Are you a hypocritical jerk?
If you haven’t considered that possibility, you should. If it turns out you’re an obnoxious hypocrite, people may be talking about you behind your back and plotting to steal your credit card information.
Wait, that’s if you’re a paranoid jerk.
If you’re the sort of jerk who’s willing to sacrifice your principles for expediency, people are more likely to tell you to your face or – if they’re less courageous – in a political column. Which doesn’t mean they’re not stealing your credit card info. It just means they’re doing it because they don’t like stinking hypocrites.
To clear up any confusion, here’s a simple quiz that reveals how much of a fraud you are.
1. Do you support Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s budget plan to expand and raise the state sales tax and use the revenue to reduce the income tax and eliminate the estate tax?
2. Did you support a similar proposal passed by legislative Democrats in 2009 that was overwhelmingly repealed by a GOP-led People’s Veto campaign in 2010?
3. Did you back another such measure put forward in 2013 by a group of moderate legislators called the “Gang of 11” to reduce taxes on income and increase them on consumption?
Here’s how to interpret the results. If you answered “yes” to all three questions, you’re not a hypocrite. You’ve displayed a consistent, nonpartisan belief in reforming Maine’s tax structure. Strangely, if you answered “no” to every question, you’re also not a hypocrite. You’re standing firm for a revenue system that, despite its flaws, has the advantage of … um … well, I can’t think of any, off hand. So you’re an idiot, but that’s still better than being a weasel.
In both cases, you’re almost certainly not an elected official. Because nearly all of them (including LePage) would have to admit they backed at least one of these ideas while opposing the others. In other words, they made their decisions based not on the merits of the plans (which are similar), but on edicts from political bosses.
This isn’t the first time tax reform has been derailed by hypocrisy. In the 1980s, Republicans favored shifting the tax burden from levies on income to surcharges on sales. Democrats were opposed. By the turn of the century, the two sides had switched positions, not so much for ideological reasons as because if one party was for it, the other felt obligated to be against it.
LePage’s version of tax reform is more honest than the Democrats’ 2009 effort and more comprehensive than the Gang of 11’s nonstarter two years ago. Both those proposals claimed to be revenue neutral – although the Dem plan actually resulted in a tax hike. The LePage initiative promises $275 million in tax cuts, but a lot of them won’t show up for years. The Dems (specifically then-Gov. John Baldacci) made deals with special interests such as lawyers and the ski industry that resulted in lawsuits and lift tickets maintaining their tax exemptions. LePage wants to slap a sales tax on legal services and leisure activities across the board. The Gang – aware that angry voters not only shot down the Democrats’ tax bill, but also threw many of its prominent supporters out of office – hesitated to meddle with income tax deductions, such as the one for home-mortgage interest. LePage, unconcerned about re-election, wants to do away with that tax break and others.
In short, LePage’s plan is more daring and thorough than its predecessors. Anybody who backed those flawed efforts should be wildly enthusiastic about what the governor wants to do.
So how come nobody is?
For Democrats, it’s a chronic inability to agree with LePage on anything, a failing due mostly to the governor’s crude personal style. Legislative insiders say that as the session wears on, the donkey party may quietly support his tax plan, always being careful to use LePage’s substantial bulk as cover. That way, they could end up with much of what they hoped to accomplish back in ’09, minus the political backlash of ‘10.
For Republicans, it’s more complicated. Lots of them got elected solely because they opposed the Dems’ plan. Lots of them have a visceral aversion to anything remotely resembling a tax increase. Lots of them feel betrayed by LePage, but lack the guts to openly oppose him. They’re looking for someplace to hide until this thing blows over.
As a result, nearly everyone in Augusta is practicing hypocrisy like they’re planning to try out for the Olympic hypocrisy team. The one political figure who hasn’t succumbed is nowhere near the state capital. Charlie Webster, former state chairman of the GOP and the leader of the 2010 repeal effort, is back repairing furnaces in Farmington. In an interview with the Associated Press, Webster said LePage has launched an “attack on the very people” that brought Republicans to power.
We should test Webster’s blood for antibodies against hypocrisy. And for the bacteria that causes cluelessness.
If reading this was too taxing, complain by emailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Well Al,,
Good Article all the way around.
What’s not to “like”..
