In the last few hours, California and Wisconsin have joined the parade of states raising taxes during a recession.
If making government bigger really got us out of recessions, we wouldn't be in one, would we?
Meanwhile, Sen. Kathy Stein weighs in on government incentives (from the Kentucky Kernel):
"Stein, who held a seat in the House for the 75th district for 12 years, said one of her biggest accomplishments during that time was her involvement with the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program (KCHIP)."
...
""We need to realize that unless we fund education, particularly higher education, Kentucky families can’t afford college education," she said. "We are discouraging people from behavior that we want by the legislature not supporting needs of the university.""
"Stein said she has worked closely with Todd with university issues, and she thinks he has done "an excellent job under the circumstances.""
"One of Stein’s goals is to move Kentucky away from being a state of lung cancer, heart disease and diabetes. She said studies show the best way to curve cigarette and tobacco use is by a higher taxation rate."
So let me get this straight: Stein wants to throw more money at college "affordability," a stategy that has spurred massive higher education inflation in Kentucky, and wants to raise cigarette taxes (and spend more on government health insurance) to incentivize better health habits.
This is very similar to the reasoning that now has the federal government bailing out bad mortgages after years of forcing banks to make high risk loans.
1 comment:
The issue isn't about making government bigger, but making government good. That's what our founders intended. Good government is addressed several times in the Federalist Papers, and succinctly summarized in Thomas Jefferson's statement:
"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
I realize that conflicts with your ideals and values of feudalism, divine rights (eg., "free market," "deregulation" and "government is the problem mentality."
Good government also conflicts with your values expressed by King Louis XIV of France who said: "La loi, c'est moi." Loosely translated, "I am the law."
That fits in with the views expressed by Richard Nixon (R) and generally by Bush II (R) and Cheney (R).
Rather than criticizing the tobacco tax, why aren't you promoting proportional taxation? Oh, sorry. I forgot. Those are some more American values and ideals that you loathe and detest--as do conservatives and Republicans in general.
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