The American people are asleep at the switch when it comes to comprehending the role taxation plays in creating the necessary earnings for basic community services. In a recent New York Times piece, Paul Krugman believes that we should all be worried over this. Services that make for safer communities, fuel commerce and educate our young should not be slashed, but tax cuts have made it so, at least on the local level. Cutbacks have become significantly common, but some go as though their eyes were covered by teabags, blind as they’re to the potential for greater area services through tax revenues.
Poor local governments wonder, ‘Why no new taxes’?
Theories differ regarding taxation, but it appears clear that they are a proven gadget for earnings generation. Krugman points out the federal government “isn’t cash-strapped at all,” considering that they’re more than willing to sell inflation-protected long-term bonds at only 1.04 percent interest. More could be done. Priorities are completely out of whack, says Krugman. Where are the rich who paid more in taxes during the Clinton era – an economically prosperous era, hiding as small town America burns to the ground.
Cutbacks equal higher unemployment
At the state and local level, governments are tightening the belt on every little thing, which hurts families the most. Couple that with a slow in federal spending and Krugman warns that America is stuck in reverse. A teacher with a job means education and lower unemployment. But when the rich get cash back due to tax cuts, there’s no guarantee that they’ll do anything other than bury it in the sand of their own private beach.
Burning government in effigy
Numerous people have little or no faith in the public sector’s ability to handle money, tax revenues or otherwise. Tea party anti-government, anti-taxation rhetoric has been couched in terms of avoiding waste and fraud. Krugman’s counter to this is that what sounded like a horror story was never in fact that bad. Witnessing how much ground America has lost in terms of education and infrastructure should be enough evidence to suggest that America is not in fact sidetracked by oppressive taxation. Now, writes Krugman, the fear of taxation may have us on the “road to nowhere”.
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New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1 and amp;partner=rssnyt and amp;emc=rss
