People Still Think Taxes are the Problem
by John Reit (March 30, 2006)

Yesterday, I received an email a friend of mine that included a link to a website (mywireless.org) that's trying to abolish taxes on cell phone service. He sent it to all of his friends who live in Pennsylvania - a state that levies a tax of about 3% on our total cell phone bill each month. I paid my friend the courtesy of clicking the link and checking out the site. Within five minutes, this website had lost all credibility with me. Not only was it completely hypocritical, it missed the point entirely.

The fact is that this site, my friend, and probably every single person he sent it to still think that the real problem for the American citizen is taxes. It's not. Taxes are merely a symptom of what is truly bringing our country down - out-of-control spending. Whether it's on the state of federal level, our government has acquired a taste for money. Not only does it line the pockets of politicians with high salaries and posh benefits, it is an almost sure-fire way to get them elected.

Our public officials have made an absolute art out of convincing people that the services they provide aren't costing them a cent. Whether it's taking money from one person, giving it to a second or taking money from one person and giving it back to that same person through some kind of entitlement program, the citizen is convinced that he just got something for nothing. And he's more than happy to reward that generous "representative of the people" by keeping him in office for many years to come.

Like most voters, that person doesn't understand that the government actually has no money, and that their only source of revenue is the American taxpayer. They are equally unaware that even in the first scenario mentioned above, everyone gets hurt. When government takes money from one person (let's say a millionaire) and gives it to someone else (let's say a poor person), you've just hurt not only these two people, but American society, as well. The money taken from the millionaire is money that he won't invest or won't use to start his own business. The effect of either is that jobs are not created. That not only hurts the poor person who cannot earn a steady income or acquire a sense of pride, it hurts others who will not have a job because there is now less money to invest in the economy. We've thrown that money at the poor person and hope that he will use it wisely.

This ignorance to what really happens through excessive spending and taxation has provided an addiction that politicians cannot seem to kick. These shysters understand that the average American is only interested in what's in it for them. After seeing how voters salivate every time the entitlement bell is rung, they can't wait for their next opportunity to ring it. The rub is that the "something" does not come at a cost of "nothing." "Something" must be paid for. And the only way to pay for it is through taxation.

Because we've become so used to the entitlement mentality and so blind to what it takes to pay for it, websites like mywireless.org are born. It shows how shocked and angered we become when the government levies taxes on goods and services we use every day. How dare they try to pay for the programs we've demanded from them!?! That's when we get angry. That's when we create sites like mywireless.org. A grassroots movement is then started to abolish the offending tax. And when enough voters bitch and moan to their representatives about the tax, they'll probably get it repealed.

Then they think that's the end of it. Because most people don't understand the motives behind the cell phone tax, they believe they have won a small victory when it's abolished.

But the government still needs their money. If politicians didn't spend as much money as they do, there would be no need for a cell phone tax in the first place. Yet in this case, no one has demanded that the government change its behavior. They simply demanded that it change the way it acquires money to pay for its behavior.

When the cell phone tax is abolished, government will simply find something else to tax. Perhaps it'll be your liquor, cigarettes, or maybe they'll raise your sales tax. Just look at Governor "raising taxes is not on my agenda" Corzine in New Jersey. Johnny Boy has no qualms about where his priorities are. He's not changing the behavior of government. He's simply changing things in a way that will bring in the appropriate revenue to pay for it.

There's simply no point in abolishing these taxes we find so offensive. Until we realize that big government is the real problem, we're just spinning our wheels.

Oh. And just to show you how much we don't understand this - mywireless.org has a section in which they laud the passage of a federal bill to make digital format the broadcast standard by 2009. Personally, I would think that a website that is so angry about a cell phone tax, would be equally angry about a bill that makes it mandatory for Americans to switch to digital television by a certain time. You are either for big government or against it. You cannot protest one behavior of big government, and then praise another.

The bill provides subsidies to "poor" people who cannot afford digital converter boxes. I'd like the founders of mywireless.org to tell me how the government intends to pay for these boxes... maybe a cell phone tax?