Reacting to my previous post analyzing the President’s statements Friday last, Burt Likko could not “reasonably understand Obama to be arguing for a proposition to the effect of ‘Everything belongs to society ab initio, so the government should be able to take, that is keep, what it wishes from anyone.’” Mr. Likko asks if we couldn’t avoid coming to such a radical conclusion by instead positing that the President was simply offering an argument in favor of progressive taxation. As I explain below, we cannot.
First, I again note that the President has omitted from his case any compelling need for the increased taxation. If the President believed that individuals had a right in their earnings, he could only deprive that right by offering a justification. He offers none. Were we talking about a different kind of moral case, e.g., that a certain form of human suffering will occur but for higher rates of taxation on a group of people, that would be very different. But he does not point to anything amounting to a moral justification. His campaign thus far has not even been about taxing for the purpose of spending. It’s been about taxing, period. This alone proves the President does not believe that individuals have a right in their earnings. If he did, he’d be forced to offer a justification before taking them other than via a progressive tax. I will explain further below.
To head off an objection, it is true that the President frequently appeals to “fairness.” This is unavailing. Indeed, the standards of fairness and justice are what compel the giving of justifications in the first place. That “justice demands it” is question-begging that does not amount to a justification. If the President is truly concerned about fairness, he would offer a justification for his proposed deprivation of property out of proportion with similarly-situated Americans. Again, the fact that he has not underscores the fact that he does not believe he is contending with a right, which would compel him to do otherwise.
Thus, the President’s implicit contention must be that people do not have a right in their earnings to begin with, or at least to some portion thereof. Following this logic and the President’s other statements, such a right does not vest until individuals first “pay theirfairshare.” His presumption is that the market does not legitimately or correctly apportion earnings and dividends to individuals, because, for example, it fails to adequately account for government’s investments through infrastructure and subsidies and a healthy demography, and so on. For most Americans, a paycheck reflects the real net value derived from your labor. You then pay taxes out of your property to the government, perhaps begrudgingly, as part of your civic duty, as part of the civil compact, as a wholly separate and independent obligation from the particulars of your economic life. For the President, in contrast, part of your paycheck—a quite substantial part, possibly—reflects value that you could not have derived, could never have derived, but for the infrastructure the government provides. That portion was never yours to begin with. You simply hold it in trust for the benefit of your co-investor, the collective, the government, the owner of the means of production, with whom you “do things together.” The government provided that infrastructure as an investment in the enterprise, the economy, in which you toil—not as a passive, disinterested agent, but as an active partner, your joint venturer, whether you knew it or not. You may not be interested in infrastructure, but infrastructure is interested in you.
Paying taxes, then, is nothing to begrudge as far as the President is concerned. It’s simply the way we “fairly” distribute the part of our collective revenue that happened to be paid in your name. But it is only nominally yours. It equitably belongs to us all, each of us as shareholders in our joint venture, our grand corporation, U.S.A., Inc.
That is the only moral logic that comports with the President’s own statements. It’s radical, yes, but not so out of line with what the far left believes. And, I might add, not totally absurd from the standpoint of internal consistency. (It is totally absurd, of course, from the standpoint of political viability.)
Accordingly, I disagree that the desire for more “progressive taxation” explains the President’s statements. Progressive taxation is indeed more familiar and less radical, and so if it fit, we might be compelled to conclude that’s what he meant. But it logically inconsistent with the President’s statements, not to mention incompatible with moral reasoning, which the President time and again has invoked with calls to “fairness.”
Let’s start with what the President’s premises would be under Mr. Likko’s suggested rubric: (1) You have a right in what you earn; and (2) if you earn a lot, you owe more to the government because you got a lot of value from the government. The first problem is that we are right back to the same moral reasoning as above—that is, the second premise has already forced us to concede that in fact we do not have a right to our earnings, and that, instead, to the extent they are derived from government infrastructure. If you “owe” those earnings to the government in this way, they were never equitably “yours” to begin with. Contrast this with taxes traditionally understood, which are not based on some economic investment the government has made, but instead on a wholly separate and independent obligation derived from the very nature of republican government. The obligations are fundamentally different in nature.
The second problem is that premise (2) contains an implied premise (3): that the government is a moral agent who is owed a moral duty of payment on its investment. This is because, as we saw above, the notion that taxes are owed because of government investment is based in the notion as government as an active investor, partner, joint venturer in the individual’s economic life, and thus, like the individual, a moral agent. This is problematic since it forces us into one of the first two scenarios that Jason presented in his post today (scenarios (a) or (b), in which the government has a rightful claim to everything we produce that we could not have produced without it). Only where the government is not a moral agent to which we owe our earnings, and only where the government is an agent of the people rather than an interested party, can we have a rightful claim to what we earn.
