This Week’s News
It’s tax season! Is everyone excited? It’s like a little reverse Christmas except the good are punished and the bad cheat and hire better accountants/lawyers. Only a little over a week after I published “The Insatiable Beast” describing how the government always gets “its” money and is never satisfied, the news appears full of fresh stories about governments looking for new ways to take and spend our money.
Municipal income tax – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a “left-leaning” think tank has suggested that the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada’s version of the “beloved” IRS) allow municipalities to access it’s data so that “instead of being heavily reliant on property taxes, they can diversify their revenue base, and access income taxes if they want.” “Diversify their revenue base” almost made me cough up my coffee. Just so we’re clear, the government’s “revenue base” is our money. We earned it and they want to take more of it. In typical “elite” fashion, Senior economist David Macdonald explains that the “big issue with property taxes is they’re politically impossible to raise adequately.” Why it would be politically easy to raise income taxes remains unsaid. The income tax is, of course, pitched as a way to tax the rich (“higher income earners”) but when presenting an example of how Vancouver “could net a further $100 million annually” it is proposed that the tax start be applied to “annual incomes over $56,000.” As the median salary in Vancouver is $69,983, the success of this proposal would rely on a municipal income tax starting at the level of the lower middle class.
Toronto looks at charging a “Rain tax” – Currently, Homeowners and businesses in Toronto are charged based on how much water they use which is used (in theory) to maintain and upgrade sewers and stormwater tunnels. In an effort “raise awareness of stormwater management among homeowners and businesses” and to link “properties that create more runoff to the cost of dealing with it,” the city has proposed adding “a fixed charge for stormwater management based on property size and the amount of hard surface on the property” to the existing usage charge.” While this is being pitched as a way to make those using the stormwater systems pay more, the likely result will be an increase in costs for everyone. That’s just how the government works.
NY City has begun handing out prepaid debit cards to migrants. Immigration is vital, and if the new arrivals can’t pay their way, well I’m sure you don’t mind helping out, right?
California high-speed bullet train project – In 2008 California voters approved a high-speed rail project which “required nonstop trains travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles,” be complete by 2020 and cost $33 billion. The full system is now expected to be in place between 2030 and 2033 and cost $128 billion. What’s an extra $4,300 per taxpayer, right? I’m sure there will be plenty left over for reparations.
I have presented two types of tax stories this week, the first shows how governments always want more and the second how more is never enough. No matter how much money the government takes, politicians will find a way to spend more than they have. The process can be broken down very simply:
Find a way to collect more taxes.
Spend more than you have.
Go to step 1.
It’s almost as if the concept of cutting waste from the budget is so foreign that it never even crosses anyone’s mind. If you think I’m exaggerating (ok, maybe I am a little), here are graphs showing US and Canadian government spending over the years (Surpluses are few and far between).
Be wary of the cries to “tax the rich” or for a “wealth tax.” You think you know who “the rich” are but I guarantee you that once the tax is in place the definition of “rich” will quickly extend to everyone falling under the government’s jurisdiction. Want proof? The Alternative minimum tax (US version) was originally enacted in 1970 because 155 high income households “had not paid a dime of federal income taxes.” In 2017 this tax affected 5.2 million households, largely because it was not indexed to inflation. Was it a clever trick or bureaucratic incompetence? Pick your poison, either way, the government wins.
Finally, if you think I’m too hard on the government remember, even the Beatles who wrote “All You Need Is Love” had nothing nice to say about the “Taxman:”
One, two, three, four
One, two (one, two, three, four)
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman
I'll tax the street
(If you try to sit, sit) I'll tax your seat
(If you get too cold, cold) I'll tax the heat
(If you take a walk, walk) I'll tax your feet
(Taxman)
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman
Don't ask me what I want it for
(Ah, ah, Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more
(Ah, ah, Mr. Heath)
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes (taxman)
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me (taxman)
What I’m Reading
Meet the AI-Censored – Matt Taibbi has a piece over at Racket News about the dangers of AI censorship. Unlike what happened with the Twitter files which was a case of intentional human censorship of “unapproved” opinions, Google’s censorship may have more to do with technologists assigning a task to AI without “always know how they work.” In example provide, Naked Capitalism, a site for “independent commentary about a financial services industry,” was threatened with demonetization and it is not always “clear how or why Google came to tie certain content to categories like “Violent Extremism.” In the words of a sales expert, “I’m pretty sure advertisers have no idea that the Google bot is blocking their carefully crafted communications from reaching [her] readers.”
The Democrats and the Rise of Racial Radicalism – Over at The Liberal Patriot, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira argue that most Americans have rejected the calls of racial radicals such as racial radicals like Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nahesi Coates, and the leaders of BLM movement who have demanded that cities “defund the police,” that universities and businesses prioritize “equity over equality,” and who demand racial reparations. They make the case instead for efforts that “would unite rather than divide working class voters” such as revitalizing communities that have been affected by deindustrialization, limiting immigration, and modifying affirmative action to focus on income rather than race, all issues that would help all lower income families regardless of race. They conclude that “America's liberal and leftwing activists have unfortunately fallen under the sway of the racial radicals” jeopardizing “the Democrats' ability to win back the working-class voters who have deserted them.”
Marshall McLuhan – The Free Press has started a new series entitled “The Prophets.” The first, McLuhan, as many know, came up with the phrase “the medium is the message” to emphasize that “the most important effects of a new technology are a result of its form, not its content.” He was a man who foresaw the “dislocating experience of” modern life and if you want proof, take a minute and listen to the first clip in the piece which was recorded in 1977. If you don’t have the time perhaps this quote will resonate with you:
“The global village is at once as wide as the planet and as small as a little town where everybody is maliciously engaged and poking his nose into everybody else’s business. The global village is a world in which you don’t necessarily have harmony. You have extreme concern with everybody else’s business.”
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
There are just so many interesting podcasts that it’s hard to limit myself to just one. So once again I’m’ not going to. Here are my two picks for this week:
The Joe Rogan Experience - Jonathan Haidt: Rogan’s interview with social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt covering, as usual with Rogan’s podcasts, a lot of things. However, given my piece “The Insatiable Beast” I was particularly interested in his book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”
The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie - Steven Pinker: What Went Wrong at Harvard: Pinker is a psychologist and author who argues that Harvard's free speech policy was so "selectively prosecuted that it became a national joke" in part because Harvard "is now the place where using the wrong pronoun is a hanging offense but calling for another Holocaust depends on context." We expect…well at least I do…well at least I used to, a certain level of intellectual honesty from academics but over the last 10 years or so it’s become apparent that the left has one standard for those they agree with and another for those they don’t. Free speech for me but not for thee.
If those proposing any new taxes use the phrases "For the children" or "Our security depends on it", hide your wallet no matter how little you make. Eventually they are coming for you.