The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

Hat tip to JP Curnutt; Madras,Oregon 

Taxes and Politics   "Someone once said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. That may have been true when he said it, but today taxes are mostly the price we pay so that politicians can play Santa Claus and get reelected.

"That's not the worst of it. We may think of taxes as just a source of government revenue. But tax rates are a big political statement on the left, whether they bring in any revenue or not.

 

The truth is, tax cuts don't increase deficit  ..."Obama is a master of the plausible lie, which will never be exposed by the mainstream media — nor, apparently, by the Republicans.

"A key lie that has been repeated over and over, largely unanswered, is that President Bush's "tax cuts for the rich" cost the government so much lost tax revenue that this added to the budget deficit — so that the government cannot afford to allow the cost of letting the Bush tax rates continue for "the rich." "

 By the conservative-phobic Pat Oliphant, but he does have a point here.

Reprise: Happy New Year?  "Yet this is not just about Mitt Romney. He is only the latest in a long series of presidential candidates backed by a Republican establishment that seems convinced that ad hoc "moderation" is where it's at -- no matter how many of their ad hoc moderates get beaten by even vulnerable, unknown or discredited Democrats."

...."Some people may take solace from the fact that there are some articulate Republicans like Marco Rubio who may come forward in 2016. But with Iran going nuclear and North Korea developing missiles that can hit California, it may be too late by then."