Thursday, August 3, 2006

A rising tide lifts all boats

While I have been critical of George W. Bush on several occasions, one area where I fully approve of this President's policies is his support for tax cuts. While Democrats decry "tax cuts for the rich", the President's tax cuts have been a benefit to every taxpayer. When people are allowed to keep more of what they earn, they are able to invest and spend more. This stimulates economic growth, and tax cuts have even resulted in more revenue to the federal government. We saw this phenomenon under President Ronald Reagan, and Pete Du Pont points out in the Wall Street Journal that the Bush tax cuts have had the same results.

Democratic opposition to tax cuts is intense. Senator Mark Dayton (D, Minnesota) said the Bush tax cuts were "dangerous and destructive and dishonorable", while disgraced ex-President Clinton claimed the Bush tax cuts were "way too big to avoid serious harm." It is amusing that the Democrats are so vehemently opposed to forcibly confiscating any less wealth from the American people that they are willing to sacrifice their major domestic policy goal, raising the minimum wage, because the minimum wage increase was attached to a provision to extend a tax cut.

Beyond economic policy, there is a moral component to the Bush tax cuts. Does the government have the first right to the money you earn? Exactly how much of the average citizen's income is confiscated by government at some level, whether it be in the form of property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, income taxes, Social Security taxes and other assorted taxes? Does the government have a moral right to take so much of our income, especially during an economic downturn such as the one the Bush tax cuts were designed to reverse?

Unfortunately, the odds are not good that the President will be able to push through more significant tax cuts. The main debate right now seems to be over whether to increase taxes. Nancy Pelosi has promised that there will be tax increases should the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in November. The obvious question that should be in the minds of southeast Indiana voters is whether Congressional candidate Baron Hill (who was fired by the voters two years ago) would support Pelosi's proposed tax increases. Hill opposed and voted against the tax cuts while he was in Congress; would he support increasing taxes now? Where is Baron?