Andylusion
Platinum Member
Oh good night....
Oh no! I accepted an offer of buy one get one free for a Big Mac at McDonalds! THEY ARE DICTATING MY ENTIRE LIFE!
.....
You're missing the key point here. We're talking about taxes - not voluntary transactions. That's why it's hard to accept the characterization of these deals as "offers".
If a mobster is running a protection racket and "offers" to let you skip your payment if you do a little job for him, would you consider that coercion? Because that's what tax incentives are doing. They're coercing behavior. They're using the power of taxation as an all-purpose tool to manipulate society.
Ok, that's good. I like that. If taxation is a mafia tool of coercion, then let's end the income tax and property tax.
Problem solved on all sides.
That's a worthy goal. Taxation is a crude and coercive means of financing government. I think we can do better. But it will take time to get there. Until then, we can at least put strict limits on government's ability to abuse the taxation power that we've granted it.
Again, I don't see this as a manipulation on society. Due tell, how has "society" been manipulated because one single company decided to move to Ohio over Florida?
It's true that manipulating one single company manipulates only a small part of society. And if we were discussing one case in isolation, and if we ignored all the other ways tax incentives are used to manipulate society, you might be able to convince me to dismiss my concerns. But, in point of fact, many business decisions are being manipulated in this way - it's becoming a standard practice of cities and states fixated on economic growth. And government routinely uses tax incentives to manipulate individual behavior as well. So, "move along, nothing to see here" just doesn't cut it.
Again, prove it. Make the case. You can say something is so, until the end of time. But until you can actually back that claim with real empirical evidence, it remains hearsay.
Can you at least provide me one single example? Just one? An example where government is directly affecting my life, through the use of a tax abatement?
I, and others, have done that repeatedly in this thread, and you just ostrich up. I don't know what else tell you. If you want to deny it, you will.
Again, government grants and subsidies I'm already against, and I oppose them in every single form.
Why are you against grants and subsidies? Can you provide an example where my life is different than it would be, if there had been no grants or subsidies?
I don't know anything about your life. Plenty of other people have been impacted by these policies though. This was all detailed in the articles linked in the thread. Clearly, you either haven't read, or don't believe the facts they describe. If that's your position - that it's all just "fake news" - then there really isn't much point in trying to persuade you of anything.But we're talking about a tax abatement. Can you provide an example where my life is different than it would be, if there had been no tax abatement?
Sure, actually I can. Money is directly taken from my paycheck, to give to GM as a grant to develop batteries for Electric Vehicles.
Money is given as subsidy for Ethanol, which otherwise would be completely eliminated from the market lacking that money.
So I can point to numerous things that with government money, directly affect my life. Like the cost of electricity going up, to pay for subsidized 'renewable' energy, such as wind turbines.
These are things that directly impact society, that are not due to tax breaks and tax deductions and tax abatement.
I know this, because without a direct subsidy, these things would be unprofitable. No amount of a tax deduction, or tax break, can make an unprofitable business survive.
If your business isn't making money, getting a discount on your land tax, isn't going to magically make you profitable.
You might pick the lease spot on the left-side or right-side of the street, or town, or even state, based on lower taxes.... but a profitable business is profitable, or it isn't.
I'm not going to change which company I do business with, or buy a computer from, or where I order stuff online, based if Apple has a 'data center' in Iowa, or Amazon has an office in Dublin Ohio.
So I can confidently say that giving a tax break, to either one, will have zero impact on me, and likely have zero impact on the vast majority of people on the fact of the Earth, and I would wager even the majority in Dublin.
And no, you have no made the case. At least not so far as I have read in this thread. You have made tons of claims. But claims, are not facts.