Issue 255 Kill spending January 22, 2014

Yes, that is right. Spending must be killed. But how do we convince people that certain spending must be abolished in the first place? Simple, put a target on its back.

Examples on what to cut: Right now the United States subsidizes prostitutes. Yes that is correct; they give them tax breaks for breast implants, and other "equipment" and more. These tax breaks are indicative to an industry that probably should not receive any incentives in the first place. Other industries have the same kind of breaks like Mohair producers having a tax break since the civil war. Others like the singer Bon Jovi have a tax break on their property taxes because they have a farm on their property (aka a small bee farm or tiny dairy farm). As such these celebrities’ pay less in property taxes than there middle and lower class counter parts. You see, each tax break and subsidy has a face that can be put behind it. As such, outrage can be sponsored to remove such breaks from our tax code and government spending. So where am I going with this?

Target on their back: Basically by isolating a specific industry that gets these breaks libertarians (and other political groups against big government wasting our money) can garner public opinion to embarrass politicians into cutting these forms of waste out of the tax code and our federal (and even our State) budget. It is the same methods used by propagandists, but in reverse. In this case it advocates the government stopping doing something rather than doing something.

Is this moral?: That is a hard question to answer. I am sure you would agree that the aforementioned examples are all forms of wasteful spending. However, some other forms of spending like subsidizing the building of nuclear power plants, tax cuts for other types of farming and the like may be considered worthwhile to some. As such, we must examine each form of spending and see if it is actually worth the cost in comparison to cutting spending and cutting taxes as a whole. As a libertarian and other members of the community who are opposed to wasteful spending, we must be responsible in our attack on these kinds of spending. Target the most wasteful, the most useless and the most unfair first and then move on from there. So we must take our time and form our arguments more carefully when we touch such things as agricultural subsidies that go to help the poor in Africa or to aid in disaster relief as in the case of Super Storm Sandy. We have to present viable alternatives to the status quo to be successful and be on the right side of the moral high ground.

Conclusion: Yes, government spending and tax cuts for things like breast implants are bad. If we focus on them one at a time, we can eliminate them one by one by garnering community support to sponsor a protest. But, as always, we must be responsible in making such spending a target as it is key, for we must not destroy the reputations of the businesses receiving the money. Also, we must present an alternative to the tax cut or subsidy for some businesses can only continue to exist due to these government benefits (welfare). Be cautious, but be responsible in putting a target on a piece of spendings back.