It is always instructive to listen to the tortured reasoning of the socialist crowd, which is always trying to reconcile their failed ideas with capitalism. Their arguments miss the basic reason why socialism always fails.

It runs contrary to human nature.

As the income tax increase battle heats up in preparation for the January 26, 2010 vote, the apologists for tax class warfare make convoluted arguments meant to reassure the voting public that there will be no pain associated with voting in favor of higher business taxes. Chuck Sheketoff of the uber liberal Oregon Center for Public Policy (mostly union funded) makes just such arguments from an economic standpoint, even though he isn’t an economist. He seems to say that it is ok to raise taxes because it really isn’t that much and the rich folks can pay more without any negative consequences.

Boy is he ever out of touch with reality.

The article in the Oregonian profiling him demonstrates exactly why his conclusions are not believable, namely they aren’t based either in reality and they ignore human nature.

On the reality side, his arguments don’t square with the vast majority of actual statistical analysis performed by many PHD economists regarding the effects of tax class warfare. An example is Chuck’s assertion in 2007 that PERS was "the best funded system in the country." Today, PERS is one of the most under funded public employee retirement plans in the nation that is driving government costs far higher than is sustainable without, (you guessed it) large tax increases or reductions in other services. Yet this the OCPP’s credibility (track record) is not called into question when he makes arguments that drive the state’s tax policies.

I guess the left doesn’t care about results, just the pie in the sky argument that make them feel better.

The human nature argument is related to the reality argument, because it is the natural human response to Chuck’s tax class warfare ideas that create the real world that Chuck apparently doesn’t live in, but the rest of us do.

It is simple really. You see, human nature dictates that the fruit of your hard work belongs to you and no one else, (it’s your private property) because you earned it. The reality is that when government confiscates more of your private property by raising your taxes, individuals and corporations react negatively and use legal means by which to lessen the tax impact. This means the tax increases will not produce as much revenue as predicted and have long term impacts as it sends a powerful message that Oregon punishes achievement.

Socialists like Chuck don’t understand that the incentive to grow a business and live the American dream dies when tax class warfare ideas are implemented. An entrepreneur or corporation will simply look elsewhere to do business in a more welcoming environment rather than just stand still and give more of their private property (taxes) to bloated, out of control government. This means fewer tax dollars in the long run and less individual opportunity, thereby hurting the economy.

Socialist tax policies don’t produce the powerful economic effect that pro growth tax ideas do, because human nature says so.

The left just doesn’t understand basic human nature.