Tax Cut Clarity

Thomas Sowell recently debunked the current rhetoric of the Bush Tax cut debate. I always knew there was something fishy going on.

Here are the key points:

1)

Let's face it, politics is largely the art of deception, and political rhetoric is largely the art of misstating issues. A classic example is the current debate over whether to give money to the unemployed by extending how long unemployment benefits will be provided, or instead to give "tax cuts to the rich."

2)

Not only are the so-called "tax cuts" not really tax cuts, most of the people called "rich" are not really rich. Rich means having a lot of wealth. But income taxes don't touch wealth. No wonder some billionaires are saying it's OK to raise income taxes. They would still be billionaires if taxes took 100 percent of their current income.

3)

It also takes a lot of brass to talk about taxing "millionaires and billionaires" when most of the people whose taxes the liberals want to raise are neither. Why is so much deception necessary, if your case is good?

4)

Another fashionable political and media deception is making a parallel between giving money to the unemployed versus giving money to "the rich."

When you refrain from raising someone's taxes, you are not "giving" them anything. Even if you were actually cutting their tax rate – which is out of the question today – you would still not be "giving" them anything, but only allowing them to keep more of what they have earned.

Read the rest here.