May 5, 2008
The Denver Post on Americans’ Tax Burden
There is no holiday when it comes to taxes
Don't look now, but someone accidentally let a genuine policy disagreement erupt between the Democratic candidates.
And it's telling that the dispute exposes a fact neither candidate will admit: namely, that Americans are overtaxed.
The quarrel is about a proposed gas tax holiday, a short-term fix supported by Hillary Clinton (and, in another form, by Republican John McCain.) It is estimated the tax holiday would cost the federal Highway Trust Fund around $9 billion used to maintain roads and bridges.
Many economists consider it a terrible idea. The savings for consumers would be minimal—and even if it worked, the demand for gas would rise at the most inopportune time.
The gas tax, moreover, is one of the few levies that functions as a toll rather than flowing into some leaky pot never to be heard from again.
Barack Obama sprang to action, calling the gas tax holiday a political "scheme"—though he supported a similar "mistake" in Illinois—and the sort of unsightly pandering that "passes for leadership in Washington, phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems."
Obama is correct. And he demonstrated precisely how phony calculated ideas work by offering his very own—a bigger and better rebate plan than one signed by President Bush. In this scheme, politicians pretend they're doing you an enormous favor by handing back too little of your own money.
. . .
As the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation notes, Americans work nearly four months of the year, from Jan. 1 to April 23, just to pay off their taxes. On average, an American will pay more in taxes than they do housing, transportation, health care—or gratuitous expenses like entertainment and children. [Read the full article.]
