On Middle Class Idahoans

My statements on the Idaho GOP not representing the Idaho Middle Class in regards to high taxes in the state. Julie Fanselow, the dean of the Idaho leftosphere has shared it on her blog and on the Daily Kos. At the same the time, she has argued against my premises that high taxes for the middle class. So, thus she touts my conclusion while attacking the premise that leads to the conclusion.

Where I disagree with her is what the middle class needs. Certainly, we need government that does basic things for us. I’m not disputing the need for government. I’m not an anarchist.

However, neither was George Washington and he warned regarding government, “Government is not reason,  it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant, and a fearsome master.” For my tastes, politicians on both sides of the aisle are far too willing to play with fire.

The results of government action are detrimental in numerous areas. I can think of several examples at the federal level. One reason for our current obesity crisis is that we subsidize the growing of corn. Corn syrup is an ingredient in most sugary junk foods and is made cheaper to poor families because of government subsidy.

I think the Welfare system has wreaked havoc on the family by subsidizing illegitimacy, which puts children at many disadvantages in life.

The first rule for government ought to be, “Do no harm.”

Government led by bureaucrats who care more about keeping their jobs than they do actually doing the work, lead government into state of stagnation. The public sector offers far greater job security than the private sector in that we’ll continue to keep underperforming departments, programs, and priorities while in the private sector, you have to be driven to excellent. In fact, it’s a cardinal sin to point out if our schools are underperforming unless you want to drop another bucket load of money into the same programs and people that are failing miserably with what they’ve already been given.

Julie points out that Jim Risch increased the sales tax in 2006. She fails to mention in there, that he also cut properly taxes and that a lot of folks in Northern Idaho were going to lose their home. She also doesn’t mention that liberals and Idaho Education Association had an initiatative on the ballot to increase school funding by increasing the Sales Tax. The Sales Tax would have gone up regardless of what Risch did except at the end of the day, no one’s property taxes would go down.

The problem with most Democrats is that the end of the day, they believe government knows better how to spend money than you do despite common sense realization that governments are generally inefficient and incompetent. They believe you and I need the government to run an ever increasing portion of our lives, but no one counts the costs.

I actually did. I found the cost of State, Local, and Federal Governments to be more than any other expense on my budget. If it were less, there are other things I could deal far better with the other issues in my life.

We do need more government. It is truly the mantra of the Democratic Party. The icon of the Democratic Party is FDR, and Barack Obama was much the same. He was the “Great White Father” who came and saved us from starvationa and the depression (even though he didn’t, but that’s another story.) But in turning us into people, dependent on government, he got us to feel he was big, and that we were small.

Ronald Reagan on the other hand opened the door to oppotunity by slashing high tax rates, and allowing the infusion of Capitol into the economy. In the 1980s, people felt hopeful, not because the Messiah state was going to rescue them, but because the door of opportunity had been opened wide.

I think what the middle class needs in Idaho are three things:

1) Government that’s smarter, not bigger

There should be no sacred cows. Government is an onerous burden on the backs of taxpayers, and everything ought to be open to cuts, reforms, and revamping. We ought to consider outsourcing services and agencies to private businesses that might do better.  We ought to examine whether he goal should be to provide necessary services at a minimum cost.

2) First, eliminate the taxes on groceries. Second,  our 7-bracket income tax is a nightmare. I say eliminate every deduction on the form right now, increase standard deductions, and give us a 4% flat tax on corporate and individual income. This will make the tax form easier to complete and will encourage economic growth.

3) Increase Choice in Education: Bust the cap on charter schools. It’s an attempt by the IEA to avoid competition and it should be done away with. At the same time,  opportunities should be opened for parents to control the education of their children through either tax credits or scholarships to send kids to the school of the parents choice, thus opening the public schools up to competition. Education is far too important to be vested in a government monopoly.