>Bull's-eye! Excellent comparison. Considering the world's gross
>economic inequities of every sort, I've never understood this right-wing
>fetish about double taxation of dividends. Or rather, I DO understand
>right-wingers are hopelessly greedy, but I don't get why they think
>arguments that serve their own interests so baldly are going to have
>popular appeal.
Because it works. You hear people who have nothing to gain from the right-wing agenda spouting it as if it were true. It's very difficult to have a debate with some right-wing tax nut who just lies outright, saying things like "No, a sales tax isn't regressive"; "No, a flat tax isn't a gift to the rich." You can call him (and every one of them I've confronted has been a him) a liar, but audiences don't like that. So they get a phrase like "double taxation of dividends" into circulation and it takes on a life of its own. Citationality, everywhere you look.
Doug