The third problem is that, even ignoring the first to problems and assuming we can still somehow have a right in our earnings, conceding that we have less right in earnings beyond a certain threshold is indistinguishable from conceding that we have no right at all in such earnings. Rights are binary: we have them or we don’t. Progressive taxation was ushered in along with social welfare spending with remarkably little effort made to explain its moral foundation. We should not be surprised to find that it has none. The issue has been avoided thus far, however, since, aside from a period of dizzyingly high progressive taxes, economic theory has forced lawmakers to refrain from approaching 100% marginal tax rates. Per Laffer, a 100% tax rate begets $0 revenues.
Despite its salvation by economic theory, progressive taxes are morally illogical unless you reject the premise that the individual has a right in his earnings.
Again, there is no way to parse the President’s moral claims in any intelligible way other than to conclude that he believes an individual has no right to his earnings to the extent of the government’s lien for the infrastructure it provides.
It seems to me you are jumping through Hoop A instead of Hoop B.
That the president does not have an argument you find compelling for progressive taxation does not mean that he believes all of your property is his. It seems you have taken Burt’s point and attached a rebuttal for a different point you wanted to rebut in response.
The reason I’ve struggled in the past to articulate the problem with progressive taxation is because the moral equation at issue—that we have a duty to prevent unjustified tragedy where we can—suggests it might be justified. That is, those people who “can” afford to avoid the unjustified moral tragedy might be roughly described through something like a progressive tax policy. But that scenario is not present here because, as I said, the President has not described any unjustified moral tragedy that justifies the steeper progressive tax he wants.
I actually feared I was repeating ad nauseam why this means the President believes your earnings belong to the government: If he doesn’t have to offer a justification to take your earnings, then you must not have a right to them, since all rights require a justification be given before taking them. Then I explained how, in the President’s most likely view, your earnings actually belong to the government as a dividend for its investments in infrastructure.
But he does not point to anything amounting to a moral justification. His campaign thus far has not even been about taxing for the purpose of spending. It’s been about taxing, period.
Tim, I’m sorry, but this is absurd. It took me no time at all to locate the full text of the President’s speech from which the quote is taken, and there are ample spaces where he discusses things the increased taxes on the wealthy would pay for.
That means we’re going to have to maybe make student loans more expensive for students. Or we might have to cut back on the services we’re providing our brave veterans when they come home.
[snip]
Let’s take some of that money and rebuild our roads and our bridges and our rail systems, and let’s build wireless networks into rural communities so everybody can tap into world markets.
[snip]
I want to lower tuition to make it more affordable for all young people. (Applause.) I want to help our elementary schools and our middle schools and our high schools hire more teachers, especially in math and science. I want 2 million more people to be able to go to community colleges to get trained in the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now — because a higher education, a good education is not a luxury, it is an economic necessity.
That’s just a random sampling. The speech is loaded with more.
He is very clearly making an argument that these things are worth paying for, and that a proportionately higher burden for paying for them rests on those whose success came in part from services provided by society through the workings of the government. You may not agree with him, or feel that his arguments are sound. Fine. But your post seems to rest on the premise that the President has no justification for wanting to raise marginal tax rates other than gesturing vaguely toward “fairness,” when in fact he lays out numerous examples of things he thinks are worth paying for to justify the taxes he wants to raise.
Russell, heading out now (daughter’s first birthday party today!) so no time for a full response. But I presumed the President did not plan to throw the money in a hole in the ground (jokes withheld). Citing a list of infrastructure projects does not amount to a moral justification, a project that still has not been ever seriously attempted to give moral legitimacy to the very idea of progressive taxation. He also has said elsewhere to the effect that even though higher taxes on the rich would not solve our problems, it is still “the right thing to do,” which would underscore the point that the projects that would be the beneficiaries of these taxes are not the principal purpose behind his goal of steeper progressive taxes.
It still does not follow that a lack of moral justification (or moral justification you find satisfactory) amounts to the President thinking he owns everything.
Maybe he doesn’t subjectively believe it. Maybe he doesn’t understand the implications of what he’s saying. But he owns his words and their logical implications unless and until he retracts or amends them.
By the way, I don’t say that the President thinks HE owns EVERYTHING. Only that the government has a lien to the extent of its claims via investments in infrastructure that made the earnings possible.
