Turn out the lights, because no one’s home when it comes to the taxation to produce income for essential services across the board. In a recent New York Times piece, Paul Krugman argues that we should all be worried over this. Services that make for safer residential areas, fuel commerce and educate our young should not be slashed, but tax cuts have made it so, at least on the local level. Cutbacks run deep, and not enough tea partiers seem to acknowledge that tax dollars could change those prospects.
Poor local governments wonder, ‘Why no new taxes’?
While various economic theories exist regarding taxation, it is difficult to dispute that tax increases could help local governments provide more reliable important services. Krugman points out that the federal government “isn’t cash-strapped at all,” considering that they’re more than willing to sell inflation-protected long-term bonds at only 1.04 percent interest. More can be done. The sense of priority is in effect warped, says Krugman. Where are the rich who paid more in taxes during the Clinton era – an economically prosperous era, hiding as small town America burns to the ground.
Cutting back and casting jobs away
At the state and local level, governments are tightening the belt on anything, which hurts families the most. Couple that with a slow in federal spending and Krugman warns that America is stuck in reverse. An employed teacher serves the community and creates a definite job. Allow millionaires to keep more of their money and while that could translate into job creation, there’s also a definite possibility the Chicken Little “sky is falling” mentality will prompt the rich to stash their cash away.
Assuming the worst about government money management
Numerous people have little or no faith in the public sector’s ability to manage cash, tax revenues or otherwise. Tea party anti-government, anti-taxation rhetoric has been couched in terms of avoiding waste and fraud. Krugman suggests it was never as bad as the right made it seem. America has slid in education and infrastructure. The result of tax fear and decaying programs, writes Krugman, is that America is in a dark place, indeed.
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New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1 and amp;partner=rssnyt and amp;emc=rss
