Comments: Senators Are Outraged! New Billionaire Saverin was insufficiently grateful.
Language controls not only the narrative, it contols what you can think about.
If a "fair" tax for a man who makes $50,000 were thought to be $5,000, a fair tax for a man making a billion dollars would be...$5,000. A progressive tax for the man making one billion dollars would be...100 million. Not 30, or 50, or 75 percent--as as the new French president proposes.
The principle of no taxation without representation has been turned on it's head. Representative democracy represents envy, sloth, and greed. Edmund Burke--The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
Posted by james wilson at May 19, 2012 10:12 AM
Pournelle assumes that, in the Senators' minds, there is a linkage between monies appropriated and monies spent -- that, once revenue has been raised, it can be spent. Furthermore, that raising revenue is the true purpose of taxation in this day and age.
Would that either were true.
M
Posted by Mark Alger at May 19, 2012 3:13 PM