My friend Lisa De Pasquale, CPAC coordinator for the American Conservative Union, makes the case today for declaring family pets as tax exemptions.
Each year millions of pet owners spend over $41 billion on the care of their pets. During tough economic times, a pet exemption could ease the tax burden for more than 80 million households. [Actor and pet lover Robert] Davi wrote, “Currently, an estimated 500,000 Americans are able to receive a tax credit for up to $3,150 for owning gas-saving hybrid cars. Many cities and states also reward hybrid owners with access to HOV lanes and additional tax breaks. Why not allow a tax exemption for pets that would reward Americans for behavior they are already doing to improve their health and well-being?”
I don't believe the state should be in business at all, so it stands to reason that I don't believe it should be in the business of influencing individuals' behavior either. However, it is always moral to take your money back from the government, regardless of why tax exemptions exist in the first place.
Given this, I particularly liked this "criticism" of Lisa's article levied by a Townhall commenter, who states in part:
Are you INSANE? You are the CPAC Director for the ACU, and you think that there should be MORE complexity to the tax code?
So called "conservatives" like you are the reason we are stuck with Obama now. Have you even READ the Constitution of the United States? How can you possibly justify your proposal?
Tax code complexity is irrelevant. The tax code itself is the necessary evil in the discussion, and if Lisa can be faulted for anything, it's for not going far enough in condemning taxation in the first place. The commenter, like most conservatives, endorses taxation -- i.e., legalized theft of private property -- by attempting to disguise his defense of the state in the minutiae of tax code "complexity."
The state is a criminal gang that keeps us enslaved in large part via taxation; as long as we submit to such coercive behavior, the state will always claim first rights to our property and we will not be free. However, even though taxes are foisted on us to control our behavior in any number of ways, it is never immoral to retrieve stolen property from a thief. And for advocating that, Lisa cannot be faulted.
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