Article 55. Beneficial Taxes Not an Oxymoron
Taxes have always been generally thought of as bad but there really are good and bad taxes. Through foresight a state can use taxes to the betterment of the state by encouraging those things that bring long-term growth and jobs. The state can also tax those things that bring harm to the state. The converse is also true shortsightedness in using the taxing power can in the long run be damaging to the states economy and allow things to happen that are not good for the state. A flat tax no matter how unfair would rob government of one of its most important tools for influencing change within a state. Who and how a state taxes determines the direction of a state in its economy, health and education.
Consider the following example of using taxes by the state of Michigan to create jobs from Governing Magazine.
“Plan Cuts Taxes on Manufacturers
Manufacturers and other businesses would pay no personal property taxes for a year on jobs and equipment that they move to Michigan from other states under a sweeping agreement between Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Republican lawmakers to create jobs over the next decade.
MORE: Detroit Free Press”
A second example promotes health care for the uninsured in the state of Massachusetts.
The following is also from Governing Magazine.
“The Massachusetts House overwhelmingly approved a sweeping health-care bill that promises to cover nearly all the state’s 500,000 uninsured residents within three years, rejecting a Republican-led effort to scuttle the bill’s proposed payroll tax on businesses.
For more see: Boston Globe”.
This tax lays a heavy burden on manufactures in the state and will in the long run cause the loss of jobs and increasingly add to the number of people uninsured the exact opposite of what was originally intended. A better approach would be to find out what is causing health care costs to rise and attack the problem at its roots. There must be many things that can be done without killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
The power to tax and to legislate new laws if wisely done can bring enormous benefits to a state and to a nation. But consider what is happening in France. The French government was dominated by left wing politics for nearly forty years until recently. I was in Paris in the 1968 when the entire country was shut down by strikes. Garbage piled up on the streets in Paris blocking traffic. A few years ago Frances’ left wing government a coalition between the Communist and Socialist parties pushed through a 35-hour work week. When the European Union was formed the other nations refused to go along with Frances’ 35-hour workweek. The result was thousands of manufacturing companies fled France for Eastern Europe and Ireland in search of cheaper labor, low taxes and a 40-hour workweek. The present government rolled back the 35-hour week amidst sticks again shutting down the country and with unemployment at more than 9%. Now the country is reeling from riots fueled by 30% unemployment in emigrant neighborhoods in Paris as well as other parts of France. The bottom line is that taxes and other laws used improperly can destroy a state or even a nation.
