New York Times Columnist strikes some as a faux-conservative, or a moderate who believes in some government intervention.
His piece on the larger yet hidden welfare state in the United States raises eyebrows, questions, and the credibility of this columnist.
Tax breaks as indirect welfare payments is a novel way of exposing the subsidies that favor certain industries over others in this country.
Brooks explains the hidden welfare state in Washington. Big Government wants to extend a significant contract to a munitions plant, for example. Instead of writing a check to the corporation for a sumptuous amount, Congress writes out a rich tax credit to the company. The firm will get paid through a credit, the country will get more planes, trains, automobiles, and then legislators can claim that they have enacted a tax cut and helped private businesses.
But there is no such thing as a free lunch. If the money did not come right out of the US Treasury, it certainly eats a huge whole in the annual budget, deepens the deficit, and explodes the national debt.
Worst of all, the intervention with public funds has distorted the market, cutting out competition and efficiency, both hallmark effects of competition through private enterprise. While Europeans hand money directly to individuals, municipalities, and businesses, Washington covers up the waste as a tax credit or a write-off.
Like Ronald Reagan in the early 1980's and George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, presidents love cutting taxes, but they neglect to cut spending, and they pick and choose which corporate interests receive a rake-off from the IRS. The spending still picks up, the value of savings erodes, and the purchasing power of the dollar diminishes all the more. As Congressman Ron Paul pointed out early in the 2012 campaign, inflation itself turns into a tax increase, another handy means for Washington to hide horrendous spending habits without owning up to the irresponsible damage they are doing to the full faith and credit of this country.
Mr. Brooks should be commended for pointing out the true, though not necessary riveting, games that politicians play with this country's fiscal future. If Tea Party patriots and limited government advocates really want to end the Fed, stop the spending, and restore fiscal sanity to the nation's economic prowess, then they must concede that select subsidies, loopholes, and generous negative incentives must be abolished. That would mean more taxes for business; that would also mean layoffs in important public sectors within communities throughout the country.
No matter how secretive the unseen U.S. welfare state, the effects on our posterity and position in the world are serious and must be dealt with seriously.
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