Posted by
dieneces on Monday, October 27, 2008 2:36:57 PM
Recently, congressional democrats have been looking at a drastic overhaul of the retirement system; in particular, they want to do away with any tax relief for private, retirement investment (401K, IRA, etc). Proponents claim that the federal government oughtn't 'subsidize' people's private investments.
This should make every hard-working person as mad as I am for this reason: tax breaks are not a subsidy! These pinheads claim they are giving investors money because the federal government is taking it from them! This is the same line of argument used to decry the 'subsidies' to big oil and the like.
But the real fury should be reserved for the premise underpinning this argument: that you only have any money because the government allows you to keep it. Against this idea, there are too many arguments from principle and pragmatism to list.