“Reacting to my previous post analyzing the President’s statements Friday last, Burt Likko could not “reasonably understand Obama to be arguing for a proposition to the effect of ‘Everything belongs to society ab initio, so the government should be able to take, that is keep, what it wishes from anyone.’” Mr. Likko asks if we couldn’t avoid coming to such a radical conclusion by instead positing that the President was simply offering an argument in favor of progressive taxation. As I explain below, we cannot.”
It seems to follow that in rejecting Burt’s assertion, you are accepting that the government should be able to take/keep whatever it wants from anyone. That is considerably different from what you say here, in that the government has a “lien to the extent of its claims via investments in infrastructure that made the earnings possible”. In the former, all is available for the taken; in the latter, there is a self-imposed limit.
Also, I should apologize for the extent to which I’ve engaged in strawman or caricature here. A bit testy this morning and unfairly responding to how other comments have characterized your position than the position you have actually staked out. My apologies.
I still disagree with the extent to which folks seem to be making as disingenuous a reading of the President’s speech as possible, but need not reduce myself to such silliness with someone who has otherwise presented himself as a serious interlocutor. I think that until and unless the President or Government starts demanding more than the current tax proposal being floated about (a return of the top marginal tax rate to pre-Bush cut levels), any insistence that the President wants communal ownership of property or whatever is a bit of fearmongering.
Oh, and happy birthday to the lil’ beastie! How old?
Kazzy,
We celebrated Audrey’s first birthday today. http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s720x720/313939_4226812671059_807963302_n.jpg. We had probably close to 100 people at the park near our house in Huntington Beach. It was one of those parties where you’re scrambling to keep ice in the coolers and an eye on the kids while taking photos and running back home for an extension cord and to the store for more paper towels. By the time you get a breath, the cake’s been cut, things are winding down, and you’ve hardly had a chance to talk to your guests before it’s time to leave. But it was a beautiful day and fun to spend what little time I could with friends we see far too seldom. Thanks for the happy birthday wishes Kazzy, Russell, and all.
Yes, I have been unclear on that point as I’m still working this out myself. I have said that the implication of the President’s various statements suggest that the government has a “lien to the extent of its claims via investments in infrastructure that made the earnings possible.” But given the analysis in the OP here, I think the system that comports with his remarks is more akin to shareholders in a corporation. I may own millions of dollars worth of Coke stock, yet I still have no right to walk into the bottling plant and take even a single can. The only way I profit from my ownership of that stock (aside from selling it, which doesn’t apply in this analogy of holding “stock” in one’s government) is if the board votes to issue a distribution. My rights are derivative only, and not independent.
Many happy returns to you and yours on this wonderful day, Tim. (And a good reminder that is that this is all between friends.)
I see an strongly implied if not fully elucidated moral argument in what the President is saying. Helping the less fortunate to better themselves, get healthcare, etc. seems to have a moral quality to me. So I don’t see the lacuna that you do. Perhaps that is merely my preexisting sympathy for the President’s agenda coming through.
Russell, I’m happy to concede that you may be right. I am not even arguing here that the President is wrong, just that if he is right, it would be based on different presumptions about the nature of the right to wealth than is commonly held.
“He is very clearly making an argument that these things are worth paying for, and that a proportionately higher burden for paying for them rests on those whose success came in part from services provided by society through the workings of the government.”
This is a little more complicated than I’m going to go into at the moment, but to a first order I don’t think this refutes Tim’s point as much as reinforces it. The President recites a bunch of supposedly great things that new taxes are supposed to fund, but he never attempts to explain or defend how the numbers are supposed to add up. The result of this line of argument is a sea of fiscal icebergs like PPACA, the Medicare doc fix and unfunded public employee pensions. The late DP Moynihan called this “boob bait for [lib] bubbas.”
Ie, even if we could justify higher taxes for the purpose of building or achieving this or that, there’s no reason to think that higher taxes will be enough to buy whatever it is anyway.
The President was making a public speech, not presenting a white paper or elucidating in detail his philosophy of government.
Now, I realize you guys love you some basic philosophy of government (don’t we all!) but maybe, you know, the President was just making a speech and instead of chopping his words up, ignoring context and — most critically — taking it to the ridiculously absurd conclusion that the President must obviously believe that all things in America belong to the government you can…
Realize he was making a speech, and therefore is going to be (1) imprecise (2) not get into the weeds and (3) utilize shorthand and rhetorical devices in place of endless paragraphs and footnotes.
