Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 07, 2012
Transcript:
Roland: It's been an instructive day here at the Chinese embassy, Chris... as a pioneer in shipping jobs overseas, Romney has clearly won the hearts of the Chinese people! Romney seems to have grasped early that, if our stuff can be made more cheaply in a Communist country, well, that's just how capitalism works! Anchor: It is? Roland: Umm... I think so. Want me to fact-check it?
You owe me a hundred dollars. I owe you ten. We can settle in one of two ways. Either you can deduct the ten from the hundred and hand me $90. Or you can give me the hundred and I will pay you back ten therefrom. If we were talking about taxes and money due, the first method is called “providing a tax deduction” and the second method is call “providing a subsidy.”The end result is the same: out of that hundred, I have $90 and you have $10. Every tax deduction is a subsidy. This is a point I am amazed so many people don’t get. Change the name, change the procedure, but the underlying nature is precisely the same.