From: lrvanh00@nx38.mik.uky.edu (lee r vanhorn)
Subject: Re: Taxing & Spending
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:02:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan18.132056.10625@osf.org> Terri Buchman  
<buchman@osf.org> writes:
> In article <C113Jn.6Bt@newsserver.technet.sg> Ed Ipser,
> ipser@solomon.technet.sg writes:
> >Which, of course, is precisely why Slick Willie's
> propagandists insist on
> >calling government spending "investment" and why the
> government is, today,
> >such a net drain on America's pool of capital.
> 
> Interesting.  I guess when the money spent benefits someone
> else it's "pork".  When it benefits you it becomes wise
> spending.  
> 
> I really think that much of the argument about tax and spend is
> an argument about the great forbidden subject in American
> politics - class and money and who is draining whom.  Everybody
> becomes a victim in this argument.  The rich are victims
> because their money is being reallocated and this is a
> disincentive to startups and entrepeneurs.  The middle class is
> a victim because their money is taken away to feed the top and
> the bottom and they have only the theoretical right to say no
> to more spending.  The poor are victims because they have been
> locked into poverty by giveaway programs that promote a life on
> the dole and given no respect by a system that treats them like
> numbers in a ledger.
> 
> Lately this cycle of victimization appears to be hardening. 
> One class can't seem to forgive another for the slight that
> occured 10, 20, 30 or more years ago.   The middle class
> insists that it is maligned and punished for working (and
> forgets that so much of the budget is returned to them in the
> form of entitlements like medicare, medicaid, social security
> and other budget busting programs).  The poor feel that the
> government looks at them as social guinea pigs whose lives are
> can be played with for the sake of some new program that may or
> may not work.  (And who resist the notion that they must start
> to take responsibility for their actions and responsbilitiy for
> the well being of future generations.)  And the rich claim to
> be the spring from which prosperity springs, saying that they
> take all the risks and should lay greater, more permanent claim
> to more of the wealth.  They feel they earned it.  They forget
> that capitalism can be exploitive, undemocratic and unfair.  It
> can undo societal ties and morals and cause real economic pain
> by unfair allocation of goods and services.  (It is also a
> wonderful system that can reward hard work and risk taking and
> benefits huge groups of people with jobs and the feeling that
> they too can get ahead.)
> 
> So can we find any kind of common ground?  Can we listen to
> each other without blaming each other?  Sometimes it appears
> that we are all chasing the same dollar, claiming, that by
> right of work or morality, it belongs solely to us.  I really
> think we have to begin to mitigate this problem and stop seeing
> ourselves as victims.
> 
> TerriB.

The idea of tax and spend may be a bad idea, but it sure is better than  
the Reagan/Bush idea of "Spend & Spend."
Xref: sparky alt.politics.italy:18 alt.revolution.counter:143 alt.uu.lang.russian.misc:45