{"id":6607,"date":"2006-02-13T14:05:31","date_gmt":"2006-02-13T19:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6607"},"modified":"2006-02-13T14:05:31","modified_gmt":"2006-02-13T19:05:31","slug":"a-tax-by-any-other-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-tax-by-any-other-name\/","title":{"rendered":"A tax by any other name…"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there’s one thing all political observers know for sure, it’s that Bush opposes any and all tax increases, right? Well, it depends<\/a> on what the meaning of “tax” is.<\/p>\n

President Bush hates new taxes, that’s for sure. But tell that to airline passengers, higher-income veterans and owners of freighters using the St. Lawrence Seaway. They are among those hit up for billions of dollars under his new budget plan.<\/p>\n

The spending proposal for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 contains $3.5 billion in new user fees. Typically branded as new taxes by those who have to pay them, these fees are intended to hold down the public’s cost for programs such as airline screening, medical care for veterans and military retirees, food inspection and oversight of commodities markets.<\/p>\n

The fees would swell to $47.2 billion over five years, dunning taxpayers and industry to help pay for government services.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The White House argues these aren’t tax increases; they’re “user-fee” increases. What’s the difference? Well, one sounds more politically palatable.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but 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<\/i> of a tax.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and even included some taxes that were counted multiple times. As Michael Kinsley noted<\/a>, the list even included “an extension of the dog-racing season, on the logic that a longer season meant more tax revenue.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And now this President Bush wants to raise “fees” on everything from airline tickets to medical care for veterans.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Congress is staunchly opposed to the increases, and Bush’s proposals have been described as “dead on arrival<\/a>.” But prospects aside, isn’t it fair to characterize the White House budget as full of “tax increases”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there’s one thing all political observers know for sure, it’s that Bush opposes any and all tax increases, right? Well, it depends on what the meaning of “tax” is. President Bush hates new taxes, that’s for sure. But tell that to airline passengers, higher-income veterans and owners of freighters using the St. Lawrence Seaway. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}