What to Do With the North Dakota Tax Surplus
This is a response to a letter to the editor that was published in the Jamestown Sun on 9/23/2008. You can read the letter here. That’s the print version, so hopefully it will stay up for a while.
Let me start by saying that no one is asking for the money to be returned to them. The “Rich taxpayers” pay just as high a rate as anyone else, so I’m not sure where that came from. I paid taxes this last year, does that make me rich? Also, may I assume that you, Janis Schmidt of Warwick, ND, did not pay taxes last year and thus are to be considered poor?
None of the measures on the ballot intend for the money to be returned directly to the taxpayer. A tax reduction is entirely different from a tax refund. A refund would mean a direct return of the funds to the taxpayers. A reduction would be the reduction in the tax liability of all affected taxpayers for the next tax year. We’d pay less taxes. Measure 2 is a flat reduction across the board. All taxpayers would receive the reduction. Where does the “rich taxpayers” part come from? And just for the record, taxes were never intended for welfare or any of the other programs that you detail. Taxes are defined as “A contribution for the support of a government required of persons, groups, or businesses within the domain of that government.“ I can see no reason why taxes should go to anything other than the direct support of government functions. Gasoline vouchers don’t count.
While we’re on the subject, What difference is there between a gasoline voucher and a tax reduction? If you paid less in taxes on each paycheck, could not that money be used to buy gasoline? Or groceries? Or would you rather have a gasoline voucher and let your government tell you where to spend your money? Why get paid at all if that is the case. Why not just divert all your paychecks to the government and let them issue you vouchers for everything they think you’ll need. If you’d like help putting down guidelines for that sort of arrangement, there’s a book by a man named Marx that you might like to read.
You state that the “rich taxpayers” “figure tax money belongs to them.” Yes. It does. We willingly give our money to the government for the payment of the costs of the government. It’s still the people’s money. And if the government is running a surplus, that means that the costs of the government are less than the tax that they are collecting. Why then, should that money be kept by the government to “find” a way to expend it? In fact, why not let the government keep the money while reducing the tax collected for the future? That’s what measure 2 does and I can’t help but wonder what fallacy you see in it other than you would like the government to spend your money for you?
You say “I figure the rich can take care of themselves. It’s the duty of government to take care of the people.” My God. Did your proof read your letter before you sent it? Did you really just say that it was the “duty of the government to take care of the people”? It was my mistake earlier. You’ve obviously already read most of Mr. Marx’s work. Just for the record Mrs. Schmidt, it is the duty of the government to represent the people. We can all take care of ourselves, the government is meant to represent us so that none of us are trampled upon by the beliefs and wants of others.
Finally, if you truly think that it is the governments duty to take care of the people, why are you opposed to the bailout? Would not the bailout potentially cause a correction in the markets and set the economy back on track? Wouldn’t that be in the best interest of the people and be considered as “taking care of the people”? Or does “taking care of the people” only apply if it is a welfare situation?
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
That is exactly the problem. There is always someone with more money… just as there is also someone obsessed with a over blown sense of entitlement. They think they somehow got screwed because someone else is better off then them.
Sorry that isn’t how it works. The government isn’t supposed to be there because someone is doing better economically than you, it is supposed to be there to provide essential services to keep society going. Now IMO, that doesn’t include bailing out companies who screwed up their businesses.