We'll Tax Them, Not You

I'm outta money, outta hope, it looks like self-destruction
How much more can we take with all of this corruption?
--Molly Hatchet

A message that the Obama campaign constantly conveys goes something like this:

"Vote for us because we will raise taxes on THEM but not on YOU."

This clip from VP Biden yesterday is a good example. The cavalier add ons ("My heart breaks," "Yes we do," "middle class bearing the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy") leave little doubt about the motives here. Similar thought process can be found in Marx & Engels (1848).

Not quite sure why I continue to find such statements so remarkable, but I do. The notion that a candidate would campaign on a platform of shaking down a minority group--and that voters would be receptive--suggests a deteriorating moral fiber. Such a pathology is not conducive to liberty.

Tocqueville predicted that the American republic would survive until the time that Congress discovers that it can bribe voters with money taken from private hands. When he made that prediction in the early/mid 1800s, Congress had yet to implement the tools necessary to take large amounts of money from private hands. Mechanisms to do so, such as a central bank and a progressive tax system (both on Marx & Engels' 10 pt plan for overthrowing a free society), were not installed until the early 1900s.

Over the past one hundred years, the federal government has been advancing its skills in courting political favor and redistributing wealth. Were Tocqueville to visit today, he might conclude that the American republic is done.

And he would be right. If enough voters decide that using the strong arm of government to take from some for the benefit of others is a legitimate endeavor, then liberty is certainly finished.