Some Context on Taxes, Entitlements, and Infrastructure

When Barack Obama sat down with Bill O'Reilly he talked about taxes in this segment.





In the segment, Barack Obama and Bill O'Reilly discussed, among other things, Obama's plan to suspend the cap on payroll taxes and begin to tax folks making over $250,000 yearly on payroll as well. Obama justified this increase in taxes by proclaiming that our country has a lot of needs: education, infrastructure, roads, energy independence, etc.



Since the beginning of the Republic, politicians justified tax hikes by proclaiming that the country is in need of major help in such things as infrastructure, education, roads, etc. Each and everytime, this explanation is not only a misnomer but a total distortion.

The country was founded by individual fearful of taxes and the corrosive effect they would have. The Founding Fathers also knew that without taxes then such things as infrastructure, roads, and education couldn't be founded. That's why they imposed a limited amount of taxes and they appropriated that this limited amount of taxes be collected to go to a limited number of functions like infrastructure and roads. The income tax wasn't created until the early 1900's. Yet, for more than 125 years the country grew, the infrastructure functioned, and nothing much decayed.

I am not naive enough to believe that the costs of roads and other infrastructure isn't exponentially more than it was in the beginning of the Republic. Still, we have way more people and we pay exponentially more in taxes. It is not only a misnomer to present tax increases as a necessary step to shore up infrastructure, but it is a statement that lacks in political courage whatsoever.

Somehow our country continued to thrive with full infrastructure in tact without the benefit of income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and inheritance taxes for almost a century and a half. Yet, politicians today will tell you that they only way to accomplish these necessary goals is to increase taxes. That is total nonsense. The reality is that most of these politicians don't have the necessary political courage to confront their constituency and the rank and file in their own caucus to cut the massive waste that actually has created all of these new taxes.

Our government could have plenty of money to build roads, schools, and other infrastructure and not raise taxes at all if only they could learn to stop wasting valuable tax Dollars on all sorts of unnecessary projects. Barack Obama proclaims that tax increases are necessary to build roads, but in the entire campaign, he couldn't name one program that he could cut. He's spent four years in the Senate and in the entire government apparatus he couldn't find even one program that he thought was wasteful. In fact, he sees after school programs as so vital that he doesn't believe they could be cut even in an economic panic.

We have $18 billion in frivilous and unnecessary earmarks that are spent each and every year. These earmarks go either to 1) appease a politician for voting on some legislation or 2) appease some constituency that helped some politician. None of these projects are necessary at all. How much infrastructure would we build if we simply used the money now going to earmarks?

The idea that tax increases are necessary in order to accomplish vital infrastructure needs implies something grossly corrupt. Taxes are supposed to be first and foremost to fund vital infrastructure. If all of the taxes currently collected aren't enough to fund infrastructure, where are the taxes collected now going? Back when our government understood the role of taxes, not only were taxes low but vital infrastructure was funded just fine. That's because that's all that was funded with taxes. Now, the government uses the idea of "vital infrastructure" in order to raise taxes frivilously and continue the long road of the expansion of government.