US Gov’t. to levy $846 BILLION in new taxes – including home utilities!!
 New bedtime story tax
 New clean clothes tax
 New clean dishes tax
 New home cooling tax
 New home heating tax
 New hot meal tax
 New refrigerated food tax
 New TV viewing tax
 New vacuum cleaning tax
 New warm bath tax
STOP the LARGEST TAX INCREASE in US History
Stop Cap (i.e. “Kneecapping”) and Trade Taxes!!

Note: Abbreviate to fit sign size

STOP ROBBING the grandkid’s piggybanks to SUPPORT your PORK ADDICTION!!

Phil Taylor
Vista, CA

The original Boston Tea Party of 1773 was remarkable for its philosophic message. “No Taxation without Representation” is a catchy phrase that points to the wider issue: government cannot serve free and rational men it has lost all connection to. The Americans were largely outcasts when they arrived in the New World, which was itself a long way from the crown. Their status was close to that of criminals serving a life sentence who must do penance by paying for Britain’s war in Europe. Yes, the Tea, Stamp and Townsend Act brought the issue to a head, but the issue was not tax per-se but the impossible position of the Americans who found it “necessary for [them] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature … entitle them.”

Now I don’t disagree that the tax benefits you mention are horrible–in fact, no one does when you make the reader pay the tax. But I do not think we can achieve anything by speaking out against taxes. When the day comes that government spending starts dropping due to a philosophical change, there will be no problem cutting taxes because the groundwork will already be done. It is even arguable that cutting taxes now with these benefit programs in place is self-destructive and that only taxes are keeping us alive so long as the government assumes the moral right to spend on the basis of need. What we need to do is to argue about the morality that makes these programs possible–at every possible occasion. You touch on morality at the end of your article, but I think it is too little, too late.

When is the last time you heard someone say “You think your taxes are too high? You have to expect the tax bill you have and you have to expect the bill is going to grow and continue growing. You don’t like it that you are paying for your neighbor’s electric bill? Would it surprise you if I told you that you are not only the payer of that bill, but also the reason you have to pay it. You don’t like buying your neighbor’s hybrid car and you would like to find the guy who is making you do it? Well look in the mirror, because you are the one who decided this is the right thing to do and you are the one who decided to impose this tax. The people in Washington are only carrying out your will. Yours and a few other million Americans who agree with these programs morally. You may not like the specifics, but if you have ever said X or Y or Z … then you are giving these programs your moral sanction. A program like health care benefits cannot exist without the wide-spread moral support of the taxpayers. If you don’t like the taxes then you are going to have to ask yourself why you support the morality of altruism that does. …”

Taxes are a wonderful issue for Objectivists because they are nothing more than the highly visible implementation of a moral code. Discussions of altruism and rational egoism are highly abstract, but bring them into the realm of taxes and you can speak in principles and be understood clearly by every honest dollar earner.

Taxes? Taxes are the last thing that I worry about. Yes, my tax bill will get nothing but worse until we have a philosophical revolution, but the front lines of that revolution are morality, not indignation over my neighbor’s unemployment benefits.

Regards,
Daniel