A slap in the face for all the retirees living on a fixed income who pay no income tax who voted for LePage, but I’ll take it over Michaud.
I have a hard time supporting anything LePage is pushing , anything that is good for the republicans is bad for the other 99% of us
I guess according to Al I’m an idiot (though at least not a weasel). Nobody has ever explained to me what’s supposed to be good about favoring sales taxes over income taxes. I was taught long ago that this favors the rich over the poor: sales taxes generally take a bigger percentage of poor people’s income than of rich people’s, while income taxes generally have the opposite effect. If this was ever refuted, I never heard about it; I’m guessing more likely it’s simply become fashionable to forget it. Al writes as if he’d never heard of the idea.
I’ve also never found out why the two parties switched positions on this topic. Al’s explanation (“not so much for ideological reasons as because if one party was for it, the other felt obligated to be against it”) doesn’t explain anything because they were already opposed to each other before swapping positions.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/soaking-poor-state-state
Well written piece. having been a member of the “gang” and voting against ld1495. I will just confess my hypocrisy right of the bat. Now that I have completed that time in Al’s confessional I shall attempt to explain. I was very new in 09 and in hindsight I regretted not being able to get a deal done on tax reform. In fact I have said many times it is my single biggest failure. had LD1495 been in my second or third term I do believe I would have had the chance to be more successful.
Al is quite right that this is more problematic for republicans and many did in fact win elections solely on this issue alone. I regularly talk to many of them who are keeping a low profile. As to it being more honest than the other plans there certainly is some truth to that. I know that as a member gang of 11 I would have done some things different but I did come to believe that any attempt had to be bi partisan. I also wanted the governors office to be on board and met with him on 3 occasions about it. It was clear from those meetings that conceptually he was not opposed to the plan but timing and neutrality were his issues.
The major difference here is that this is part of the budget not a stand alone bill. It will need 2/rds to pass and because it has 2/3rds it goes into effect without the 90 day wait making repeal virtually impossible. The governor has put both parties on notice with this and he is in the drivers seat that cannot be said of either LD 1495 or the gangs tax reform bills.
What will be funny to watch is that if this passes the next election cycle will see both parties use it against vulnerable members. Might save them some money as they could get a bi-partisan discount at some of the mail warehouses and merely change the names on one side. Such is the nature of my hypocritical occupation.
A hike in sales tax hurts the low-income person as it demands a higher percentage of his income. The people with higher income are much less affected. What’s so hard to understand about this?
Is the plan to specify that the increased sales tax will be ‘seasonal’ and applied to “tourist-related” spending?
Or doesn’t it matter to the LePage administration?
Tad pole,
I had no idea the welfare rate stood at 99% of the population here. Doesn’t surprise me though.
Per Teddy Roosevelt: “I believe there should be a very much heavier progressive tax on large incomes; a tax which should increase in a very marked fashion for the gigantic incomes.”
When Reagan went into office the top rate was 95%; he dropped it to 28% and the economy collapsed. Remember that?
If there is to be a sales tax, it should be applied evenly, fairly and uniformly. Maine’s current sales tax makes little sense, it reflects who was best able to lobby the legislature and Governor’s office.
Linking the state budget to sales of goods and services makes it vulnerable to changes in markets and market conditions. Gas goes up- people find ways to use less. The economy does a downturn- people hold off on buying new cars, houses, furniture.
But- often times- the stuff that people should cut back on first when time s get tough- is usually the last to go. Snack foods,soft drinks, lottery tickets, tobacco products and beer. So, sales tax keeps on working, on some products, no matter what. A sales tax isn’t so much about taxing the poor as it is taxing the foolish.
On the other hand, depending on income tax, means depending on a population that for many in this state live in poverty. Another harsh reality, that nearly everyone likes to avoid talking about is that a good deal of the economy, esp. the rural economy, isn’t even reported. Lots of cash deals, trades, swaps, and under the table transactions- living as single parents instead of marrying- to avoid reporting income and to qualify for benefits. It’s as much a Maine tradition as lobster and blueberry pie.
If the republicans want to get a piece of that action, reducing government isn’t going to help.
Sales tax. income tax, property tax, excise tax, gas tax, etc. What about SPENDING!!!! Shuffle the income deck any way you like, we need to cut government spending.
