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REVENUES WATCH. "Even though most Americans support cheaper health care and college tuition," writes Dana, "just 1 percent of us can articulate that the way to achieve these goals is to increase the revenue of the federal government. A political science professor of mine once said that a majority of American voters have a fundamental disconnect: They don't understand that taxes directly pay for services -- the services they so desperately want and need."And why might that be? Maybe because the media talks about taxes like they were tumors. Check out this graf from yesterday's New York Times article on the Massachusetts health reforms:
A poll released Wednesday by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation found that about two-thirds of Massachusetts residents surveyed supported the law, although two-thirds also think it will ultimately mean higher taxes.Can anyone justify the "although" in that sentence? It's like saying "A poll released Wednesday by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation found that about two-thirds of Massachusetts residents surveyed wanted new flat-screen TVs, although two-thirds also think it will ultimately mean paying money." Of course a new government program will require taxes. The question is whether the taxes will be worth it: Whether the services they pay for will be sufficiently valuable to the citizenry, or whether they'll offset themselves by reducing redundant spending (on health premiums, say). Taxes are just paying for things. The New York Times would never tout a new product and then say, as a deflator, that consumers were expecting to have to exchange money for this good. That they do it so offhandedly with taxes goes a ways towards explaining why American views of government revenues are so odd.--Ezra Klein
