I know [tag]Bush[/tag] and his supporters will try to spin a substantive difference between [tag]fee[/tag] increases and [tag]tax[/tag] increases, but this sounds like the latter.
If President Bush has his way, airline passengers soon will be charged more for security screenings, some veterans will pay more for health care and meatpackers will fork over more for government inspections.
It is all part of the [tag]White House[/tag]’s plan for new and higher user fees that would increase federal revenue by billions of dollars in 2007. In all, user charges — generated by services the government provides and the businesses it regulates — would bring in $243.2 billion under Bush’s 2007 budget, up from an estimated $209.1 billion this year.
“User fees help match the cost of government programs to those who benefit from them,” Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the White House budget office, told the Associated Press. About $3.5 billion of the overall increase would come from new and higher user fees, while the rest would come from revenue growth in existing charges.
Now, as a practical matter, these fee increases aren’t going anywhere — congressional Republicans have rejected the proposals out of hand.
Regardless, as I’m inclined to do when the topic comes up, I think it’s worth exploring the difference — or lack thereof — between taxes and “user fees.”
When the government requires citizens to pay money to the state to finance a government service, it’s a tax. That’s actually the definition of a tax.
I’d also add that, by Republican standards, Bush is trying to raise taxes. In 1992, when Bill Clinton was taking on the first President Bush, the Bush-Quayle campaign and the RNC released an alleged list of 128 tax increases Clinton created as governor of Arkansas. The list was painfully ridiculous and even included some taxes that were counted multiple times. As Michael Kinsley noted, the list even included “an extension of the dog-racing season, on the logic that a longer season meant more tax revenue.”
But more importantly, the Republicans’ list of 128 tax increases also included, you guessed it, any and all fee increases from the state of Arkansas during Clinton’s tenure. If the state fishing license went up one penny, Republicans insisted that counted as a tax increase. In fact, the smear on Clinton included (#92 out of the 128) a $1-per-conviction court costs fee imposed on convicted criminals. Bush and the RNC insisted that this fee — $1 on criminals — was further proof that Clinton was a serial tax-raiser.
And now this President Bush wants to raise “fees” on everything from airline tickets to medical care for veterans. Something to consider the next time Bush complains that Dems might raise taxes.