No, Elmira, I don’t remember that. Perhaps you’re reading from an early edition of Common Core history. If Reagan caused a collapse, we should do it again. That collapse felt pretty darn good compared to what we have now.
Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record
Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years.
Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years.
Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency.
wikipedia on supply-side economics: “Some contemporary economists do not consider supply-side economics a tenable economic theory, with Alan Blinder calling it an “ill-fated” and perhaps “silly” school on the pages of a 2006 textbook.[26] Greg Mankiw, former chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, offered similarly sharp criticism of the school in the early editions of his introductory economics textbook.[27] In a 1992 article for the Harvard International Review, James Tobin wrote, “[The] idea that tax cuts would actually increase revenues turned out to deserve the ridicule…“[28]
The extreme promises of supply-side economics did not materialize. President Reagan argued that because of the effect depicted in the Laffer curve, the government could maintain expenditures, cut tax rates, and balance the budget. This was not the case. Government revenues fell sharply from levels that would have been realized without the tax cuts.
– Karl Case & Ray Fair, Principles of Economics (2007), p. 695.[29].”
@frostproof: It’s a good idea to cite the basis of your reference. Your supply-side info comes directly from a piece by the Cato institute (a libertarian think tank founded in part by Charles Koch of Koch Industries. And we all know the Koch brothers are trying mightily to re-write
history by buying all the elections. They have lost the last two presidential races and will repeat that loss in 2016. But, hey, they have money to burn apparently.
You can trot out Wikipedia experts all day long, but you can’t change history. During my adult life, every time income taxes were reduced significantly (JFK & RWR, especially), federal revenues surged. There are plenty of people who dislike that history, because it doesn’t blend well at all with the agenda they have for our future.
WIKI is an acronym for What I Know Is. In my case, I wasn’t out of work even one day from 1981 until I retired in 2010. My income rose steadily over that period. It’s a good thing it did, because I was expected to pay for something else that rose steadily – the size of the entitlement class. I admit things got shaky toward the end of that time due to war and recession, and shakier still with you-know-who’s ascension to the throne. If your experience during that time was different, here’s how to find the person responsible: Look in a mirror.
There’s something else that’s even more reliable than tax-cut=revenue-increase. The best way to guarantee that something happens again is to pretend it never happened before. Keep up the good work.
“Trickle down economics” (supply-side) left the vast majority of the middle class behind. It created the economic inequality in so much evidence today.
Why? In part, because of tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs off-shore and stash money in overseas accounts.
“…we appear to have passed a tipping point, where so much wealth has been concentrated at the top, they no longer need bother to “build” anything.”
(The Guardian, 1/20/14)
Snowman,
If weren’t for all the tax cheats and deadbeat- the waste, fraud and abuse in our government programs, we probably wouldn’t have an economy. Or suffice it to say that is the economy.
everyone is punished through the tax structure.
Elmira,
When Roosevelt made that the statement the top rate was 2% and the trusts paid 0%
http://www.factandmyth.com/taxes/tax-decreases-do-not-increase-revenue
Reagan’s economic changes did a lot to increase our debt. He cut taxes, but he also hiked them, though not enough to pay for his spending. The increases in military spending – whether you agree with his rationale or not – were incredibly expensive, and they were mostly paid for by credit card.
Maintaining the national defense at such a high level is very costly. We don’t always choose the most sensible approaches to our defense needs – it’s a very political process, and one based on emotion, not science. We should be having deeper discussions about how to safely reduce that expense.
reagan conservative: (covers ears) la la la la i can’t hear you!
@always moderate: Thanks for posting this link. Very informative.
http://www.factandmyth.com/taxes/tax-decreases-do-not-increase-
“…the revenue increases following the Bush and Reagan tax cuts are dwarfed by the revenue increase following Bill Clinton’s tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. In fact, as a percentage of GDP, post-Reagan & Bush tax cut revenue falls below the 1965-2005 average.”
“What will be funny to watch is that if this passes the next election cycle will see both parties use it against vulnerable members.”
Now I know why you didn’t run last time, Lance! (Just razzing)
Btw, check out my comments on last weeks column if you haven’t already. No legislative reduction proposal other than the 2 Senators per County proposal. That surprised me, although the recent votes on those proposals were beatdowns after the near-miss in 2009.