The US government is now awash in revenue, owing to the economic boom that has dramatically enlarged the pie on which the state can gorge itself. And yet the Clinton administration not only refuses to curb the rates, even a smidgeon, but it wants to trade some higher taxes for a few more targeted loopholes. Meanwhile, the GOP is promising-yet again-to cut taxes. But like Lucy with the football, no one believes it any more.
The good news that tax audits and property seizures are down obscures a more important point: by slow degrees, step by step, the tax man in America has gained total control over everyone's economic life.
Statism has so permeated our culture that even the games we play reflect the popular belief in omnipotent government. For example, one of the most successful computer games of all time is the SimCity series, which requires the player to plan a city in exhaustive detail from uninhabited terrain. Over five million copies of the game have been sold, and each version to date has reflected a government-centered view of the world.
OPEC is restricting production, but it's domestic taxes and regulations that keep gas and oil prices high.
We could have another on our hands if the bureaucrats get involved in regulating prices again.
If you want your phone number unlisted, you have to pay for the privilege--a typical bureaucratic inversion of the prevailing market rule.
In the last several decades, step by step, the system has become Diocletianized.
That Nasa is a boondoggle and a socio-economic drain should be obvious to all. How does this bureaucracy continue to get away with it?
A common misconception in popular thinking about business is that companies need to be helped along and supported by government. If a community fails to help business, it is said, it will miss out on jobs and prosperity. We see this happening across the country. Cities use public funds to build sports stadiums and arenas. States issue bonds and provide tax incentives to large corporations to entice them to locate in specific areas. Politicians then turn to the community and campaign for reelection based on bringing home the corporate bacon. This legal plunder is disguised as "urban renewal" or "community development."
Only 1 in 10 taxpayers are willing to send money to the presidential election fund. What does that tell us, asks Lew Rockwell, about public sentiment concerning government?
