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Jewish World Review April 23, 2001 / 30 Nissan, 5761
James Lileks
we're sheared
Elsewhere, there’s the usual opposition. Sen. Barbara Boxer, whining
through a smile on a CNN jabber-show, wons the week’s award for the most
painfully inapt analogy: “What George Bush did is he picked his tax cut and
then sort of built a budget around it," she said. "You wouldn't do that in
your family. You would sort of sit down and see what your needs are."
Pure head-up-the-Beltway poppycock. Boxer seems to think that families
sort of sit down and figure out what they’d like to buy, then overcharge all
their customers and have the ones who don’t pay sent to jail. Or have their
houses sort of confiscated. It works the other way, Senator. Dad says:
“everyone sort of sitting down for this? Okay, our needs require an outlay
of $42,500 this year. Unfortunately, we’re sort of only going to have
$37,323, because Sen. Boxer sort of got to our money first.”
Boxer’s twaddle won’t impress the next generation of voters, if we believe
a poll released by Junior Achievement. According to the poll, almost 84% of
all teens in six cities - liberal burgs, too - agreed that taxes are too
high. More girls than boys agreed, which contradicts the conservative
hand-wringing over the takes-a-village “feminization” of American politics.
Almost 94% of Black teens and 84% of Hispanics said taxes are too high -
in both cases, a higher percentage than the white teens. Almost 63% of the
teens believed that tax surpluses should be returned.
The poll was taken in liberal burgs, too - it’s not as if they hung outside
the gates of Camp Cato or Ruby Ridge High. When teens in Seattle and San
Francisco say taxes are too high, then they’re at levels that would make
Lenin think about loosening the noose.
Heartening news. Many a father has ground his molars down to nubs
when junior comes home from at college and lectures Daddy on his obligation
to pay more taxes - why, in Sweden, they pay higher taxes, and everyone gets
ten years vacation every decade. These slack-minded quasi-socialists are now
parents themselves, and their kids turn out to be steel-spined Ayn Rand
shocktroops. “Daddy! You’re using the power of the state to confiscate
property? Didn’t you tell me that it’s wrong to steal, or gang up on the
minority? Shame on - say, put down that bong and listen to me!”
Serves them right. But what caused this shift? Perhaps it’s a result of a
boom economy - more kids made more money, and felt the consequences of
success. Everyone has that cathartic moment when you get your first
paycheck, and discover that there’s a ravening beast in the back room who
gouges great chunks from the shanks of your salary. Or maybe there’s
another reason - the pollsters queried the Napster generation, who believe
that paying for anything is, like, y’know, annoying. Just as Napsterites
use high CD prices to justify outright theft, the respondants to the poll
used overtaxation to justify their dislike of paying what they owe as
members of a civilized society.
Perhaps. But probably not. These were kids who grew up under Clinton. They
saw what high taxes bought: nothing but more of the same. No mission to
Mars. No grand national infrastructure upgrade. No soaring monuments, no
fleets of proud ships, just a numberless army of nice dull people executing
a million programs for the sake of spending their budgets. These kids are
the future. These kids are our hope for some sort of sane tax policy, some
day. We’re saved!
Of course, their kids will reject their elders, and turn into screaming
Bolsheviks.
We’re
04/10/01: Boys will be boys. And that's the problem
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