Self-Promotion

by Will Wilkinson on December 26, 2004

I have a piece today in the Philadelphia Inquirer [registration required] on the “starve the beast” theory of taxation and fiscal discipline.

The philosophical thrust:

For many libertarians and conservatives, cutting taxes is about more than efficiency; it’s about morality. We have a moral claim to the fruits of our labor. Every cent the government takes from us beyond what is strictly necessary to secure our basic rights is a token of injustice. Cutting excess taxes is rectification, a way of making abused taxpayers whole. Therefore, for many proponents of smaller government, passing up a chance at a tax cut, or, worse, defending a tax increase, is a willing perpetuation of injustice.

However, if further tax cuts would accelerate deficit spending, justice would be threatened. Under present conditions, further tax cuts would largely be tax shifts, moving the burden of government spending to future generations. And there is nothing notably moral about raising taxes on the future to subsidize the present.

Viewing 6 Comments

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    Nice article, until the end. Congrats on getting it published.

    It's good to see the moral implications of sticking our kids with a huge debt spelled out. You seem to give discretionary spending a pass, even though that's where most of the pork and waste occurs. Then you lump Social Security, which works, in with Medicare, which is broken.

    It would seem the best way to proceed is cut out all pork first, then fix Medicare, and if things still look bad, work on Social Security.
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    Congrats on the article, Will! Interesting one. And I'm glad to see it published.
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    There's an intersection of philosophical and economic thought required here and I did note that you said "if further tax cuts would accelerate deficit spending". It goes beyond that though. If tax cuts today produce a higher level of economic growth that would actually mean increased revenue in the future without increasing taxes and you have to remember that economic growth compounds. So if the growth generated is even marginally higher than the cost today, it can be a substantial increase in economic output and revenue ten or twenty years down the road. A tax cut resulting in deficit spending doesn't have to produce enough additional revenue through economic growth to pay for itself quickly; it only has to produce enough additional revenue to pay the interest plus *any amount above zero* and it will actually reduce the need for future tax increases. Bottom line, even in today's situation, there's a presumption in favor of the argument you made in the first paragraph.
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    If you look at the original arguments for capitalism, nobody argues that there is a right to the unlimited acquisition of wealth. Adam Smith argues that the pursuit of gain is beneficial to society, not that there is an inherent right to unlimited gain in the first place. If you look at Smith's opponents, it was the landed gentry. They believed they had an obligation to provide employment and share their wealth. That's why they would build big houses and employ lots of gardeneres and craftsmen. That also meant protecting domestic markets from foreign goods. Smith says: no, you would do better to maximize your wealth, buy trinkets of frivolous utility, instead of following some misguided notions of charity and sharing the wealth. Of course, retrospectively we turn this into an absolute right to unlimited accumulation and forget that the original justification for capitalism is public-spirited. The order of priority is reversed.
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    Good article.

    Maybe you should use the Cato Link instead of the Philadelphia Inquirer one that requires registration.
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    "We have a moral claim to the fruits of our labor. Every cent the government takes from us beyond what is strictly necessary to secure our basic rights is a token of injustice."

    When you and I disagree about how much is "strictly necessary" (and we do), how much may you and your fellows justly take from me? If you are entitled to take anything then you have no principled objection to make when others take for what they consider "necessary".

 

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  • Tom Rants

    December 27, 2004 at 6:35 pm

    Morality of (further) tax cuts Will Wilkinson has a good post up at his blog, an excerpt from a piece he ...

  • No Treason

    January 10, 2005 at 1:01 am

    Yglesias: Fair Weather Libertarians? Matthew Yglesias asks why libertarians seem reluctant to criticize publicly funded tsunami relief: Josh Marshall mocks the Ayn ...

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