Posted by
Glen Albrethsen on Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:31:05 PM
You know what?
I'm going to start calling anything I pay money for a tax.
Given the fact that a non-broad based governmental fee is also a tax, then surely everything else I pay for is also a tax.
I think I a have case, given the fact that virtually any product I could purchase, from fast food to gasoline, to energy to power my home is embedded with all kinds of fees and taxes. Why? Because all of those taxes and fees assessed to the companies from which I buy these things are passed right on to me, the consumer.
So, let's just drop the formalities. Everything you use money for now is tax.
Anyone who might find that to be at least a slight exaggeration will no doubt be heartened by the fact that calling everything a tax is not my point.
Here it is: fees are more closely like the cost of a product than they are like taxes.
When we interact with a business, say a carpet cleaning service, we pay a fee. Now, if I hire the cleaners, my neighbor next door can rest assured that, unless he hires the cleaner, that he will not be paying for a service he doesn't receive.
Likewise, if he goes to get his car fixed, I won't be called upon to help pay the mechanic, or worse yet, pay an equal amount for nothing.
These fees that government agencies pay are, by and large, revenue that a specific agency will use towards its own operation. There may well be exceptions to that rule, but my understanding is, agencies are given so much from a state budget and then the fees they charge help to round out the expenses.
Mitt Romney was challenged by John McCain at last night's debate about raising taxes in Massachusetts. Romney quickly answered with what they actually did, which was to raise fees. He even went to the pains of describing these fees as ones which were not broad based--such as driver license fees. Even if he hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered. While anyone who wants to operate a motorized vehicle would have to pay, they are still paying for a specific service.
Taxes, on the other hand, including the embedded taxes in the goods and services we buy from for profit companies, don't go to anything specific. None of us know exactly where our dollars are going as far as taxes are concerned, and none of us have any say over where they go or how much is spent on that.
I think that's the biggest issue with taxes. You don't have any idea what it's going to do. And, if you don't see much return on your money in addition, it makes it worse.
Granted, fees from a government service will always be viewed in a different way than fees charged by a private company. Not sure exactly why that is, other than how people feel towards paying taxes. Anyone who might complain about the costs of goods and services paid from companies may be raging against the other side of the same coin--no one likes to spend a lot of money for anything. The fact of the matter is, with exceptions of excess, there are operating expenses and embedded taxes to pay, and a profit to try to eke out.
So, state fees, broad based or not, are not taxes. If you don't seek the service, you don't pay. Taxes, you don't have to seek. Like death, they find you.
There's a big difference. If government ran solely off of fees for service, then we would see really quickly what people valued and what they didn't, and our value system would take on a whole different look in this society of excess and extremes. And we would have less government if fees were the sole source of it.