How do you spell relief? Say "Tax Relief" instead of "Tax Cuts"

The next time you're proposing a reduction in taxes, consider saying "tax relief" instead of "tax cuts."

Both phrases mean the same, but there is a profound difference in effectiveness.

The phrase "tax cuts" may unconsciously suggest, in some people's minds, the idea that some unjust pain or loss is to be endured. After all, something is being "cut" or "removed." The phrase may create a mental image of suffering, or suggest that some worthy cause will go unfunded.

The phrase "tax relief," however, makes it clear that taxes are a pain, a burden, an affliction, from which we need relief. After all, no one would ever want "relief" from a blessing or a positive condition.

You are proposing to end that pain, remove that burden, cure that affliction, by relieving it.

As the liberal rhetoritician George Lakoff has observed: "The term 'tax relief' evokes all of this and more. Taxes, in this phrase, are the Affliction (the Crime), proponents of taxes are the Causes-of Affliction (the Villains), the taxpayer is the Afflicted Victim, and the proponents of 'tax relief' are the Heroes who deserve the taxpayers' gratitude.

"Every time the phrase 'tax relief' is used and heard or read by millions of people, the more this view of taxation as an affliction and [those who would relieve us of taxes] as heroes gets reinforced."

And it goes even deeper. Those who respond to your call for tax relief by saying they *oppose* "tax relief" are implicitly saying they want to maintain the pain, the burden, the affliction the phrase suggests.

So every time they use the phrase "tax relief," or respond to it, they are, unintentionally, actually reinforcing your key argument.

There's nothing dishonest or deceptive about this. Words are powerful. How we use them inevitably influences how people respond to our ideas.

Are there other things we need relief from?

How about "regulation relief," or "relief from the crushing burden of excessive government regulation"?

"Relief from intrusive government bureaucracies."

"Relief from government meddling in our private lives."

"How do you spell 'relief'?" an old TV commercial asked.

L-I-B-E-R-T-Y.