But I Said Taxes!!!

The empty rhetorical trick of comparing taxes to tyranny has finally worn too thin to be tolerated by those of us interested in actual problem solving. Tom Schaller simply destroys Jonah Goldberg today:

Goldberg says he "bring[s] this up because many in the Democratic Party and in the news media have a hard time understanding what the 'Tea Party' crowd is talking about when it complains of incipient tyranny and intrusive government." Yes, many of us do, including that uber-Democratic media maven and former Reaganite Bruce Bartlett, who surveyed tea partiers and discovered they have no idea what the true tax burden in the country is. Their average response for what share of GDP goes into the (federal) public sector was 42 percent--more than twice what it actually is.

However, trying to engage Goldberg in an intellectually honest discussion seems like a futile effort at best. He's never struck me as anything more than a partisan/ideological hack, just like his mother.