Decades of Conservative Spin=Americans Hopelessly Confused About Taxes, Spending and the Deficit

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AlterNet / By Joshua Holland

Thanks to Decades of Conservative Spin, Americans Are Hopelessly Confused About Taxes, Spending and the Deficit
Conservatives have spent 30 years divorcing the taxes we pay from the services they finance -- no wonder the public doesn't know where their tax dollars go.

May 6, 2011 |


A few weeks back, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, felt compelled to take time out of what is presumably a busy schedule to explain that “taxes are, first and foremost, about paying for what the government buys.” That he felt compelled to do so is a sad reflection of the state of our economic discourse.

A good number of Americans are hopelessly confused about taxes, deficits and the debt. And it's no mystery why – conservatives have spent 30 years divorcing the taxes we pay from the services they finance. They've bent themselves into intellectual pretzels arguing that cutting taxes – on the wealthy – leads to more revenues in the coffers. They've invented narratives about taxes driving “producers” to sunnier climes, killing jobs by the bushel, and relentlessly spun the wholly false notion that we're facing “runaway spending” and are “taxed to death.”

And they've had great success. But they haven't done it alone – credit the media with an assist for muddying the waters around our fiscal situation. Consider a poll released this week by the highly respected Gallup organization. Their headline reads, “Americans Blame Wasteful Government Spending for Deficit.” Is that true? Well, here were the options – the only options – that respondents were offered:

Which do you think is more to blame for the federal budget deficit: Spending too much on government programs that are either not needed or wasteful, or not raising enough taxes to pay for needed programs?

“Accordingly,” says Gallup, “Americans generally favor spending cuts rather than tax increases as the way for Congress to reduce the deficit going forward.” According to that distorted narrative – that false choice -- of course they do. I'm sure the results of a poll asking if people would prefer an ice cream sundae or a sharp stick in the eye would prove equally conclusive (not to mention bipartisan). ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/150826/thanks_to_decades_of_conservative_spin%2C_americans_are_hopelessly_confused_about_taxes%2C_spending_and_the_deficit/