No New Taxes: Stop Throwing Our Money Away
Liberator Online
Volume 17, No. 18
18 December 2012
Although, as the Rasmussen poll above indicates, the vast majority of Americans favor tax cuts, many pundits and politicians are arguing that tax increases are needed to enable the government to fund its necessary and proper functions.
In October Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released a 202-page report entitled Waste Book 2012 that offers a good response to that.
Waste Book 2012 details more than $18 billion of utterly unjustifiable taxpayer-funded projects.
The 100 outrages revealed in Coburn's Waste Book 2012 include:
Between $1 billion and $50 billion wasted annually due to inefficient purchasing policies by federal agencies, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office (GAO);
$38.8 million in subsidies for a train mostly used by cruise ship tourists in Alaska;
$27 million for classes to teach Moroccans (in Morocco) how to make pottery;
$5.5 million for a State Department program to send professional athletes on diplomatic trips around the world;
$1.3 million to Pepsico -- the world's largest snack food maker -- to help it build a yogurt factory in New York;
$1.6 million for NASA to develop video games and a commercial-free online rock radio station;
$520,000 for the rehabilitation of an unused covered bridge in Ohio;
$505,000 for a pet shampoo and toothpaste company in Nebraska;
$300,000 to promote sales of U.S. caviar;
… and that's just a small example of the absurdities and outrages Coburn reveals. Page after page, the waste, the injustice goes on and on.
(We don't agree with Coburn on one point, that tax exemptions are the same as subsidies. However, his examples of outrageous exemptions for zillion-dollar industries do show just how corrupt the tax system is.)
Sen. Coburn's 100 examples are, of course, barely the tip of a gigantic iceberg of government waste and spending and unfairness.
But they certainly demolish the oft-heard cry that government spending has been cut to the bone.
Examples like this, while a small part of the overall budget, are useful because they make this very important point: the federal government is spending vast amounts of our money in the most frivolous and wasteful ways imaginable, and it has no intention of stopping.
So when politicians and pundits wail for yet more taxes, the proper response should be something along these lines:
First, stop looting us to subsidize Pepsi, tourist trains and pet shampoo companies. Stop rebuilding unused bridges. Halt all the other obscene wastes of taxpayer dollars that Sen. Coburn has listed in his report.
Then come back and we'll talk some more. (And we'll have some more examples for you by then.)
Liberator Online
Volume 17, No. 18
18 December 2012
Volume 17, No. 18
18 December 2012
Although, as the Rasmussen poll above indicates, the vast majority of Americans favor tax cuts, many pundits and politicians are arguing that tax increases are needed to enable the government to fund its necessary and proper functions.
In October Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released a 202-page report entitled Waste Book 2012 that offers a good response to that.
Waste Book 2012 details more than $18 billion of utterly unjustifiable taxpayer-funded projects.
The 100 outrages revealed in Coburn's Waste Book 2012 include:
Between $1 billion and $50 billion wasted annually due to inefficient purchasing policies by federal agencies, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office (GAO);
$38.8 million in subsidies for a train mostly used by cruise ship tourists in Alaska;
$27 million for classes to teach Moroccans (in Morocco) how to make pottery;
$5.5 million for a State Department program to send professional athletes on diplomatic trips around the world;
$1.3 million to Pepsico -- the world's largest snack food maker -- to help it build a yogurt factory in New York;
$1.6 million for NASA to develop video games and a commercial-free online rock radio station;
$520,000 for the rehabilitation of an unused covered bridge in Ohio;
$505,000 for a pet shampoo and toothpaste company in Nebraska;
$300,000 to promote sales of U.S. caviar;
… and that's just a small example of the absurdities and outrages Coburn reveals. Page after page, the waste, the injustice goes on and on.
(We don't agree with Coburn on one point, that tax exemptions are the same as subsidies. However, his examples of outrageous exemptions for zillion-dollar industries do show just how corrupt the tax system is.)
Sen. Coburn's 100 examples are, of course, barely the tip of a gigantic iceberg of government waste and spending and unfairness.
But they certainly demolish the oft-heard cry that government spending has been cut to the bone.
Examples like this, while a small part of the overall budget, are useful because they make this very important point: the federal government is spending vast amounts of our money in the most frivolous and wasteful ways imaginable, and it has no intention of stopping.
So when politicians and pundits wail for yet more taxes, the proper response should be something along these lines:
First, stop looting us to subsidize Pepsi, tourist trains and pet shampoo companies. Stop rebuilding unused bridges. Halt all the other obscene wastes of taxpayer dollars that Sen. Coburn has listed in his report.
Then come back and we'll talk some more. (And we'll have some more examples for you by then.)
Liberator Online
Volume 17, No. 18
18 December 2012
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