A Question for Froma Harrop about Michael Bloomberg
In Sunday’s Projo, Froma Harrop writes approvingly about recently-turned independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg…
He started out as a Democrat but turned Republican to run for mayor. He’s governed as a friend of labor, education, the environment and surplus budgets….But if the main qualification of a Presidential candidate is a willingness to raise taxes to pay for increased government spending, then what’s truly special about Michael Bloomberg? Aren’t all of the standard-issue Democrats seeking their party’s Presidential nomination promising to raise taxes to expand government as well?
A year after 9/11, when Bloomberg raised property taxes rather than slash city services, the sclerotic right went into a war dance. Writing in the conservative City Journal, Steven Malanga accused Bloomberg of being “the defender of big government and the municipal workforce” and of committing “catastrophic errors” that would drive away businesses and rich people. The article was titled, “Bloomberg to City: Drop Dead.”
What the conservative wind-up dolls didn’t get is that taxes, wisely spent, can be an investment for the future. The devastating attacks had sent New York’s economy into a swoon, and sure, Bloomberg could have responded by laying off public workers who had kept the city’s soul together. He could have let things get shabbier.
“What the conservative wind-up dolls didn’t get is that taxes, wisely spent, can be an investment for the future.”
No Froma, what conservatives get is that taxes spent are not “investments” (in the majority of cases), but the forceable transfer of wealth and power from one group to another.
No Froma, you liberal jackass,
“Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process”.
– Ronald Reagan
or
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
– Ronald Reagan
Froma misses the point entirely. As a conservative, I believe in the need for taxes, but I question where the line is drawn between good taxation and bad taxation.
All too often, governments view tax money as its own money rather than money provided to the government by its citizens to be used on behalf of those citizens. Governments often then engage in scare tactics to frighten taxpayers so the money keeps flowing.
I immediately know that when there is talk about a reduction in tax revenue, the bureaucrats will immediately claim that the police won’t be able to arrest anyone and that fires will destroy homes.
It doesn’t matter how much a government is currently paying for those services, what city or town you talk about or how big the reduction in tax revenue will be. Bureaucrats will always use public safety in an attempt to scare the taxpayers who the bureaucrats are supposed to be protecting.
As for Bloomberg, he offers nothing new other than an I next to his name. He doesn’t hold one issue position that isn’t represented by a current presidential candidate.
The only thing that makes him different from the other presidential candidates is that he is super-wealthy as opposed to being merely wealthy and he’s not a Republican or Democrat.