One story I heard this morning was about Congress passing legislation or at least considering legislation that would change the way the Alternate Minimum Tax is used. This would reduce the tax burden for many middle class tax cut. At the end the reporter said Congress was trying to find ways to offset the “cost” of the bill. There is no cost to the bill. It is a reduction of revenue. That I might have accepted but not the word cost. A cost is money spent, this is money not received. I think what bugs me about the story is it seems the government feels it has an implicit right to any and all of our money so that if for some reason they can’t collect it then it is a cost. I am sure if it wasn’t political suicide the government would love to take all our money. Then they would have the ultimate power since they would control what services we could and couldn’t receive, which is what I think is the ultimate goal of the government.
You are right on the money … the government operates as if it has the right to compel us to turn over as much of our income as they want to finance their programs … and in a sense, as long as we’re (as a whole) electing people who promise to increase the scope of government programs, or at least have historically helped increase the scope of government programs … they do. I mean, come on … they don’t just pay for themselves.
The real key is that they don’t want to do anything about the AMT because it’s been a growing cash cow for some time now. If they get rid of it, they’ll have to find some other way to come up with the money.
Oh no I guess Ron Paul got here before me.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/35/do-tax-cuts-cost-the-government-money/