Winds of Change.NET: My Intellectual Betters...

March 21, 2008

My Intellectual Betters...

by Armed Liberal at March 21, 2008 4:17 PM

...amaze me with their Wiley Coyote Super-Genius brainpower yet again.

Over at the serious academic Thom Brooks 'Brooks Blog', we get this gem: "Is promising tax cuts tantamount to bribery?," which explains:

. . . and so we learn that the Tories are not promising tax cuts before the next election. (Details here.) This tendency of politicians to even discuss tax cuts as a major election issue has always troubled me. Now I think I know a bit more why.
It is wrong for politicians to bribe the electorate. They cannot pay for our votes. Of course, the expenditure of large sums of cash on advertisement, etc. can have positive effects in general (although not always). But spending money on tv ads in no way is like bribery.
When politicians promise tax cuts, they are promising the electorate that if they vote for the politician, then they can expect extra money in their pocket. We might call this indirect bribery. Direct bribery is when politicians pay you directly from their coffers for your vote. This is illegal in an obvious sense. Indirect bribery is different. Rather than pay voters from the party's accounts, the party pays back voters from the treasury.

Promises to, say raise teachers' salaries, on the other hand...he's OK with that:

There is at least one major qualification in all of this. Of course, the public has a right to know how politicians and parties might spend public money if elected.

This is, of course, beyond ridiculous. Politicians make promises of benefits all the time; they discuss zoning plans which may increase or decrease the value of my home; they discuss tax policy that may leave more money in my pocket, or advantage or disadvantage my industry.

Sheesh.

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Comments

#1 from Treefrog at 5:41 pm on Mar 21, 2008

Gotta love the implied belief that government is entitled to 100% of our output, such that not taking some of it somehow equals giving us something.

Here peasant, I have changed my mind, instead of taking the cow, the pig, all the chickens, and your daughter, I'll leave you the chickens. You may now lick my boots in gratitude...

#2 from bgates at 7:12 pm on Mar 21, 2008

You know, I've run into people who really think that way: the government prints the currency, the currency is intrinsically valuable, the government allows the people to have some currency, so it can take the currency back whenever it wants.
I see at least 3 problems with that.

#3 from Thom Brooks at 8:05 pm on Apr 21, 2008

I disagree with your analysis of my short post on the following grounds:

(1) I nowhere state that it is acceptable (or unacceptable) to raise taxes to improve the salaries of teachers. In fact, nothing I say commits to the view you attribute to me.

(2) Nowhere do I argue that the state has any right to expect full output from its citizens or anything of the kind. Instead, my point is simply that promising tax cuts ahead of elections can be viewed as trying to bribe the electorate. As you will no doubt note, I do not then say -- despite its appearance as bribery -- that politicians should not cut taxes before elections.

Therefore, nothing in my post is refuted by the post above nor the following comments. Moreover, I find it incredible that you would assume that because I am an academic I therefore belong to a particular left wing ideology: this is one assumption too far.