Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
Andrew Sullivan weighs in on Paul Ryan's roadmap:
My view, I guess, is that Ryan's spending cuts look promising. His tax cuts look like a replay of Reaganomics, whose failure could not be clearer in the soaring budget deficits today.
[...] Cutting taxes at this point in American history, in the face of this much debt, strikes me as loony. Revenue will have to come from somewhere if the debt is to be tackled. And defense will need to take a real cut as well. Serious fiscal conservatives will acknowledge this. The others are dreaming.
Let's get one point out of the way up front. Once Jeb Hensarling told me point blank that Republicans ought to give the Dems whatever they want on domestic spending -- just like Reagan -- in order to get everything Republicans wanted on military spending -- just like Reagan. So I understand the urge to blame Reagan for the bipartisan drunken-sailorism of the past ten years. I find it unimaginable, however, that Reagan would ever endorse, much less initiate, the kind of spending policies that held sway in Congress and the White House for the past ten years.
More important, although Andrew is right that tax cuts aren't God, the tax cut obsession that troubles him needs to be better explained. Let me know if I go astray with the following intuition: simple selfishness isn't what fuels today's animus against taxes. Rather, it's a conviction that tax policy itself is being abused, that the reasons why taxes are being levied are illegitimate. Yes, we're annoyed by the size of the tax burden. But we're outraged by the use of taxation as government's primary tool of behavioral modification. Taxes are supposed to raise revenue. Spending needs to be cut because spending has been significantly (if not completely) delinked from revenue-raising. But that's not enough, because the illegitimacy of our tax policy isn't cured by simply reducing the size of the tax burden.
When we're offered that reduction, we're inclined to take it out of frustration, but this can simply prolong the problem. I have a suspicion that there's an inchoate coalition out there that would accept higher national tax revenues in principle if we were relieved in practice of the true burden: the use of taxation to change the way we behave.
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Jun '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
One statistic I remember: When Reagan took office, the income tax revenues coming in were about half a trillion, and when he left office, they were about a trillion. Obviously, the problem was not the amount coming in. It was the amount going out. Sullivan either doesn't know what he's talking about, or more likely, he's intentionally misleading his readers.
May '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
Absolutely James. I don't know why we don't see this point made more frequently. The view from the left is that conservatives are greedy. On the contrary, the issue is one of credibility -- we simply don't trust Congress to spend the money effectively or appropriately, so why should we give them any more.
Aug '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
James Poulos, Ed.: Let me know if I go astray with the following intuition: simple selfishness isn't what fuels today's animus against taxes. Rather, it's a conviction that tax policy itself is being abused.
Yes and no.
Take my parents, for example. My mom is disgusted by taxes because they're abused, and she feel little resentment towards those who take legal means to make their tax burden as small as possible. My dad, on the other hand... he feels personally aggrieved by having to pay any tax another does not, and his resentment can be largely satisfied by seeing that as many others as possible share in his taxation misery. If he has to suffer, everyone should suffer likewise. That isn't simple selfishness. It's worse.
My dad, though he considers himself a conservative (he had to, in order to marry my mom), has adopted the classic victim mentality and class-resentment of the Left. It's ugly.
I think we all know there are lots of self-identified conservatives out there who think (or rather, feel) like my dad. They're not helping. Real conservatism isn't about spreading the misery around.
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
James, I agree that the tax code is horribly abused as an engine of behavior modification. But I don't think that's what motivates our (my?) tax cut obsession, and I don't think conservatives should use that as our primary attack on taxes.
Shouldn't we stick with first principles? Income belongs to the people who earn it. Every tax -- even one with pure revenue-raising motivations -- is an imposition on our freedom to use our property as we see fit. Of course, a certain amount of taxation is necessary, but the burden must always be on politicians to justify the tax. And the only way to keep the burden on the politicians is with a default anti-tax position. Otherwise, people will accept the Left's vocabulary that tax cuts are a "gift" from the government.
Jul '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
Nicely said. This is the crux of the argument. Why is it considered greedy for someone to want to keep what they have earned, but it's not considered greedy for the government to covet every last dime (none of which it earned) for redistributionist social policy?
May '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
I have a friend that truly feels that the money kept from her paycheck belongs to the government, and swears that if that money was not withheld she would be paid less by that amount. I explained why I believe that to be a crazy notion. Businesses that are showing 25% profit when they expect 15% want to know why, and they use that excess profit to invest in growth (new employees, equipment, etc.).
When I suggested that more profit would be a better proposition than the government wasting it on that premise, she balked. It was a point she could not argue. She still doesn't buy that companies aren't entirely greedy, but that's the socialist in her...
By the way James, you may have crossed paths with her, she's a professor at GU.
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
At one of those infamous food counters at a truck stop a few years ago, another driver complained about George Bush's "tax give away for the rich." I posed a hypothetical for him. "Suppose you have $100 in your wallet." I said. "Now, I'm pretty confident that I could relieve you of that money if I wanted to, but since I choose not to rob you, could we say that I just gave you a hundred bucks?"
This cuts to the heart of Adam's excellent point, which is why I always get aggravated when I hear politicians lament that they will have to find a way to offset the cost of rate reductions. First, reduce spending to those functions that are constitutional. Second, a reduction in rates is usually followed by increased revenue. Third, the decision not to steal is not the same as a gift.
May '10
Re: Why the Tax Cuts Obsession?
Dave Carter: At one of those infamous food counters at a truck stop a few years ago, another driver complained about George Bush's "tax give away for the rich." I posed a hypothetical for him. "Suppose you have $100 in your wallet." I said. "Now, I'm pretty confident that I could relieve you of that money if I wanted to, but since I choose not to rob you, could we say that I just gave you a hundred bucks?"
...Third, the decision not to steal is not the same as a gift. · Aug 9 at 3:18pm
Excellent analogy.