Anti-Tax Anonymous

There is a column in this morning's Oregonian about the effort to convert Portland General Electric (a subsidiary of Enron) into a PUD. I won't get into the details of the proposal as I don't know to much about it and it isn't why I'm posting this link. I'm posting this link because of the following paragraph:

Antitax rhetoric has become the crack cocaine of American politics. The campaigns sell it, the voters smoke it and the impact on society is just as destructive as -- and far more extensive than -- the literal crack cocaine epidemic. But unlike crack cocaine, this rhetoric shows no signs of going out of style.

The writer makes mention of Kerry's attacks on Dean and Gephardt for proposing that all of Bush's tax cut be rescinded. The writer makes the point that Kerry has to know that the system can't be saved piece-meal, but Kerry knows that anti-tax rhetoric sells and so he is using it, to his own long-term detriment. He is right that anti-tax rhetoric has become a drug that few can resist sampling despite its increasingly obvious negative effects.

This country needs an intervention in the worst way.