I had a short conversation with a coworker who was talking about how all the goodies the gov is handing out are ok because they're only taxing the rich and the corporations.
After a short tangent to keep him from following the logical progression of thought (if that was even possible), I asked him if he thought it was fair for a landlord to raise rent on a tenant. He predictably answered that raising rent too much was unfair, and that the government should be able to stop them from doing that. I agreed that it was unfair, and in the case of businesses, higher rent meant more overhead, and less money for workers leading to lay-offs and decreases in benefits or pay. He agreed.
I asked him what he thought happened when the government raised the taxes and paperwork overhead for the same businesses.
You could almost hear the teeth popping off his gears as they ground to a halt.
His face was on the way to angry, but stopped in the middle, and his mouth opened to respond, but stopped half way too. I seized the opportunity,
"You know that great healthcare bill? The one about healthcare? It also changes the way companies issue 1099s, it makes it so they have to issue 1099s to any business they do more than $600 worth of business with a year. You know how many vendors we do more than $600 worth of business with a year? Our fucking paper towels and tissues probably qualify. Now accounting is going to have to figure out how much they paid every vendor for the year, figure out how to issue them 1099s, issue them, and track the tax implications of those. That takes time, money to comply with, and that's not even a direct tax."
"But they're using the money for better things than a landlord would."
"Who cares what they spend it on? A lay-off is a lay-off. It's bad for the economy and, humorously enough, bad for tax revenue."
He changed the topic (sigh) and railed on how this was Bush's fault. I know he understands the implications of these taxes, he just never connected the dots that increased overhead is increased overhead. Wherever it comes from. How short sighted can you be?
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3 comments:
I just read Atlas Shrugged for the first time. Which shows this situation drawn out to it's logical conclusion.
Kinda scary how many times I've drawn parallels between the book and real life in just the past week.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_b2P0PlTcqoY/StwFbG1lZmI/AAAAAAAAAFI/v2yQ1F7w2nc/s800/wapoobamabudget1.jpg
Have this handy and ask "What Happened in 2008 to cause Bush to spend so much more after almost getting it balanced again?"
The answer is the Dems set that year's budget.
also note that the best projection by the 0bama admin is still orders of magnitude larger than Bush's worst year.
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