Even Less Gloom?

I agree that the general public is confused about "the common good", and
that politicians have long played on this situation to abuse us with pork.
But, the line is visible if not sharp, should one choose to see it.

Yes, it's visible. People just disagree on where it is.

In the proper application, there is no public tax money *spent* on such
aids. That is quite different from using public money to build things that
are then privately owned.

You mean, like the weather service? (it's going in that direction).
FSS? (it's already there). AMTRAK (let's not even go there!) But in
any case, tax money not collected due to abatements counts as "spent"
too, because it has to be collected from elsewhere (us) to make up the
difference.

Airports are general and available to the public, just as are roads and
publicly owned transportation systems serve the common good. Have you ever
seen a publicly owned hotel, and if so, how does that work?

Good point. But trains are privately owned and serve the public. Why
should airports, highways, and libraries not have the same model?

Farmers compete in the market just as any other business. If they can't
make money growing one crop, they should grow some other crop.

Cocaine and tobacoo come to mind. And I don't know enough about the
subsidies to argue intellegently about them in specific (though that has
never stopped me! but I believe the theory is that if all the
cropland was planted, prices would drop and nobody would survive.
Assuming this is true, I have other solutions for the problem.

On a smaller scale, something similar happened in California where all
the apple orchards were replaced by vinyards. While I'm not advocating
forcing people to grow apples, I'm not sure I would want the entire
country to be planted in tobacco instead of wheat. There would be no
food and everybody would be chain smoking. Public good? (yes, an
oversimplification)

A tax deduction is a reduction in liability; you get to keep your money
rather than receive a handout.

In theory.

If I decide that I will have all my students meet at the next airport
over, and I fly there the long way (filing IFR and getting vectored from
here to kingdom come), and I therefore deduct most of my flying and most
of my airplane purchase against my tutoring income (carrying forward, of
course), is this a legitimate business expense or am I sucking the
government teat?

Jose
--
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