BCT Editorial – 3/21/08

This page was last updated on March 22, 2008.

We can’t wait; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 21, 2008.

This editorial subtitle is “Americans and their leaders must make hard choices to stave off a fiscal meltdown.”

Amongst the editorials advocating more spending for this or that, every once in a while the Times feels compelled to publish an editorial condemning fiscal irresponsibility. This is one of those editorials. I guess the editorial board must believe we have short memories and/or can’t spot inconsistency.

This “tactic” seems similar to that taken by the Times regarding the troop surge in Iraq. At the same time editorials claimed to “support” the surge, they also expressed the opinion the surge wouldn’t work. The purpose was to set up the Times to be “right” regardless of the outcome. In this case, the Times wants to increase government spending, but also wants cover when “the chickens come home to roost.”

One theme remains pretty much a constant, however. That’s a push for “increasing taxes” in the penultimate paragraph. Of course, these editorials never get around to putting our existing overall tax rate in historical context or mentioning that our overall tax rate is already near its historical high. A source frequently used by the Times, the Tax Foundation reports 2007’s overall (local, state, federal) tax rate consumed 32.7% of our paychecks, pension checks, et cetera. That makes our current tax rate 6.4 times what it was in 1907 (5.1%), 25% higher than its highest point (26.1% in 1943) during World War II, 7.6% higher than it was in 1977 (30.4%), and only 4% lower than the peak of 34% in 2000. Keep in mind these figures are taxes only. They don’t include user fees (tolls, vehicle registration, etc.), proceeds from state-run lotteries, et cetera.