yet, at the same time, we seem to be asking government to provide more, not less, public services. We wanted protection from terrorists and government responded by creating the Department of Homeland Security. In 2008, it will spend more than $42 billion. And recall, this department didn’t exist eight years ago.
In 2003, Bush’s invasion of Iraq was endorsed by most Americans. We’re now over $500 billion spent and climbing almost $350 million per day with no end in sight.
Closer to home, we want a clean environment, less dependence on foreign oil, a safe workplace, quality education systems and a multitude of other programs. Regardless of what we say, it seems every time we have a problem, we ask government to solve it.
Americans want these services but they aren’t free. They’re paid for with taxes. Economists have long understood there is no such thing as a free lunch, and the electorate should know this too. I know taxes are not popular, but neither is paying for the pizza you get on Friday night.
I’d love to get free pizza, and I’d love to get public services without paying for them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If I want something, I have to pay for it.
So what about the services government provides I don’t want? Presumably, someone wants it or it wouldn’t be provided. Who’s to say that person’s tax dollars can’t be spent on their project? I think we should have a space program but there are those who disagree. Others may think it’s important to build recreational facilities for water lovers. I wouldn’t use them — I can’t even swim! So who’s right? Well, both and neither.
That’s why government policy is frequently a compromise among competing wants. You approve money for space research and I’ll approve it for water. Seems reasonable to me.
If we want public services — and it is obvious that whatever our rhetoric, we want a lot of them — we have to pay for them. The professors, pundits and politicians who pander to us by promising to cut taxes without paring programs know this. Yet, they continue to play their scratched record trying to convince us taxes are somehow bad. They should discard the emotional agitation and present reasonable and cogent arguments for tax cuts and program elimination. Instead of appealing to our worst attributes, why can’t they be honest, inspire us and enlighten us? I would guess it would lead to more thoughtful — and civil — discourse.
And perhaps, better government.
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Public services aren't free; we have to be prepared to payPublic services aren't free; we have to be prepared to pay
MAC wrote on May 6, 2008 8:21 AM:
Perhaps you would like to extinguish your OWN house fire or pry yourself out of a car wreck to save a couple of bucks on your property taxes. Me? I'd just as soon pay up, thank you. "
Wolves-Lower wrote on May 6, 2008 9:45 AM:
My pizza is not free but Chet's is! "
hetfield wrote on May 6, 2008 10:33 AM:
We do? What we vote for are the candidates and or parties who are supposed to make solid responsible decisions on what they spend our money on. It's simple really, the right want less government and more state rights, while the left wants bigger government and more tax increases, meaning they want more of our money. They hide behind all the teary eyed stories of all those in need to get our money.
The prof also states 'Bush's invasion of Iraq.' Popeycock. I believe Ms. Clinton voted for 'her invasion' as well. Barack Hussein Obama couldnt have voted for it yet as he was a simple state representative at the time.(again lack of experience)
You are better than that attack. "
xdfred wrote on May 6, 2008 10:53 AM:
(return of) joe wrote on May 6, 2008 2:19 PM:
Just a few examples of programs that have done better than what we expected from them. Are they costly? Sure, but that isn't what you are parroting from Rush Limbaugh. If you need some other examples, Rush, give me a holler. I've got many more. "
xdfred wrote on May 6, 2008 3:29 PM:
Read the Constitution sometime. See what it says.
"Just a few examples of programs that have done better than what we expected from them. Are they costly? Sure, but that isn't what you are parroting from Rush Limbaugh. If you need some other examples, Rush, give me a holler. I've got many more. " Our education system tanked when it was federalized under LBJ. Social Securty reduced poverty rates? Where did this fiction come from. SS has so many rules discouraging people from bettering themselves, it's disgusting. Yet, you consider that a success. CDC, National Weather Service, and Post Office fall within the pervue of the federel government. Medicare and Medicaid do not. Those services should be handled at the state level, according to the Constitution. The point is that politicians take from the acheivers in our society, throw folks a few crumbs with a lot of restrictions to enslave them, and you call that a success. Believe it or not, there was a time when government handouts were shunned. It was a matter of pride. Where has that pride gone?
