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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Aggie who wrote (127824)	2/18/2001 12:08:19 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Cut spending along with taxes Cal Thomas jewishworldreview.com -- THE public is conflicted about a tax cut. An overwhelming majority want one but an equally overwhelming majority want to use the projected surplus to pay down the national debt. Here's a way to have our tax cut cake and eat it, too: Cut spending, along with taxes. Everyone understands and opposes wasteful spending. From childhood, most of us were taught to clean our plates and not waste food. Why shouldn't the same apply to government spending? Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) will soon publish its annual "Pig Book,'' a compilation of what it sees as wasteful and unnecessary spending. If government has fewer programs on which to spend our money, it will need less money. CAGW has calculated that if all of its recommendations are implemented, taxpayers would save a staggering $1.2 trillion over the next five years, an amount approximating President Bush's proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut. First, some little things. A 1996 Farm Bill gave farmers the freedom to grow almost anything except peanuts, according to the CAGW Web site. "Only farmers who own or lease a production quota can legally grow peanuts to be sold for edible use,'' CAGW says. The government supports peanut prices with $610 per ton of our money, compared to the world price of $350 per ton, creating a domestic peanut price 74.3 percent higher than the world market price. This is really a peanut tax costing American consumers as much as $500 million annually. In 1997, President Clinton announced the America Reads program to combat illiteracy. The program recruits work-study college students to help children read by the end of third grade. It costs $260 million a year but has had a small response. There are already 14 other literacy programs (not to mention those within our subsidized public schools), costing taxpayers $8 billion, says CAGW. That's reason enough to eliminate America Reads. Now for some bigger things. Why should the American steel industry continue to receive $500 million a year in subsidies through a program inaugurated in 1979¿ In addition, the protectionist policies of the government force consumers to pay billions in inflated costs. The steel industry has effectively shut out foreign competition. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) should be scrapped. Begun in 1965 to generate new jobs and stimulate growth in economically distressed areas, many of those cities-- such as Raleigh-Durham and Fort Worth -- now have unemployment figures below the national average. CAGW says that one of the more outrageous grants ($500,000) in 1995 went "to help the NFL's Carolina Panthers build a practice facility at the private Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. -- a city located in what the local newspaper has called 'the most economically booming county in the state.''' Multi-million dollar payments continue to subsidize U.S. companies like Burger King, Dole, Purina and Sunkist to expand their market share overseas. There is no evidence that the Market Access Program works. Why should taxpayers pay expenses for commercial companies? If eliminated, the estimated savings, according to CAGW: $348 million over five years. The Rural Utilities Service continues to subsidize telephone and electrical services in such "depressed'' areas as Vail, Colo., Hilton Head, S.C., and Potomac, Md., where the rich live and play. The initial mission of this agency was to assist the nation's rural areas with the development of utility infrastructure. This mission has been accomplished but, like so many government programs, success (or failure) does not mean a program will end. Many energy programs could be privatized, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, saving $2.5 billion over five years. The power marketing administrations, established in the 1930s to provide remote areas of the country with access to electricity, which is sold at below market rates with the government paying the difference, should be scrapped. As we have seen in California, such an approach upsets the laws of supply and demand, sometimes leading to energy crises and reducing incentives for customers to use electricity wisely. There are scores of other examples of wasteful or unneeded spending that could be slashed. They are available on the CAGW Web page (http://www.govt-waste.org/). A tax cut will go down easier with voters (though less with politicians who have constituencies for all of this spending) if the government beast is put on a diet. jewishworldreview.com

To: Aggie who wrote (127824)	2/18/2001 6:42:48 PM
From: ecommerceman	Respond to of 769670

I'll take another stab at it, then my interest may be gone. Unlike many on this and other threads, I am keenly interested in hearing opposing views, but only if they are focused and objective. Let's look at your post: I'll grant that you are one of the more serious posters on this thread, and thus worth it for me to take another stab at replying... 1/ "Aggie--No, the "personal experience" stories don't change my view of the desirability of estate taxes in the slightest." Well...if specific examples and simple, obvious scenarios of middle to upper middle class people getting whacked don't influence you, then why do you carry on the discussion? These are the people most affected by the estate tax burden, as they are with other tax burdens. How did you form your views? Because it appears to me that your views are formed from a sense of entitlement-resentment, i.e., you're entitled to advocate taxes on to others because you resent their wealth. I haven't heard you volunteering yours yet." My answer is what I wrote elsewhere--I support estate taxes for the same reason that one of the greatest Republican Presidents in our history supported them--Theodore Roosevelt--because he was concerned, as I am, that this country is getting dangerously close to becoming an aristocracy. Estate taxes help ensure that that doesn't happen, and thus I support their continuing to be a part of our country's policy. The federal government is aways going to need funds, and if rich estates don't pay them, then they will be paid in additional amounts by the middle class; seems like a simple choice to me. --2. "--the truth is that the surest way to kill small towns (and the social fabric that they make up) is to ensure that the size of farms gets bigger and bigger.."Who said anything about family farms getting bigger? My argument is that a family farm should be allowed to continue its existence without interference, and not die with the patriarch/matriarch. And by the way, I agree that the social fabric of small towns is valuable and should be preserved. Well then we agree on the goal, we just disagree on the means. And the truth is that the VAST majority of family farms are passed on to their heirs without triggering estate taxes; the few that are are very big, and having them sell off some land to beginning farmers (which is often the only chance they get to buy it) is a good thing. I think the essence of the problem here is a skewing of your perspective which does not jibe with secular (i.e., modern and easily checked) demographics. If a family farm folds and is sold off to pay estate taxes, who do you think buys it up? The answer usually is: the corporate farmer does, and has been over the past 30 years. I have lived in the same rural agrarian area for 20 years, and it's happening. Now. Check your demographics, they are readily available from your county extension agent, or, since you're based in DC, the Department of Agriculture and Library of Congress. Not true where I'm from, I can assure you... Romantic notions aside, the US is not full of people who want to try their hand at farming on some barely affordable carved-up piece of an already marginal farm - which nearly all family farms are. Again, where I come from there are plenty of people who would love to get started in farming (admittedly, I come from a rural area in Nebraska where farming is a way of life). 3. "Forcing wealthy estates to sell off some land to small or beginning farmers makes sense from a social policy point of view.." Who (among our leaders) said anything about taxes being an instrument of social policy? Taxes are a way for government to raise funds to protect the borders and create a safety net. As a representative republic, we determine social policy through our elected officials, not through the IRS. Goodness, we use tax policy ALL the time to effect social policy (sometimes we don't admit it, but it's still the case)--we grant mortgage interest deduction to make it easier for middle-income people to buy houses; we have an earned income tax credit to ensure that low income people have an incentive to work, etc., etc., etc. I'll admit that our leaders haven't used continuing the estate tax as a remedy for the decline of the family farm, but I believe it to be the case whether they use it as reason or not. I must say that I find it disturbing when I raise the point that some rather ordinary, hard working people feel burdened by our tax culture, only to have your reply that 120 millionaires think estate taxes are great! What kind of counterpoint is that? If our conversation continually diverges in this way, i.e., you answer some different question, it will lead nowhere. An objective and civil discussion can only progress if both parties stick to the point." Sorry if I got off the point (not sure I did, but it wouldn't be the first time--or the last, I'm sure). Anyway, SURE there are plenty of people who feel that they're overburdened by taxes--I simply believe that it's more equitable for very successful people (and please don't forget that the only people who pay estate taxes are the richest TWO PERCENT) to pay a modest amount of money to help fund the government, rather than transferering the burden on to others who are less able to pay--and wouldn't you agree that THAT is the choice?