The American Spectator

Reader Mail

All Power to the Palin

9.26.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 5)

Mr. Hillyer's comments on the bailout proposal remind me that even conservatives residing in the dream world of D.C. don't have a clue about the way markets work. We have a very simple, yet very real, problem right now in this country. Credit markets are not working. I have a business Mr. Hillyer, and I can tell you that credit is a very important thing indeed. People need financing to buy stuff, and right now financing is very difficult. I have paid very high taxes in the past, and may very well pay high taxes in the future, but tax rates have nothing to do with the current crisis. If people can't borrow to start businesses, buy big ticket items, etc., taxes are very much beside the point. My advice for Mr. Hillyer is to go back to your room with your Thomas Sowell book, and let the big boys handle this matter. Someone can wake you when it's over, and then we can go back to worrying about high corporate tax rates.
-- Jason Davis

Quin Hillyer replies:
Where, pray tell, did Mr. Davis get the idea that I have belittled the size of the problem or underestimated the need for credit? He must not have read my piece very closely. I specifically said that we need to address the credit problem, but that Reps. Hensarling, Ryan, perhaps McCotter, and others have better ideas than the Paulson plan. As for taxes: They do matter. If NET profits rise because 35% of them aren't taken away by the tax man, then that 35% becomes available for capital investment, etc., which helps grease the stuck credit wheels throughout the economy. Also, a company with profits 35% higher is a company more likely for lenders to be willing to lend to. And so on.

Quin, no argument over the thrust of your suggestion but there is as much chance of this Congress or any other for that matter dropping corporate income taxation as there is having Government employees not pay income tax. Ask yourself why do people who get paid taxpayer money derived from income taxes, etc have to pay income taxes on what is essentially money already taxed? In effect the cost of government is 30% higher than needed in salaries because of this practice.

It's all part of the same scam that says corporations pay taxes when in fact they don't with rare exception. If you stop taxing corporations and reduce government salaries by say 30% across the board and exempt them from paying income taxes you accomplish the same thing. Think about it. The whole purpose of the income tax system is the redistribution of wealth from those who produce the most to those who produce the least (or nothing as it is in more and more cases). As soon as you drop the farce that is tax fairness via the idea that corporations pay income tax then the whole argument about who really pays all taxes is laid bare for all to see. The income tax system, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid all serve the same overall purpose in controlling what the general population does with their lives and labor. You are asking the most corrupt institution on the planet to give up part of its control in order to do the right thing for individual Americans. We'll have to revisit 1776 I think to accomplish that.

You are also asking the institution that created this current mess trying to fix what it saw as a problem in the past to fix this also. This current mess (fix to a previous mess) has already cost me an extra month and a half equivalent mortgage payment a year in property taxes and insurance cost on imputed values that have doubled in the last five years. That's 348 gallons of gas for me at current prices or 10 months driving to put that in perspective. Local city/county governments just love this. They are rolling in tax money they didn't have to vote on to raise taxes on. Like all those tens of billions in elevated salaries for government employees that have to be raised so that said employees can pay income taxes on income taxes essentially, we are not going to fix this until we fix our government.

Somewhere between the late 1970s and today we kind of threw out the guidebook on what the true function of government is. It is my honest assessment that we have gone too far down the socialist path to compromise/fix our way out of this. Federal and State government unfunded mandates as structured today from starting back in the 1930s are going bury this Nation starting in less than ten years. We can't just grow our way out of this with inflated money or tax everything that moves three times over as the Democrats propose. There is a fundamental problem here that will take more than a "maverick" to fix. There is going to have to be a serious house cleaning in Congress and reforms from A to Z regarding what the purpose of Government is and is not. Words have got to mean things again in the Halls of Congress and for a start I would require that each member of Congress read the Constitution as a start. I also think this phrase "do no harm" as a guiding principle is OBE. Accountability and Responsibility can't be legislated out of existence as some would like.
-- Thom Bateman

Once again, America totters near the precipice. What further proof could be desired of the disaster that is the (insert disliked political system here) system? Only the (insert desired political system here) system can save us.
-- David Govett
Davis, California

AT LEAST IT'S NOT EUROPE
Re: Bret Joshpe's The U.S. Global Insurance Company:

It's a tempting idea asking the Europeans to help out with the Wall Street mess, but the ugly secret they are too embarrassed to talk about is their problems make Wall Street's look like mere bagatelles. Lehman Bros collapsed with a leverage ratio of 35:1, compared to a ratio in commercial banks like Wells Fargo of around 10 or 12:1. Deutschebank has a leverage ratio of 50:1 and its liabilities amount to about 80 per cent of the whole German economy. If Hank Paulson is having sleepless nights, his counterparts in Berlin are having nightmares. If any cavalry come riding to the rescue, it's a safe bet they won't be eating sauerkraut and sausages. None of the other Europeans is in much better shape. America is on its own, but what else is new, and the good news is you don't need to suck up and waste time with a pack of useless allies.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

"Last week, the U.S. acted boldly once again with the Federal Reserve Bank loaning $85 billion to AIG and putting the risk of default on the U.S. taxpayer." Boldly? Not the best word for the Fed's action. Recklessly, fecklessly, scandalously and most probably, unconstitutionally. Boldness implies an understanding and acceptance that dire consequences may occur but the risk is worthy of the possible sacrifice. Gambling with money that is not their own, the Fed saved AIG shareholders and placed all the risk at the feet of tax payers who derive no direct benefit from AIG. Please, lets save our praise for those who earn it or it becomes a howling idiot wind that drown out sensible discourse.
-- Ira M. Kessel
Rochester, New York

THINK BEFORE YOU WRITE
Re: Lib's letter (under "Who Are You to Say") in Reader Mail's Easily Understood:

As much as I would have strained to detoxify letters from such as "Lib" in the past, now I restrain myself because I have learned it is a useless exercise. I have asked liberals many times in the past if they actually listen to themselves talk.

While denouncing the purported hatred, vitriol, and narrow-mindedness of the right, they spit out indignation and outrage in unmistakable colors of hate. While lecturing all of us about "Constitution, cooperation, and valuing peaceful community," they show that they have little use for anyone much different from themselves. They like pluralism until they actually have to face people they dislike and don't want to understand. A "peaceful community" only can exist on a liberal's terms. To have such a "community", somebody has to change and, as far as they are concerned, it sure isn't them.

Ironically, liberals are imperialistic. There can't be any institution where they don't belong and once in control they will make sure no one different will have a position of any consequence. In the name of diversity, many must be excluded. Conservatives, although significant part of the population, are by definition are unsuitable.

Why, when conservative views are presented and defended, do they act as if it were a personal insult?

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Sarah Palin, Hank Paulson, Business, Social Security, Medicaid, Islam, Hollywood, Constitution, Law, Military, Socialism, Conservatism, Medicare