When a Tax Isn’t a Tax

13 February 2006



Bush Hikes User Fees in Budget

The biggest lesson in Republican Party politics George “LBJ” Bush ever got came when his father had to backtrack on his “Read My Lips, No New Taxes” pledge. At the time, Bush the Elder cut a deal with Congress that set America up for the surpluses enjoyed by Mr. Clinton. The deal also incensed the rank and file of the GOP so much that many backed Ross Perot for President, handing Mr. Clinton the White House. So, when Mr. Bush decided to raise taxes in his latest budget, he called them user fees instead.

In the budget handed to congress last week, Mr. Bush has decided to raise $3.5 billion more in government revenue through such fees. Over the next five year, that figure swells to $47.2 billion. Congress will kill most of these ideas off because, regardless of the White House label, a person paying more for a governmental service than before can’t help but feel taxed.

Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the White House budget office, “It’s not reasonable for all Americans to bear the entire cost of government activities from which they only receive a partial benefit. User fees help match the cost of government programs to those who benefit from them.” Of such logic are bad policies made. After all, rich people don’t need food aid, so only poor people should have to pay for it. North Dakotans don’t have to worry about hurricane damage, so folks in Louisiana and Mississippi should have to pay for reconstruction themselves. Only Halliburton shareholders are benefiting from the war in Iraq, so let them pay for it (actually, that’s a rather good idea).

Fortunately, the selfishness of American corporations (the only constituency Mr. Bush truly hears) will thwart most of these. The current $2.50 fee charged to air travelers for a one-way, non-stop flight for security would rise to $5 under the new budget. The Air Transport Association, the major airlines’ trade group, is already working on killing this. With a few members in bankruptcy, the airlines argue, this isn’t the time to hike fees and make air travel less attractive. Other dead-on-arrival proposals include fees on higher-income veterans, owners of freighters using the St. Lawrence Seaway and on traders of commodity futures.

The politics of user fees are a mirror image of subsidies – where a few benefit and organize to fleece the rest. Only a few are hurt under user fees, but they are hurt enough to organize and fight them while the rest of the country probably is unaware of the program, let along how it’s funded. It may sound like socialism, but the whole country will pay for these things out of general taxes. Try as they might, the GOP can’t tax only a few of their own constituents without hearing about it, loudly.

The Danish flag appears here as a protest against the violence being done to the free press of that country and elsewhere by those offended by some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto him. A perceived insult is not an excuse for intimidation and violence, even in the name of the Creator. One cannot insult God, only small-minded men who falsely claim to speak for Him.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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