🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <APC&1'0'5765fb62'92a@igc.apc.org> Tom Gray
<tomgray@igc.apc.org> writes:

> One thing I think you should add, though, is that taxes on pollution
> should be used to reduce personal income taxes.  I think people will be
> much more open to the concept of environmental taxes if the revenue is
> used to lower other taxes.  This frees the debate from the traditional
> criticism that environmentalists are big-government, tax-and-spend
> liberals and allows people to focus more on the merits.

You seem to be under a misapprehension about the way things are 
done, here in the ``Land of the Fee, and the Home of the Slave:'' 
=ALL= revenues =MUST= go into the ``General Fund'' =BY LAW=.  
It is =ILLEGAL= to designate =WHERE= revenues raised by a given tax
shall be spent.  In fact, it is =ILLEGAL= even for Gov't agencies 
to accept a =DONATION= to a specific program; they must turn over
such donations to the Treasury Dept. --- where it will be placed into 
(you guessed it!) the General Fund.

As for politicians actually using a ``new'' source of revenue to
=TRULY= reduce a given tax --- I challenge you to name three examples
in the history of the USA where this was =ACTUALLY= done (as opposed
to being verbally promised in campaign or congressional-floor rhetoric).
Politicians =NEVER= lower net taxes --- at best, they only lower the tax
=GROWTH-RATE=.


I would not be =NEARLY= as opposed to such taxes if the money that
went into the ``Highway Trust Fund'' actually =went= to highways;
Such a ``user fee''  would be a reasonable and ethical thing to do.

But the sad reality is, the Highway Trust Fund is just as bankrupt
as the Social-Security Trust Fund is, and for the same reason:
because Congress and the various Administrations (both Republicrat
=and= Demagogue) have exploited legal loopholes to allow the US
Gov't to ``loan'' every last extorted cent of these funds to itself.
Both ``trust funds'' are examples of the largest ``Ponzi scams''
ever run in the history of the world... :-(  The only reason 
these facts are not =glaringly= obvious is the Gov't's steadfast
refusal to use Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, and to
go to double-entry rather than single-entry bookkeeping; it allows 
the Gov't to convert debits into credits via ``smoke and mirrors,''
such as the Treasury Secretary has been using for over half a year,
now... :-(

As Vernon Tyler so aptly put it: ``=NEVER= trust a politician with
a fund...'' :-(


Gordon D. Pusch                     |  Internet: <pusch@mcs.anl.gov>
Math and C.S. Div., Bldg.203/C254   |  FAX:      (708) 252-5986
Argonne National Laboratory         |  Phone:    (708) 252-3843
9700 South Cass Ave.                |  
Argonne, IL  USA  60439-4844        |  http://www.mcs.anl.gov/people/pusch/

But I don't speak for ANL or the DOE, and they *sure* don't speak for =ME=...