Consider this: If I were to tell you that, because I had to change my plans to add on new room to my home this year, it would actually be smaller next year, you would most likely laugh at me. If I were to tell you that, because I decided to continue buying my kids a Happy Meal during our weekly visit to McDonalds rather than move them up to an adult meal, I had actually reduced their food intake, you would probably wonder about my ability to reason. If I was to then tell you that, because I decided against expanding my cable package to include the Showtime movie pack, that I am actually reducing my service, you would most likely begin to wonder about my grasp of reality. If I then went on to explain that deciding to extend the current tax rates/policies in this country would be a tax cut, you might think [rather than questioning my sanity] that I was simply restating the beliefs of any number of liberal politicians or commentators speaking on the issue today.
I call this to your attention because recently I have heard many on the left argue against an extension of the current tax rate/policy in this country by calling it a tax cut for the wealthy. In their argument, an extension of what exists today will somehow be giving new money to those people they have defined as wealthy.
For those who hear this argument, accepting their premise makes accepting their argument all the more understandable. The problem here, as I have shown above, is that the premise is fundamentally flawed.
What is happening here is that the left [in this case] is framing the argument to try to pull attention away from the facts of the situation:
Fact: Keeping the current tax rate neither raises or lowers taxes
Fact: Allowing the current tax rate to go up raises taxes.
Fact: Lowering the current tax rate would lower taxes.
These facts cannot be argued [this uncontestability is actually the defining feature of what constitutes a fact.] Because this is the case, however, [and because those on the left understand that “We are against continuing the current tax rates because it neither lowers or raises taxes on the wealthy in this country” is a losing argument] it is clear that the left have decided to ignore those pesky little things called facts and simply argue fantasy.
This decision to argue fantasy, however, is nothing new. In the past I have heard politicians claim that the only way to know what is in the bill is to pass it [while any first grader would know that reading the bill and discussing it is another, and in this case better, way.] I have heard the President state that Comprehensive Healthcare Reform would actually lower our deficit [even though it would add millions of people to the rolls of a taxpayer funded program.] I continue to hear that the only way we can reduce the deficit by raising taxes [even though deficits are ongoing decisions that can be stopped tomorrow by deciding to only pass budgets are balanced.] These positions are clearly flawed but are all the more palatable for those who hear them because the arguments are framed to argue fantasy in an attempt to make each of them more believable.
The answer for those who are actually looking for a return to reason is to break down these frames in a very public way. Remind those who hear these flawed arguments of the obvious. Hold a press conference with a three year old child, show them a copy of the healthcare reform bill, and ask them how you could know what is written into it. [I guarantee the child will say to read it.] Hold a press conference with a dog and give it a piece of bacon. Watch the dog eat the bacon. Next put a bowl of bacon in front of the dog and watch it eat all of the bacon. Explain that without restraint, the dog will most likely continue to eat all of the bacon you give it while wanting more the same way that Congress will continue to spend all of the tax you give it while still wanting more.
Honesty dictates that we should never let those who have decided to ignore facts for fantasy get away with doing so.
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