Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
(yes, let's tax the rich so they'll try and find even more tax deductions and take investments elsewhere where taxes aren't so high).
I am repeatedly surprised how many people fall for this fallacy.
Let's not pass laws agianst murder, that'll just make murderers try to hide their crimes. Let's not have any immigration laws, that'll just make people sneak in.
Either we have the government set the tax policy and enforce it, or we have no taxes, no government, no nation per se, for a brief moment until a real government invades.
It's true that the rich are far more able to evade taxes than the vast majority. Their concentrated fotrunes have services designed for them no one else has.
But they do pay a lot more than others, and an increase does increase revenue, and the problem should be addressed, not used to justify opposing all taxation of the rich.
Yes, I said all and the OP said additional, but that's just his bad logic as if the rich only start looking for tax schemes when their taxes go up 5%.
He also ignores the history that we used to have a lot higher taxes on the rich, and his prediction didn't come true then, either.
It's just nonsense to use his argument to oppose setting the tax rates where they should be. "Oh, the rich might try to avoid some taxes, so cancel the increase, tax the poor more".
As someone who is about to enter the real world from college, and is very much a financial conservative (religiously tracking my spending and money available; ensuring I can pay my bills in full each month), I unfortunately see Congress running the entire country into the ground.
This is such a naive idea of what fiscal conservatism is about - and how it fits into our political system.
Fiscal conservatism is primarily a rhetorical weapon used in the political war. There's not really any such thing and never has been, although you can show some varying degrees.
In the old days, there wasn't fiscal conservatism, there were rulers who had serf populations creating the naiton's wealth for the ruler to blow on Pyramids and foreign wars. Thiis pretty much continued through the enlightenment and to the point of stronger democracy. And that didn't exactly bring 'fiscal conservatism' - it did change form, and include all kinds of oppression (slavery, for example), war and colonization, corruption, etc.
The issue was more tho had the power. If it was oligarchical, you had more mass poverty and government help for the few extremely wealthy; during periods where the public was better represented, you tended to have more 'fiscal conservatism', but that's an issue more of power than of finance. If the people who make fortunes off of the interest government pays get too much power, guess what happens to government borrowing?
You need to get a better understanding of the pros and cons of the choices and learn to deal with the real issues such as the power distribution, than to wave the simple fiscal conservative' banner. Is a balanced budget good if the spending that is happening is terribly prioritized, going to a few powerful interests who set the policy?
The phrase 'fiscal conservative' is of little use outside of duping the naive. The biggest increasers of our debt in history were the loudest claimers they were fiscal conservatives.
That doesn't seem to have caused you any worry with the term.
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