"Tax Cuts or Tax Shifts?"
I'm sorry to go on about this, but after being accused of being a "tax and spend" liberal, I just heard Senator Obama repeat the very dangerous right-wing frame for tax shifts; 'tax cut'
The problem is that we assume that people understand that deficits are related to tax cuts. Middle America does not understand this at all. Here are the details:
When we accept the Republican and media phrases 'tax cuts' or 'tax relief', we demonstrate both our ignorance of financial reality and our submissiveness to GWB-FOX framing. In reality these are tax shifts are a direct theft from the American people. Lets make a real effort to avoid repeating these phrases. I sincerely believe this is the most mis-understood issue in presidential politics today.
Simply put, It's not a "tax cut" or "tax relief" if you have to pay it back! Much better to call it a tax shift.
Imagine being able engage in a dialog like this:
Q - Sen Obama why are you opposed to tax cuts? Don't we already pay too much in taxes?
A- Well Chris, I don't support republican tax cuts because we have to borrow money to pay for them. Do you give yourself a 'price cut' when you charge a nice dinner to your credit card?
Q - well, no not not really
A - yes eventually you had to pay back the credit card company for the full price of the dinner plus interest, right
Q - yes
A- It's exactly the same with tax cuts since we borrow money to pay for them. That's why I call this a tax shift, not a tax cut. Lowering taxes with borrowed money simply shifts the taxes to the future. It's shifting taxes from today to tomorrow.
Q - But tax cuts rev up the economy so they pay for themselves.
A- That theory sounds good, but do you really believe that you can borrow money without having to pay it back? To be honest it's salesman talk. The republicans and the banks are selling you a 'tax cut', which you have to pay back plus interest. Are you really that gullible to think that you can borrow money without having to pay it back?
Q- Well almost all the taxes are paid for by the wealthy anyway so what do poor democrats care?
A- Actually that's not true. When you look at who pays taxes, the poor, middle class and wealthy pay about the same rate. It's true that the wealthy pay most of the income tax, but that's because the wealthy make most of the income. What is suprising about that? But income tax is only a part of all the taxes we collect.
It's simply unfair and insulting to working Americans to claim that they don't pay their share. If you also look at sales tax, medicare tax ,social security tax, unemployment tax, and gas taxes, you will see that the middle and lower income and retired Americans actually spend a large percentage of their income on taxes.
A few references on tax cuts
What Tax Cut?
The Great Tax Shift
Obama urges middle class tax cut