Stupid Op-Ed of the Day

I had hope when I saw the title of this Op-Ed in the New York Times: "Abolish All Taxes". In the NYT??? Had someone at the Times seen the light? Unfortunately, no:

It’s time to take a page from the conservative playbook, the one where they reframe the debate by changing the language — for instance, calling the “estate tax” a “death tax,” or making equal rights for same-sex partners a “protection of marriage” issue. I propose we stop saying “taxes” and start calling them “dues.”

Yeah, I'm sure people will feel better about writing that check when we call it Dues Day instead of Tax Day. Like most modern day liberals the writer seems to think that we just need to make people feel better about how the government spends our money and we'll be happy to pay:

“Look,” I said to a conservative friend, “simply saying ‘hard earned’ every time you say ‘tax dollars’ doesn’t make bureaucrats think twice before spending. But spending other peoples’ dues, now that’s not so easy.” He muttered darkly. With a liberal friend, I mentioned a study showing that words like “social” and “contract” make people more willing to pay their share. “But I probably wouldn’t like paying dues either,” he replied. “The government isn’t my kind of club.”

Does this idiot really think that calling taxes dues will make politicians think more than once about spending the money? And ask union members about how their leaders are so sparing when it comes to spending their dues. Is there any wonder that the NYT ad revenue is going straight down the tubes when they publish tripe like this?