Fowler's Follies

Silly, Marxist Class Struggle Ideology

Today, the Omaha World Herald’s Public Pulse letters get my adrenaline up. I already wrote about the Planning Department (https://andrewlsullivan.substack.com/p/omahas-screwy-planning-dept) but this other letter unnerves.

Mr. Fowler engages in a great number of fallacies which are common in urban areas such as Omaha. So let us run through the idiocies he believes in which are deep in Marxist class theory (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marxism/Class-struggle).

To “unnecessary tax cuts mainly benefit the wealthiest,“ is limited in truth. The problem with this argument is it assumes there are bunch of wealthy people with disposable income. Often wealth does not equate with disposable income (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disposableincome.asp). The taxation system recognizes this but Fowler has no way of understanding the complexity of economics, investment and taxation systems. In fact, much of wealth is the result of debt financing. Donald Trump experienced this (https://forward.com/fast-forward/424037/ivanka-trump-president-trump-samantha-bee-debt/). Debt is not taxed and many people have used this to their advantage.

In addition, Government is not a church which can provide for greater empathy and immediate assessment in working with the poor and middle class. Government is the wrong instrument to go on a moral crusade in assisting the poor as government welfare merely “write a check”. Always has been and always will be.

Next, he claims: “Plus, when you look at how much middle or low-income residents will save in tax cuts, it’s very small compared to their incomes.“ This is excessively misleading. Fowler is only looking at the most immediate dollar reduction and not to the impacts of the reductions. When taxation is reduced, more people have the means to invest, and buy what is in their own best interest and such decisions are based on their own desires and means to do so. You cannot merely stick a dollar amount to such liberty. In addition, using mere dollars ignores the vast amount of bartering and haggling over goods and services. You simply cannot put a dollar amount to all exchanges.

Next Fowler states: “Another false claim is that taxes are a major reason for people to move and that tax cuts will attract people. In fact, surveys of movers themselves have found only a small percentage move because of taxes (less than 10%).” I feel bad for Fowler because he is buying into the flaws of surveys. Do most people answering such surveys understand the full impact of taxation? No, they do not, and it is not their fault as much taxation is far from transparent. The person renting an apartment has no idea of how much of their rent merely pays for the property taxes of which the landlord pays. But, the data shows low taxation attracts migration (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/there-s-a-direct-link-between-migration-and-income-taxes-study-finds/ar-BB1l4IG6). On annual basis, this migration may appear inconsequential but it accumulates over time.

Often people have to do their own calculations and learn the hard way. Many years ago, a friend of mine was hired by a New York City business. The salary was “high” by Nebraska standards. After living in New York and experiencing the high costs of living in New York City, he moved out because it was unaffordable. People make this mistake all the time. Another friend of mine was promoting up in the company, but he could not understand why one state had the job at about 54k while the other state had the job at about 57k. The numbers here are very imprecise. I told him to look at the tax differences. He eventually took the 54k job, because it would give him more disposable income after taxation. The 57k job was in a high tax state. Fowler, as well as many other people, do not realize they need to factor taxation systems into their decision making.

To add, Fowler does not question at all how government spends money. Governor Pillen, under tremendous pressure, reversed course in funding food for children (https://apnews.com/article/ebt-children-food-assistance-nebraska-63dd35c09547bae0480cee9955b1501b Short url

https://tinyurl.com/4a893ph2). Yet, much of these free lunches for children go to waste as many left-wing organizations have already pointed out (https://www.k12dive.com/news/report-nations-school-food-waste-may-be-as-much-as-530k-tons-annually/568599/ and https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/us-school-cafeterias-waste-more-food-those-other-developed-countries/). This is why people, especially taxpayers, need to question and challenge government authorities on how they spend our hard earn dollars paid in taxes.