…versus the Tea Partiers’ culture of independence. It’s not (just) about the taxes. It’s about the spending, and the perverse incentives built into the system. And as Michael Barone points out, the Susan Roesgens of the world don’t understand that.
11 thoughts on “Obama’s Culture Of Dependence”
Comments are closed.
Rand,
[[[It is really a battle about culture, a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence.]]]
That I believe explains away the supposed contradiction between new President’s Obama’s space policy and his views in opposition to free markets. There is none.
After all, what the New Space policy basically does is transform New Space firms from being independent of NASA for their future revenue into firms that are heavily dependent on NASA for the bulk of their future revenue under the banner of “Commercial Crew”. Yes, a new culture of dependence is being created as we speak.
As for the political effectiveness of transforming the culture of independence that marked New Space into a culture of dependence for New Space one simply has to look no further then the rhetoric of the New Space groups that should, based on ideological beliefs, be most against President Obama but have instead become his biggest promoters and fighters in terms of space policy. So its a master stroke on his part.
Yes, and if the New Space firms the NASA hires for HSF should falter financially it will be just a small “logical” step to bail them out with subsidies or zero cost loans, in the “national interest” of course, making them even more dependent on the government. Such is the slippery ideological slope of the new policy 🙂
The problem with the article is that it is mistaken about the Democrats motives. They are not trying to make people dependent on government. They are trying to fix problems.
There is a problem when 1 in 5 Americans can’t get health insurance, and when people can be kicked out of their coverage for being sick. The only solution is governmental, be it tort reform or the current plan.
Regarding tax cuts as “a way to supplement income” – since when is it a bad thing to let people keep more of their income?
The problem with the article is that it is mistaken about the Democrats motives. They are not trying to make people dependent on government.
No, of course not. Why would they want to do that? I mean, it’s not like it buys peoples’ votes for a big-government agenda with other peoples’ money, or anything.
What’s frightening to me is that you probably actually believe this.
Regarding tax cuts as “a way to supplement income” – since when is it a bad thing to let people keep more of their income?
It’s never a bad thing to let people keep more of their income. What’s a bad thing is giving them other peoples’ money and calling it a “tax cut.”
“What’s a bad thing is giving them other peoples’ money and calling it a “tax cut.””
I admit I missed the part about it being a tax credit and not a tax cut. My problem was with the assumption that letting people keep more of what was theirs to begin with constituted a “gift” that they should be grateful for. That seemed to be what the nice news lady was implying. Of course if it is a credit, then the assumption of gift is even stronger and the case for dependency even greater.
A tax credit is not a gift. A tax credit is a straight reduction in your tax. In other words, the taxpayer figures out what their tax would be without the credit, and the credit is then applied to reduce the tax owed. It differs from a tax deduction, which is a way to exclude certain income from tax.
I think the CNN reporter was confused as to which part of socialism involved reducing taxes.
Chris G.,
Again, it was the assumption of the reporter that the cut or credit is a gift that one should be thankful for that is (to me) the issue. You don’t have to actually give someone something to make them dependent. You can simply control what is already theirs, and make sure they have to come to you to get it to achieve the same result. Control == dependency.
Only if you’re already paying more in tax than the value of the credit, and in many cases that isn’t necessarily so.
I think the CNN reporter was confused as to which part of socialism involved reducing taxes.
Yes, he was certainly confused, as there is NO part of socialism that involves reducing taxes. It may shift the tax burden, but make no mistake, socialism only exists if the government increases taxes – which is what makes it wholly unsustainable over a long period of time.
If paying taxes means “paying your fair share” of the benefits you get from government, then why wouldn’t a tax cut be a gift? If your fair share is X, and you now pay X-1, then that’s the same as getting a gift of 1, even if it’s in the form of a tax cut since money is fungible.
I think the CNN reporter was confused as to which part of socialism involved reducing taxes.
Did the rich get proportionate tax reductions too? Else, it’s another redistribution of income.
“A tax credit is not a gift. A tax credit is a straight reduction in your tax. “
That might be true – if they weren’t perfectly willing to allow the ‘taxes owed’ to go negative.
This happened to me several times as a grad student – and actually occurs at salaries in excess of $50,000 depending on exact circumstances. Sit down with TaxAct (or whatever) and put in a fictitious salary around 50k, take ‘standard deductions’ and discover that “taxes owed is close to zero. But “tax credits” can easily convert “near zero” to “negative”. In which case you get “This amount of taxes will be returned to you.”
It is explictly not worded is such a fashion that anyone receiving it might think “Hey! Free money!” It is worded as if “Sorry, here’s some money back!” But… the “Money back” can be larger than ever single cent paid through withholding – easily.
If witholding confuses the issue to much to grok – put “withholding = 0” in and see what the tax programs end up doing. There’s an entire section on “Taxes paid” that might be a clue too.