Posted by
Patrick Henry on Monday, April 18, 2011 5:01:51 PM
Barack Obama has given Orwellian "doublespeak" a whole new lease on life. He can't talk publicly
about the tax increases he favors and passionately believes in, because he knows that both the public
and his political opponents will tar and feather him. Thus his new favorite expression: tax expenditures.
Now the term "tax expenditure" is not easy to grasp, because in order to "expend" something, you have
to own it. Obama uses the term to refer to money he does not collect in taxes that then "costs" government
because he does not have the uncollected funds to spend. Thus, in Obama's mind, keeping the Bush tax
cuts was a congressional decision to "spend" what the government otherwise would have seized.
Of course, the premise upon which such faulty reasoning is based, is both obvious and preposterous. The
term, and its corollary usage by the president, can only hold so long as we assume that the provision of
the constitution authorizing congress to levy taxes means that the tax may include all income. Then, since,
everything belongs to the government unless otherwise provided for, the government "expends" money,
i.e., gives you a handout of however much of the money you've earned government decides it doesn't
need. This is the best a so-called professor of constitutional law can do?
The problem is that the assumption is false on its face. Government administers, yes even survives by
the consent of the governed. How long do you suppose a government or president could contine to
govern if he directly argued that everything you earn and have belongs to the government? Or try finding
one citation from a REAL constitutional scholar construing the tax authority amendment as legal claim to
all income. (Hint: don't spend too much time on that, because it doesn't exist).
Governments, like citizens, can only expend that which belongs to them. Income in excess of taxes
prescribed by law and incorporated into Internal Revenue Service codes, does not in any way, shape or
form belong to the government. Therefore, the government cannot in any way, shape or form "expend"
them. Simply deigning to allow you to keep a percentage of what you have earned is hardly largesse. The
fairness of that percentage is what is continually haggled about in congress.
What is troubling in the president's continual usage of the term is the totalitarian nature of his under-
standing of government rights. In Marxist communism, the concept of private property is forbidden. Every-
thing belongs to the collective, i.e., the government. If Obama seriously wants to argue that he owns all
that you earn, and generously "expends" some of it by allowing you to keep it, then he has admitted to
embracing Marxism's most basic principle. Further, governmental changes are brought about in just such
a way, first the terminology, then the reality itself. If Obama gets away with his Marxist-speak long enough,
the assumption that government has rightful claim to all that is yours takes one giant step closer to becoming
reality.
Obama's redistribution welfare state is a tax expenditure. The crony capitalism by which he regularly
rewards his political supporters is a tax expenditure. In such cases he takes tax monies lawfully levied and
collected and gives them willy-nilly to private individuals and corporations he favors. But allowing you
to keep a percentage of what you earn simply by not raising taxes to confiscate it is NOT a tax expenditure.
It is an elaborate lie contrived by the most disingenuous president ever to sit in the Oval Office.
Just remember that every time you hear the words, the realization of the ideal is in his mind.