Word: taxed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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What do an $800 Gucci briefcase, cosmetic surgery and a water slide have to do with spreading the Gospel? Nothing, the Internal Revenue Service ruled in effect last week as it revoked the tax-exempt status of PTL, the television ministry that supported the high living of Jim and Tammy Bakker. The IRS declared that PTL's business activities, including an amusement park, shopping malls and hotels as well as excessive payments to the Bakkers, served no ministerial purpose...
Even the 1986 tax reform act, which Jack Kemp fans call the culmination of Reagan's campaign to "get government off our backs," was an about-face from Reagan's initial tax agenda. His 1981 tax bill expanded loopholes and shelters for corporations and the rich at the expense of the poor and boosted the budget deficit. He still opposed the latest tax reforms until it became politically impossible...
...other candidates have learned this lesson well. George Bush unequivocally rules out a tax increase, saying that he will cure our budgetary ills with spending cuts. Mike Dukakis plans to raise revenue with a tax amnesty program and tougher enforcement. Pat Robertson has even suggested holding a "jubilee" every fifty years when all debts would be forgiven...
Even when the candidates publicly consider tax increases, they never call them that. Instead, tax increases become "revenue enhancers." Can "negative refunds" be far behind? Confronted with the paradox that playing it straight with the voters equals electoral disaster, Presidential aspirants have understandably chosen to hide behind euphemism and obfuscation...
Eventually, the absurdity of "no tax" pledges, like the Emperor's nudity, will be recognized. Unfortunately, we have thus far ostracized the naively honest candidates who tried to force the realization upon us. We can only hope that something less than a genuine economic catastrophe will arouse us from our eight-year-long daydream...