Indoctrination Of Our Students To Favor Tax Increases And Bad Tax Policies

Posted: 9/28/2014

Trigger

Just read “How textbooks are biased toward favoring tax hikes”. This short article is about a study by three economists on how economic textbooks misrepresent the burdens of taxation. In the abstract of this study we read “Most estimates find that raising a dollar of tax revenue costs much more than a dollar. ” (emphasis added).

Indoctrination And Fooling All The Time

The bias toward favoring tax hikes and more government expenditures goes far beyond economic textbooks. What do e.g. high school students learn about this?

What do many citizens say when asked about taxes: Yes, they complain about too high, too complicated etc., but most kind of agree that government needs revenues and that certain government services are necessary. Does the average citizen have any idea how expensive, complex, and how burdensome taxes and tax collection are? I doubt it.

How much do average citizens know about taxation principles? Why do e.g. citizens not question more intensely so called sin taxes, or estate taxes, or the side by side of income and sales taxes, or tax expenditures and much more.

Supposedly, Abraham Lincoln once said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time” (emphasis added; Lincoln probably never said this, but anyway). Unfortunately, when it comes to taxes, basically all of the people are fooled all of the time.