Another tinkering example

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Given the negative economic and environmental effects of U.S. sugar programs, why do they persist? Because Congress often decides to confer benefits on a favored few at the expense of the general public. In this case, the favored few really are few—about 42 percent of all sugar program benefits go to just 1 percent of sugar growers. These large sugar growers, such as the Fanjuls of Florida, are a notoriously powerful lobbying interest in Washington. Federal supply restrictions have given them monopoly power, and they protect that power by becoming important supporters of presidents, governors, and many members of Congress.
The Washington Post lamented the political corruption caused by the federal “sugar racket.” More than that, sugar policies are a textbook case of economic damage done by big government intervention in the marketplace. -- Chris Edwards

No wonder we're getting pumped full of high fructose corn syrup.

More importantly, this is an excellent example of how a moderate subsidy can end up costing more than 10 times as much at the checkout counter.

Cato Institute Tax & Budget Bulletin

This is a day at our house that . . .

. . . we call Form 4868 day.

Actually it takes more than grumbling. We need a taxpayers' revolution in this country. We need to scream bloody murder every april 15, and everytime the house passes a tax bill, and everytime the senate concurs, and everytime the prez signs one of the damn things into law, and everytime the courts uphold one.

Abuse a government employee today.

Do you know of even 1 elected official who can justify even 50% of our tax burden? How many taxes can you justify to your mother (that she pays either directly or indirectly)?

• "The Eiffel Tower is the Empire State Building after taxes."–(anonymous, source unknown)
• "People often say death and taxes are the same, but this is wrong. Death is a taxable event, but taxes never die."–(anonymous, source unknown)
• "Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves from the overtaxed."–Bernard Berenson
• "The fundamental class division in any society is not between rich and poor, or between farmers and city dwellers, but between tax payers and tax consumers."–David Boaz
• "To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men."–Edmund Burke
• "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."–Winston Churchill
• "For every benefit you receive a tax is levied."–Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States. The only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money."–Arthur Godfrey
• "The power to tax involves the power to destroy."–John Marshall
• "The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much."–Ronald Reagan
• "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough. We have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."–Ronald Reagan
• "History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20% of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government... When it reaches 25%, there comes an increase in lawlessness."–Ronald Reagan
• "The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."–Will Rogers
• "The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."–Mark Twain
• "The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes."–Lao Tzu
• "What we should have fought for was representation without taxation."-Sam Levenson
  
  Wikiquote.org on "taxation"