When seeking to persuade Milton, Wisconsin’s councilmembers to regulate food trucks, an incumbent merchant recently said that more competition might put him out of business, after which he would no longer be a taxpayer.
That’s telling: the incumbent’s appeal to government – to a room full of politicians and municipal bureaucrats – is that they should advance polices that increase opportunities to tax, to take private earnings.
At bottom, there is the crass appeal to local government’s avaricious and adversarial role: please, please, do what you can to take more from others for your desired ends.
Businessmen no longer appeal for lower taxes – they appeal for higher taxes on others, to stifle competition.
Rather than think that higher taxes are an addiction to be addressed, they see it as an addiction to be fed: there, baby, is what you need, right over there…”
What, by the way, do you think local government will do with that money? It’s not going to go to the poor; they’ve no cancer research in mind.
Government will use it to fund projects for its supporters and contributors. Not one of those people will be hungry; not one of those people will be ill.