 clipped from pajamasmedia.comJerry Pournelle: “The tax cut provisions of the ’stimulus bill’ seem aimed at solidifying party control: most of it is transfer payments to people who don’t now pay taxes. In the US 40% don’t pay federal taxes. If any large number of those are given money as transfer payments they will learn to rely on them. At which point they will be motivated to vote. And community organizers will see that they do vote. Now understand: many of those who get negative income taxes do necessary work and they aren’t very well paid. The question becomes, is that a federal problem, and should it be dealt with by transfer payments? Because once this is instituted, it’s going to be pretty permanent. Those affected by it will be mobilized to defend it, and it will mean more to them than it does to those opposed. So it goes.” |
"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." --Jesus
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious" --George Orwell
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." --F. Scott Fitzgerald