Wealth takers justify their appetite for tax increases by criticizing wealth producers

by

Dave Harbour

Just last week…

…we reported on how a hostile legislator mistreated a representative of Alaska’s largest group of taxpayers.  Here’s another take on the politician’s hostility and her bias in favor of oil tax increase advocates.

Actually, that’s no surprise.   History in Alaska and throughout the U.S. and Canada is replete with examples of how liberal politicians seeking more tax money for their constituency of beneficiaries use the art of ridicule and criticism to demean those whose constituency produces wealth for an economy.  How else, will the socialist side of the political spectrum justify taking what you make and giving it to someone or some group who will help them be reelected?

All we ask is that our readers continue to do what they do so well: follow the money.

In the instance last week, the democrat co-chair of a committee found a consultant who, for what many Alaskans consider to be a 6 month wage, if not a year’s salary, would state publicly that Economics 101 does not — in effect — exist.

Even wealth producers want to pay a reasonable tax to support the primary purposes of government.

But when “reasonable” is defined as “my voters want more benefits so just shut up and pay up or we’ll just say you are selfish, insensitive, and your executives make too much money”, one begins to wonder where it will all end.

Well, the editorial in the right column demonstrated that as taxes increased — way beyond what any fair observer would consider to be “reasonable” — so did unemployment.  

When the ACES tax was repealed, the investment climate began to improve along with employment.  Now, a low oil price environment has produced losses for the producers and government overspending has become unsustainable.

The liberal element of Alaska legislators now focuses on how to squeeze more from producers of a commodity whose low price hardly produces a profit…while keeping government operating as usual.  We have called this, “sustaining public sector jobs and entitlement programs at the expense of the private sector.”

Thousands of private sector employees continue to lose their jobs while we note that automatic pay increases for bureaucrats march on.

The Alaska Senate is wise to focus, as it is now, on 1) controlling government spending by tightening Alaska’s constitutional spending limit, and 2) using a small portion of the permanent fund annually to support the budget.  

Were that to pass, we would expect the legislature to then take a big slice out of public sector spending before resorting to statewide taxation…to show good faith.  

If the public and private sector can share the cost of maintaining government services in a just and reasonable way — without resorting to more oil tax increases — Alaska may finally have reached a point of maturity in developing a durable fiscal policy.  

Maybe Alaska can, after all, become a place where “a deal is a deal” for investors.

And if a statewide tax finally becomes the last resort let it be a statewide sales tax and not an income tax.  If everyone is affected by the sales tax, there will be a significant effort to keep it low and make sure it is used properly.  If a statewide income tax is imposed, the masses of beneficiaries can easily outvote those who pay–year after year.