Sure it does. Any reduction in the net is a subsidy. Whether it's a cash payment or a reduction in tax liability is irrelevant. There is no difference between giving money to the gov't and them giving money to you, and you giving the gov't less money. The bottom line is the same.
The great tax wool has been pulled over some folks' eyes. The hidden magic is that the government skims it off the top and may "give" some back to you. The reality is that is was yours first, not the government's.
Well let me ask you this. Start with all the folks that get money for their subsistence from the government, and take out the old, the infirm, and anyone else who genuinely cannot earn a living wage for one reason or another, and consider who is left. What do those people cost you, personally, in actual dollars? Next, consider all the funding being cut from public education in an effort to put more money in your pocket, and think about what that is doing to that segment of the population. We cannot cost cut our way back to prosperity.
And in my humble opinion, those who have reaped huge benefits from their endeavors operating within and enabled by that infrastructure shouldn't whine about having to pay a little more out of their deep pockets to keep it going.
Never said otherwise. The problem is when an entity created to help with the good ideas takes on a life of its own and becomes a self-perpetuating monster. Ever wonder why the big computer in the movies always has an over-ride switch? It is hard to stop the beast when you give it too much authority over the ones it is supposed to be helping.
Many do not pay for those benefits but get someone else to pay for them. Kind of like the owner's kids who drive the company into ruin with all the free perks. The business can only support so much overhead.
I'm not on their side either. For instance: Public schools are a great fundamental idea. But when the schools begin to trample on some of the other goals we have, maybe it is time to limit the reach of the public schools or to redefine how they work - like we have done with charter schools.
Tax breaks ARE subsidies. The Earned Income Credit (Child credit) is a subsidy, just the same as money given to farmers, the difference being that in the case of EIC, it directly affects a single family's ability to exist or not, whereas farm subsidies may be given to corporations in addition to a family that may farm for a living. Tax rebates or credits on wind or solar projects are also subsidies. There's only a semantic difference between the government giving you a check vs. a rebate - the result is the same; you keep money you wouldn't otherwise have kept.
The bottom 50% of wage earners don't even belong to the middle class and below that line you only have the categories: blue collar, poor and poverty stricken. Only 34% of US households (one or more earners) make more than $65,000. Electricians in my area (to keep this applicable to the forum) seem to be making $15-$30 per hour, depending on whether they're union or not. I think an average wage would be about $18/hr which puts an electrician deep in the blue collar range if he's living alone, and into the poor or poverty categories if they have a family, so, with a few kids and a wife staying at home to take care of them, the child credits will easily eliminate their obligation to pay taxes and probably everything they paid in will be returned to them. This is a subsidy that benefits both the electrician who can now spend a little more on his family, and his employer who can continue to pay him a wage that really isn't enough to live on.
Very close to each other but operate using difference mechanisms.
See below. The old, the infirm, the unable to work don't make up 47% of the population.
And 53% pay 100% of income taxes.
In a July 7 said:
Well, there are studies and then there are studies; you can make statistics support any self-serving point you want to make. Here's another: 400 people in this country control more wealth than the entire economic lower 50% of the population. The solution to our fiscal mess will have to involve BOTH spending cuts and revenue increases; we cannot cost-cut our way back to prosperity. The net worth of this country has been falling steadily for decades while the net worth of people at the top income level has been increasing. Where do you think that money is coming from? You don't need a PhD in economics to figure that one out; we have been financing personal wealth for some with public debt for us all, which is "socialism" at it's twisted worst. But the one percenters' response to the rest of us is "Oh, you're just jealous." Right.
