On taxes and Liberals and taxing liberals.

On another blog's comment section this past couple of days, (blog name withheld because I like that blog and don't wish to incite a flame war there) I've found myself challenged by a few people who seem to truly believe that, in order for us to be "civilized", we who work must tax ourselves until we bleed white to provide all sorts of benefits for the lowest members of our society, typically those who choose not to work. And if that's not reason enough, well then we have to give those Democrat voters deadbeats more free stuff just because somewhere in America, some corporation that produces good or provides services while creating jobs might have gotten a break and had to pay a bit less in taxes, and of course we'll not mention the fact that corporate taxes in America are already way higher than in any other developed country in the world.

(And this, ladies ad gentlemen, is why so many of them relocate their plants to other countries. That and the double whammy of blood-sucking unions and environmental whack-jobs that make production or virtually anything here both inefficient and extremely costly.)

Suddenly I had an idea...an epiphany, if you will. Henceforth, spending decisions on all entitlement programs, both new ones and increases in spending on current ones, will be taken away from Congress completely and placed on the ballot. The citizens will get to decide from now on if we pay for Obamaphones or EBT cards or public housing or grants to colleges. Anything that does not provide a benefit to every single American--like the military or a border fence along the US/Mexican border--gets approved at the voting booth.

And the next catch is--and this is the part that I really like--is that no one can vote on these tax bills unless they actually pay taxes. That's right--they need to show W2s or other indication that they pay the applicable federal or state taxes, depending on which entity the program is seeking money from. This means, for example, that people who want free Obamaphones but do not work cannot bum-rush the polls and vote themselves these free phones.

Finally--and here's the best part--everyone who votes in favor of one of these new taxes to fund some entitlement program also agrees that only they and the other people who voted in favor (or who did not show up to vote) will be the ones assessed the new taxes. That way, the burden falls 100% onto the people who want the program (or didn't bother to turn out). In other words, you can vote to raise your own taxes to fund National Public radio or give a grant to some pornographic "artists" but you cannot make me or anyone else who objected pay for it--it's all on you who wanted such things, with direct-withdrawals from your own bank account.

I say that we try this for a few years and see just how many liberals are wiling to put their money where their mouths are and write the checks that they currently demand that the rest of us back.

And if you want an indicator of how liberals really feel about actually paying for the things that they support, keep in mind that Massachusetts has a program where the rich can voluntarily elect to pay a higher tax rate (5.85% instead of the minimum 5.3%) in order to pay for social amenities for others.

Millionaire and "champion of the poor" Elizabeth Warren refuses to volunteer to pay the higher tax.

John Kerry refused to pay the higher tax as well. And he got busted keeping his new yacht in neighboring Rhode Island to avoid paying taxes to MA on that as well.

In fact, Massachusetts, a massively liberal state, has three million tax filers at last count but only 934 of them volunteered to pay the higher tax to fund the bigger government that most of them presumably want.

I won't even bother mentioning liberal icon Al Sharpton's tax issues.

So yeah, that's my plan. Make the people who want more social spending step up and accept the entire cost of these programs. And then when the welfare crowd sees their cable TV go off and notices that their EBT card didn't recharge on the first of the month, they can direct their anger solely at the people who claimed to support these things right up until they were asked to foot the bills.