Michael, I addressed your comments about the press before the ones about taxes and welfare because I had to go out, and could not do two posts uninterrupted. Now I will deal with the tax issue.
In a nation, people pay taxes. Then the government makes laws deciding which people, and which parts of its economy, will get goodies from the government. The American tax structure is set up right now to award people paying mortgage interest with extra goodies. If two families are living next door to each other, and have identical incomes, and pay out exactly the same for housing every month, one is not more deserving than the other, but the government has decided to reward the homeowner with a substantial, UNEARNED gift.
You do not believe, if I understand you correctly, that your taxes should be given to poor people who for a complex variety of reasons cannot take care of themselves. I do not believe that my taxes should be given to you simply because you make a mortgage payment. Both of these payments are welfare, or unearned money given to people who fall into a certain, arbitrary category. Whether the money is a tax credit or an outright grant, it is the same principle in that money that you did not earn is being given to you.
We BOTH believe in serious tax reform. I am just pointing out that each society rewards certain individuals or industries with monies collected from its citizens. Wealthy and middle class people benefit in many ways from a tax structure that has been designed to reward them.
I have not fallen into any trap, but perhaps you have. The mortgage interest tax deduction cause other groups to pay higher taxes, because the government still has to collect the same amount of money. It is a gift to you, welfare of a sort, totally unearned. And it is discriminatory, illogically, against those who do not own homes, who pay part of that gift to you with their higher taxes. |
