AdmrlLocke wrote: > The farmer felt no compunction at all about complaining that while under the income tax system he pays no tax, under a sales tax he'd pay a hefty tax. He pays nothing and he thinks he's entitled to pay nothing while everyone else pays something.)
This kind of rhetoric never seizes to amaze me. Why do people get away with it? Here in Denmark, we often hear similar rhetoric on welfare benefits. If someone in the media is advocating a reduction (or more likely, advocating a lower increase) in welfare benefits, the interviewer will gladly turn to someone, who will say: “I actually receive welfare benefits, and I think they are too low”. That’s it – end of discussion!! The general feeling is: “Well, this guy actually receives benefits, so he’s gotta be the expert, right?” – “on the other hand, the idiot who proposed the cut (lower increase) doesn’t receive them, so who is he to say anything about how high they should be…” Whenever the similar line of argumentation is presented in tax matters: “Hey, let’s ask the top income earners whether they think rates are too high” (63 percent at the moment here) – the opinion of such “fascist pigs” is dismissed out of hand as biased… Is this experience shared by people outside the Scandinavian countries? – how about the US? sorry if this is off-topic Jacob Braestrup Danish Taxpayers Association
