I have seen several elitist people on the talking-head channels make the statement lately that people making over $250,000 per year have a “moral imperative” to pay more in taxes to take care of the country’s problems. This is not only infuriating—it is economically, spiritually, and morally crazy!
Hmmm… I can only conclude from the statement above that Dave interprets Luke 12:48 (“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”) – not to mention more than 300 other verses re: what our attitudes toward the poor should be – differently than I do. So, finessing the whole spiritual argument, let’s take a look at Dave’s other two rant points:
Economics:
Dave may be a financial expert, but he’s no economist. First off, (interpreting what I read as a student and instructor of economics and certainly not trying to pass myself off as an expert) professional economists, like so many of us, are divided on the issue of taxation. The general consensus is that taxes should be used to cover public goods, like national defense. Whether or not governments should use taxes to redistribute wealth from “the rich” to support “the poor” is controversial, but practiced by most democracies. For Dave to make the blanket-statement claim that this practice is economically “stupid” is, well, stupid. In a sense, economics can only tell us how efficient any given system of wealth redistribution will be. Whether or not we should redistribute wealth lies in the realm of moral judgment, not economics.
Morality:
Speaking of moral judgment, a flat tax impacts poor people far more heavily than rich people (remember the story of the Widow’s mite). Who hurts worse – someone struggling to get by on $20K a year and having to pay $2K in taxes under a simple, say, 10% flat rate, or Dave’s example person bringing in more than ten times this amount and paying $25K in taxes? Most “moral” arguments actually are for some sort of progressive or proportional sliding tax scale – with the accompanying controversies, for the devil is always in the details, and those making $250K or more a year are far better represented in Congress than those making $20K per year.
We are in a dangerous place in our country today. A segment of our population has decided that it is the government’s job to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity.
Is Dave really equating some proportional or progressive tax on someone who makes over $250K a year with providing “all of their [this unnamed segment’s] protection, provision, and prosperity?” Wow, talk about hyperbole. Just where does this proverbial segment get the political clout to pull this off? I realize the gulf between liberals and conservatives is large, but if Dave is claiming that liberals (for I assume this is the unnamed “segment”) want the government to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity, he’s been listening to the hammer news too much, and now the whole world looks like a nail to him.
Government bashing, like liberal-bashing, is the “in thing” among conservatives, but if you are willing to read some compelling arguments in favor of government visit Government Is Good, a web project of Douglas J. Amy, Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College.
Don’t forget, if it was not for government, we wouldn’t have national defense, court systems, transportation systems, energy systems, pollution control systems, etc. that allow economies to function and grow in the first place.
And how much of each tax dollar actually is redistributed, and to whom? A review at, say, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities should be eye-opening. What does Dave want to cut? National “Defense?” If only. Social Security? More power to him there. I fear past politicians’ promises are going to haunt us for a long time. Medicare, “which provides health coverage to more than 40 million people who are over the age of 65 or have disabilities”? Maybe not such a good idea. Or is Dave talking about the 9 cents out of every dollar that “provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship”? If so, that sounds rather elitist of him…
