When are Government Costs Taxes?

"A taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but who doesn't have to take a civil service examination."  - Ronald Reagan

Taxes is something every American is (or should be) concerned about. Many a politician has been or not, elected upon the platform of his stand on the subject. Recently it has been politically prudent to avoid all appearance of raising the people’s taxes, especially for controversial areas of the American life. Obvious problem areas can be for publicly funded abortions and similar subjects. It is always a question of what the majority of people feel is their responsibility to fund for the general betterment of the country.

Another one of those subjects is universal health care. People might more readily agree to it if it didn’t affect their taxes by an increase that hurts the common worker. So, we will call it something other than a tax. President Obama supports such a way to present it to the people. Here is what he has to say about it.

"For us to say you have to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," Obama said in response to persistent questioning, later adding: "Nobody considers that a tax increase." CNN Sun September 20, 2009

You remember that famous saying attributed to our 16th president Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”? Maybe Mr. Obama should heed it and one other of our founding fathers. Here is the truth about what our founders thought of taxes.

“In a general sense, all contributions imposed by the government upon individuals for the service of the state, are called taxes, by whatever name they may be known, whether by the name of tribute, tythe, tallage, impost, duty, gabel, custom, subsidy, aid, supply, excise, or other name.” Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Call it whatever you want, it is a TAX.