Ha ha ha: political newspeak in Portsmouth

One of today's headlines: NH can't afford further revenue reductions. "Revenue reductions" is an Orwellian phrase to replace "tax cuts."

In a business, "revenue" is income received from voluntary exchanges on the market. Stillwell's earns revenue when people give them money in exchange for ice cream. A poor business earns less revenue. The term "revenue reduction" is not used because it implies that there's some sort of objective stream of money that can be increased or decreased at will by turning a valve. If a business does not earn enough revenue, it doesn't raise its prices; it goes out of business.

Of course, a government does have such a valve. It is called "taxation." Replacing the word “taxation” with “revenue” is purposefully misleading because it give the impression that the government is just doing business and somehow earning the money that fills its coffers. Absolutely not. Taxation is money that is expropriated from us peons; we do not have a choice any more than we have a choice when a robber points a gun at us and says, “Your wallet or your life.”

Further, “revenue reduction”  twists the ownership of the money itself. “Taxation” is clear: people own the money, and the government takes some of it.  “Revenue reduction” implies that the government owns all of our money and lets us keep whatever fraction it deems appropriate.

Shame on the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute* for using such distorting language. Ideas matter, and their language twists ideas. The director of this non-profit group works 48.0 hrs per weeks and in 2013** made almost $77k (see page 8 here), about $16k more than the median income in NH. This corresponds to about $30/hr, or four times the federal minimum wage. Perhaps the NH government should increase the "revenue" "earned" from him to equal the playing field for the low-income families that he claims to help. 

Incidentally, NHFPI is a non-profit entity, meaning that it has special tax-exempt status. Isn't this contradictory to their goal of maintaining or increasing revenue for the government? (Of course, they want to raise taxes on other people, not themselves.)

*NHFPI received a quarter million dollars in government "revenue" in 2010.

**It looks like the director's greatest income was $95k in 2011.