{"id":11377,"date":"2016-04-05T08:14:11","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T14:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11377"},"modified":"2016-04-05T08:14:11","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T14:14:11","slug":"montana-viewpoint-who-has-gained-from-anti-tax-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/04\/montana-viewpoint-who-has-gained-from-anti-tax-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Viewpoint: Who has gained from anti-tax talk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is the American tradition at this time of year to gripe and moan about paying taxes.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we have\u00a0been well indoctrinated. The libertarian right, led by the wealthy and the corporate giants, have for years\u00a0been telling us that our taxes are too high, that we are being taxed to death, and that taxes stifle the\u00a0economy.<\/p>\n

\"Jim\"<\/a>

Jim Elliott<\/p><\/div>\n

We Americans have learned that lesson well, heeded the warning and elected anti-tax\u00a0Republicans and timid Democratic me too-ers to get the job done and lower those nefarious taxes.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0we have reaped the harvest of our own success: interstate highways with crumbling pavement, an\u00a0increasing number of unsafe bridges, understaffed law enforcement agencies, as well as social infrastructure falling into disrepair. Then we lay the blame for all this squarely on the shoulders\u00a0of those truly responsible\u2014someone else.<\/p>\n

So the anti-tax folks have done their job and done it well. Their leaders have profited from lower\u00a0taxes and their followers have seen their share of taxes rise. The beauty of all this is not that it works,\u00a0but that it works so well that we lambs being led to slaughter blame our fate on the wolves of\u00a0government, not on the guy with the sledgehammer and the knife.<\/p>\n

There was once a book titled \u201cLet\u2019s You and Him Fight\u201d which talked about the basics of getting others\u00a0to fight your battles for you. So it is with taxes, those who have the greatest ability to pay taxes, and\u00a0thus the greatest desire to avoid paying them, have turned to the unsuspecting masses to fight their\u00a0wars for them no matter that it\u2019s to the majority\u2019s detriment.<\/p>\n

For corporations, avoiding taxes is like a parlor game whereby they can increase the bottom line and\u00a0have fun doing it. In 1948, corporate income tax collections were roughly half much as individual income\u00a0tax collections. In 2008, corporate income tax collections dropped to one quarter of individual income tax collections.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Look, you have to spend money to make money, in government as well as business. Both need a solid,\u00a0dependable infrastructure, both need a trustworthy and loyal workforce, and both get these by\u00a0investing\u2014which is another way of saying \u201cspending money\u201d\u2014in them.<\/p>\n

This infrastructure provides\u00a0businesses with the basic tools to do what they do\u2014make money\u2014and it gives governments the tools to do\u00a0what they do\u2014create an environment where business can flourish, an environment with an educated\u00a0workforce, dependable means of transportation and communication and healthy and safe\u00a0communities.<\/p>\n

It is as foolish to argue that government spending does not benefit business as it is to\u00a0argue that businesses do not benefit the nation; they go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

Americans rail against deficit spending, well and good, but we either have to be prepared to settle for\u00a0less in the way of defense, healthcare and education, to name the big three budgetary items, or be\u00a0prepared to pony up enough money to fund them the way we want them funded.<\/p>\n

Ask yourself two\u00a0questions: first, what government programs should have funding cut, and second, what government\u00a0programs that you depend on should have funding cut. I bet they\u2019re not the same.<\/p>\n

Jim Elliott is a former chairman of the Montana Democratic Party and a former state senator from Trout Creek.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the American tradition at this time of year to gripe and moan about paying taxes. Indeed, we have\u00a0been well indoctrinated. The libertarian right, led by the wealthy and the corporate giants, have for years\u00a0been telling us that our taxes are too high, that we are being taxed to death, and that taxes stifle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":11378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[4133,4132],"class_list":["post-11377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-government","tag-taxes","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}