{"id":22213,"date":"2013-09-21T11:18:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T16:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=22213"},"modified":"2014-07-13T10:28:51","modified_gmt":"2014-07-13T15:28:51","slug":"big-government-smart-guys-rob-taxpayers-because-thats-where-the-big-money-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/09\/21\/big-government-smart-guys-rob-taxpayers-because-thats-where-the-big-money-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Big government – “smart guys rob taxpayers because that\u2019s where the big money is”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn<\/a> on the quick route to banana republic status:<\/p>\n

As the old saying goes, bank robbers rob banks because that\u2019s where the money is. But the smart guys rob taxpayers because that\u2019s where the big money is. According to the Census Bureau\u2019s latest \u201cAmerican Community Survey,\u201d from 2000-12, the nation\u2019s median household income dropped 6.6 percent. Yet, in the District of Columbia median household income rose 23.3 percent. According to a 2010 survey, seven of the nation\u2019s 10 wealthiest counties are in the Washington commuter belt. Many capital cities have prosperous suburbs — London, Paris, Rome — because those cities are also the capitals of enterprise, finance, and showbiz. But Washington does nothing but government, and it gets richer even as Americans get poorer. That\u2019s very banana republic, too: Proximity to state power is now the best way to make money. Once upon a time, Americans found fast-running brooks and there built mills to access the water that kept the wheels turning. But today the ambitious man finds a big money-no-object bureaucracy that likes to splash the cash around and there builds his lobbying group or consultancy or social media optimization strategy group.<\/p>\n

The CEO of Panera Bread, as some kind of do-gooder awareness-raising shtick, is currently attempting to live on food stamps, and not finding it easy. But being dependent on government handouts isn\u2019t supposed to be easy. Instead of trying life at the bottom, why doesn\u2019t he try life in the middle? In 2012, the top 10 percent were taking home 50.4 percent of the nation\u2019s income. That\u2019s an all-time record, beating out the 49 percent they were taking just before the 1929 market crash. With government redistributing more money than ever before, we\u2019ve mysteriously wound up with greater income inequality than ever before. Across the country, \u201cmiddle-class\u201d Americans have accumulated a trillion dollars in college debt in order to live a less-comfortable life than their high school-educated parents and grandparents did in the Fifties and Sixties. That\u2019s banana republic, too: no middle class, but only a government elite and its cronies, and a big dysfunctional mass underneath, with very little social mobility between the two.<\/p>\n

Like to change that? Maybe advocate for less government spending? Hey, Lois Lerner\u2019s IRS has got an audit with your name on it. The tax collectors of the United States treat you differently according to your political beliefs. That\u2019s pure banana republic, but no one seems to mind very much. This week it emerged that senior Treasury officials, up to and including Turbotax Timmy Geithner, knew what was going on at least as early as spring 2012. But no one seems to mind very much. In the words of an insouciant headline writer at Government Executive<\/em>, \u201cthe magazine for senior federal bureaucrats\u201d (seriously), back in May:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Vast Majority of IRS Employees Aren\u2019t Corrupt\u201d<\/p>\n

So, if the vast majority aren\u2019t, what proportion is<\/em> corrupt? Thirty-eight percent? Thirty-three? Twenty-seven? And that\u2019s the good news? The IRS is not only institutionally corrupt; it\u2019s corrupt in the service of one political party. That\u2019s Banana Republic 101.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn on the quick route to banana republic status: As the old saying goes, bank robbers rob banks because that\u2019s where the money is. But the smart guys rob taxpayers because that\u2019s where the big money is. According to the Census Bureau\u2019s latest \u201cAmerican Community Survey,\u201d from 2000-12, the nation\u2019s median household income dropped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,84,13],"tags":[363,727,118,985,315],"class_list":["post-22213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-government","category-usa","tag-corruption","tag-cronycapitalism","tag-taxes","tag-washingtondc","tag-wealth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5Mh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22215,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22213\/revisions\/22215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}