"
hetfield wrote on May 6, 2008 3:43 PM:
jcbr wrote on May 7, 2008 2:38 AM:
(return of) joe wrote on May 7, 2008 10:04 AM:
xdfred wrote on May 7, 2008 11:50 AM:
Air America a little garbled today? The very people who enslave others with government handouts, encourage and fund the ACLU to fight against Christmas displays, don't stand up for 2nd amendment rights. Who wrote the Jim Crowe laws? What suspension are you refering too? Oh, fiction. I get it. Gee, someone declared SS a huge success. Well when liberals rob Peter to pay Paul, they can always count on Paul. Medicare and Medicaid are unConstitutional. Reading AND comprehension. UnConstitutional is what I said. BTW, if SS is such an great, yet unConstitutional, success, why do people whine about how much they get every year? ANd why is it forecast to go bankrupt. Keep cheering. And what makes you say I'm a REpublican? I'm not. Too many liberals there, too. "
(return of) joe wrote on May 7, 2008 1:01 PM:
hetfield wrote on May 7, 2008 3:40 PM:
Dont make blanket statements about these detainees during war time. I certainly dont support releasing these dangerous people back into the folds of Al Qaeda. "
hetfield wrote on May 7, 2008 4:05 PM:
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-07-guantanamo-attack_N.htm
Now what do you say Joe?? And this is in 2008 not your 2006 link above. "
conservativeme wrote on May 7, 2008 4:28 PM:
"The very people who have fought every civil rights measure since day one,"
The Republican party was the FIRST group to support and fight for the rights of blacks and women while the Dems fought this every inch to the point where at one years Republican convention in the south, a group of black and white representatives were killed during a raid on the event. "
xdfred wrote on May 8, 2008 9:56 AM:
" First, show me where Medicare and Medicaid have been ruled unconstitutional? Never said they were ruled as such. But, they should be, since the Constitution does not explicitly state that as a federal function. Second, here's the suspension that you didn't know about. You talk about freedom, and you didn't even know that the most fundamental freedom that we have (the right to not be detained without charges) has been suspended? I didn't lose anything. Enemy combatants did. The US Constitution does not apply to the whole world. Just to People of the United States. Once you have taken up arms against the United States, guess what you are no longer considered a person of the United States. Democrats: pro terrorist, pro criminal. "
andy1 wrote on May 8, 2008 1:50 PM:
Our elected representatives are supposed to do the same thing. That is how this representative republic is supposed to work.
I don't deny that we need to have taxes. The thing I would disagree on is the fundamental purpose of government and taxes. The government's job isn't to give us life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are fundamental rights that come directly from God, not responsibilities of the government. The government's job is to provide the safety (military) and infrastructure (roads) to allow us to pursue those rights if we desire. No matter how nice it would be for the government to equally distribute the wealth of this country to everyone in the world that's not role of government.
I think the solution to this would be to look at the constitution and if a specific government program isn't mentioned in the constitution then funding be immediately cut. Those things can be started back up if there is a good enough argument made to amend the constitution, but until that happens federal dollars should not be going to it. We would then be able to cut taxes and have all the things that are needed according to the constitution. "
hetfield wrote on May 8, 2008 4:10 PM:
Alot of these libs feel Barack Hussein Obama and his wave of change will help. It will have just the opposite effect, as he is a liberal extremist. "
MAC wrote on May 9, 2008 6:44 AM:
xdfred wrote on May 9, 2008 12:33 PM:
Feel free to puke in the nearest bucket. I doubt what everyone writes here because it is so easy to B.S. on these boards. It's amazing how many liberal war heroes keep popping up out of the woodwork around here. I don't care what you or anyone else has as a claim to faim. Not the point. My point is that Democrats, now pay attention, write the laws that A) Disarm the law abiding. B) Release hardcore criminals sooner or make it really really hard to incarcerate them in the first place, and C) want to give Constitutional protection to enemy combatants. Why? That's easy. My opinion is to make lawyers wealthy. If our prisons have revolving doors, in theory lawyers have more work proceesing the same people over and over again. Look at recedivism rates? Very high. "
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xdfred wrote on May 5, 2008 12:41 PM:
Constitutions are supposed to limit what governments do, but the greed people exhibit allow government, especially the feds, to rob us blind to pay for items outside the Constitution. No one asked for a department of homeland security. No one asked for a fedral SS program. No one asked for a bridge in Alaska to nowhere.
The department of defence would have done just fine to defend the nation against terrorism. Instead, we get another bureaucracy.
Professor, why is it every Federal program designed to solve a problem never solves the problem it was designed to solve? In most cases, conditions actually get worse. Education is a prime example. That's what's wrong with governement solutions to all problems. No accountability. "