One of the more popular slurs among both the far Left and the Repubmocrat intermeddlers in today's GOP is the term "free lunch crowd." It's a slur perpetrated against people like the Club for Growth People, and Americans for Tax Reform. It's directed with particular enthusiasm against Grover Norquist and Phil Rodokanakis. It apparently is rooted in another slander, i.e., that opponents of tax hikes nevertheless want government to grow to the same degree as those applying the label (funny, isn't it, how people who normally decry the use of labels by conservatives never have a word to say to people who use this one?).
Of course, the underlying "logic" of the slur is nonsense. None of the advocates of low taxes are interested in perpetuating or growing the modern welfare state. To the contrary, most oppose it and would tear it out root and branch.
It's time to respond in kind to these slanders. Let's call the "tax-'em-'til-their-eyes-pop-out" crowd what they really are: the all-you-can-eat buffet lunch crowd.
It's a lot more accurate applied to them than "free lunch crowd" is as applied to us.
Ask someone in the all-you-can-eat buffet lunch crowd what limit he would put on the percentage of a persons income that should be seized by the government in taxes. Most likely, you won't get an answer. If you do get an answer, it will likely be far less than the actual percentage of the average taxpayers income --- more than 40% --- that is actually seized by various local, state, and federal government entities.
And why does the all-you-can-eat buffet lunch crowd support taxation unlimited conceptually? Because they apparently believe not only in a social safety net, but it a nice hammock, strung between trees rich with foliage, with a all-you-can-eat buffet only a short distance away.
UPDATE: Well, I beat Shaun Kenny to the punch by a few hours but great minds do think alike. His more expansive comment on the same subject appears under the title "'Free Lunch' Republicans vs. 'Kamikaze' Democrats." I commend it to your attention. Not bad for one of such relative youth. ;-)
3 comments:
About time someone other than me got angry about this!
Got a post on this in the works...
Well, thanks, Shaun. Such wisdom in one of such youth! ;-)
As to Mark, you apparently buy into the nonsense that tax cuts "endanger such essentials as schools and road." The problem is with your premise, which is straight out of the developer/teachers unions playbook. Of course, these groups (along with some Republicans I can think of) never suggest cutting the welfare state to pay for such "essentials," which I would agree, are more important than things like welfare, AFDC, and Medicaid. Further, they refuse to recognize that a voucher program for an amount of, say, half the per pupil expenditures for government schools would both reduce the burden on government schools and increase available funds for schools and/or roads. The real reason for union opposition to vouchers isn't concern for "education," but concern for government-controlled education, and the fact that an exodus from government schools would mean fewer dues-paying teachers' union members. Of course, recognition of these little truths is what some call "radical" or "right-wing," other popular labels that avoid the messy task of dealing with facts.
But thanks for reading!
Well, James, I read it again carefully and it still looks to me like you are passionately against the use of the "Free Lunch" moniker to describe VCG and related types. Don't see how I could be wrong about that. So what's the problem over at CC?
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