Borrowed Money

Fire Dennis Moore has a good post today about Representative Dennis Moore's recent comments about the estate tax.

There is one part of Congressman Moore's response that drew my attention:

"Tax cuts on borrowed money aren't tax cuts at all...They're simply a mortgage on our children's future."

The quote reveals the way Moore really looks at taxes and spending, a view that is at the heart of liberalism, and may be one of the most revealing things Moore has ever said.

Moore's quote reveals the fact that he sees earnings as something the Federal Government may allow you to keep, or may decide to reapportion to some "better" cause. It is a key difference between those on the left (Moore) and those in the center and to the right. Most people think the money they earn belongs to them, they are comfortable contributing to the common good, but essentially they see their income as their own, for them to spend as they decide. Dennis Moore disagrees.

His quote reveals that he believes the government has the right to seize earnings at any time, for any use it sees fit. There is no consideration that if there is a budget deficit, that spending should be cut. There is no consideration that irresponsible spending growth and government over reach may be the source of our budgetary problems, not a lack of tax income.

Moore believes that the government can make better spending decisions than private citizens, and this one quote clearly demonstrates this.

Timothy Burger

Harry Reid Doesn't Have a Social Security Account

Today the RNC released a bill introduced by Democrat Senator Harry Reid in 1983 that kept Senators and Representatives out of the Social Security system. Instead of participating in what Ried has called the most successful government program ever Senators participate in a defined benefit program run by the Federal Government. Thanks to this legislation Senators do not pay any Social Security taxes.

Assuming this program is like every other pension plan in existence it invests in bonds and (gasp) the STOCK MARKET. It also presumably pays benefits many times larger than Social Security's payments to the rest of us. Why would Senator Reid want to participate in a "risky scheme to undermine Social Security"? Why would Senator Reid write legislation to exclude a small portion of the nations richest, most powerful people from paying ANY tax that supports the Social Security system?

Maybe because he wanted a better deal for himself, maybe because he knows the Social Security system is headed towards a disaster and wants to protect his own fortune from the huge pending cuts to Social Security benefits. I don't know, but I think it makes sense to ask why the men who are forcing the rest of us to pay into this system why they don't have to be in it with us.

As aside it should also be noted that Reid doesn't think Alan Greenspan understand economics, and doesn't think the Bush tax cuts have helped the economy over the past few years.

As a second aside, the article I linked to above includes the Democrat attack that President Bush thought the Social Security system would go broke within 10 years from his 1978 Congressional Race. It should be noted that there were significant changes to Social Security made in the early 1980s, in 1987 because Bush wasn't the only person who saw serious problems with the system. It should also be noted that Bill Clinton dramatically increased taxation of Social Security benefits during the 1990s, significantly reducing the burden of paying those benefits.

Timothy Burger