Common sense about the tax deal

Thomas Sowell (in today's Columbus Dispatch) is irritated about the terminology used around the extension of what has come to be called the "Bush-era tax cuts."

• No one's taxes are going to be cut. The question is whether individuals, especially those who make over $250,000 per year, will get a tax increase (at the highest levels, from 36% to 39.6%).
  
• Taxes do not affect billionaires, most of whom, as Dr. Sowell points out, would still remain billionaires even if the feds taxed them at 100%.
• Extending unemployment benefits provides a disincentive to work. Human nature is to accept the benefits until they go away -- no matter how long they are given.

Here are some of Dr. Sowell's comments:

When you refrain from raising someone’s taxes, you are not “giving” them anything. Even if you were actually cutting their tax rate — which is out of the question today — you would still not be “giving” them anything, but only allowing them to keep more of what they have earned.

Is the government doing any of us a big favor by not taking even more of what we have worked for? Is it not an insult to our intelligence to say that the government is “giving” us something by not taxing it away? ...

With the government making it more expensive for employers to hire workers, and at the same time subsidizing unemployed workers longer and longer, you can have as much unemployment as you are willing to pay for, for as long as you are willing to pay for it.

As I have written repeatedly, "Federal funds" are nothing more than your tax dollars returned to you at a discount with strings attached. When will people finally wake up and realize that?

Thomas Sowell is one of the Champions of Liberty who were honored in January.