And you might also, in summation, realize he was saying that in regards to the Bush tax cuts that are due to expire, he really doesn’t support making them all permanent because government costs, everyone uses it, and given the situation — the fact that the US tax structure as a whole is basically flat (only federal income tax, itself on a part of the federal tax burden, is even a bit progressive — and not all that much in practice, insofar as the upper brackets mostly pay 15% rather than 35% because their income is more dependent on investment), and the upper brackets have done so ridiculously well the last two decades, that maybe they can actually afford to go back to the 90s tax rate because, unlike everyone else, they’re doing just fine.
Not to mention that, you know — marginal tax brackets. EVERYONE gets a tax break, even them.
“The President was making a public speech, not presenting a white paper or elucidating in detail his philosophy of government.”
That still doesn’t mean he can’t propose policies with numbers that add up. Or to put it another way, there’s nothing about the context that makes Tim’s point wrong. It’s one thing to blandly spout a laundry list of things that the government should do, or happy that it in fact does. It’s another assume accountability for the argument that some plausible tax level is in fact sufficient to fund them.\
It’s one thing to blandly spout a laundry list of taxes that the government should cut. It’s another assume accountability for the argument that some plausible level of spending cuts is in fact sufficient to support them.
Fixed that for you.
So, to sum up your position: The President shouldn’t support ANY increases in taxes (or I suppose decreases in spending) unless it covers 100% of all complaints anyone might have about anything?
Or is it just the deficit? It doesn’t close the WHOLE deficit, so we shouldn’t do it?
I’m confused as to your argument. In fact, I don’t think you have an argument so much as an idealogy you’re contorting the President’s words to force your idealogy in.
To me, it seems the President was stating he thought making the tax cuts permanent on all brackets but the top ones (which basically means even the top gets a tax cut — marginal brackets, right?) because, well, the country is broke as heck and everyone — including and perhaps especially the rich — benefit from the things the government does.
So, you know, their tax cut is expiring because the government needs the money badly, the rich have done far, far, FAR better than anyone else, and rely just as heavily on the US government as the poor.
But I guess because he didn’t bring out a chart and powerpoint presentation to the speech, he can’t do it?
Seriously, WTF?
“I’m confused as to your argument. In fact, I don’t think you have an argument so much as an idealogy you’re contorting the President’s words to force your idealogy in.”
I don’t think my argument is very complicated. If the President wants to justify a particular tax increase (or the expiration of the Bush tax cuts) he needs to state clearly what that tax increase is supposed to accomplish instead of blandly spouting a laundry list of government programs that may or may not have anything to do with the purported changes in our tax structure.
The President did not do that. Apparently, your argument is that we should make allowances for the context the President was speaking in, but I don’t think that’s credible. As Tim mentions below, there is nothing about that context that prevents him from clearly stating his views.
Moreover, my particular beef is slightly different. Even if we were going to attribute the President’s gaffe to be a largely irrelevant example of campaign-trail sloppiness, it’s not he’s bastion of fiscal clarity anywhere else. The President’s fiscal policies have been a circus of deceit and obfuscation for as long as he’s been in office.
“To me, it seems the President was stating he thought making the tax cuts permanent on all brackets but the top ones (which basically means even the top gets a tax cut — marginal brackets, right?) because, well, the country is broke as heck and everyone — including and perhaps especially the rich — benefit from the things the government does.”
Let’s note in particular that this may be the President’s inferred negotiating stance to fiscal policy, but he didn’t state this in his speech either.
He did mention that relative to the budget he proposed a year ago February that he and the Congress have agreed on $1 Trillion in cuts so far (over a period of ten years), but he didn’t mention that the only reason that happened is because the Republicans won that as a hard-earned concession in return for their consent to increase the debt ceiling, a move that was widely criticized by the President and the other libs at the time.
Luckily, things don’t have to be as bad for that. If we, as American voters, elect Willard “Mitt” Romney as President in November we can create a new course of fiscal policy where government expenditures can be attritioned until all parties can be reasonably confident that American public finance is strong, and create real hope of ending the scourge of Demo unemployment upon our ecnonomy and political culture.
Um no.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/07/09/transcript-of-obama-tax-remarks/
You can disagree that this is the best way (or even an effective way) to get the deficit under control (I do) but it is tendentious to say Obama’s talking about taxes in a vacuum. (other speeches talk about how Obama’s vs Romney’s tax plans effect on social security and medicare. Again, it’s debatable on the distinction and effect, but Obama is talking about how his tax plan – and his opponent’s – will prevent or will cause ‘human suffering’
“Rights are binary: we have them or we don’t.”
There’s only about two century’s worth of Supreme Court Cases that actually define and in some cases circumscribe the inalienable rights set out in the Constitution.
“Progressive taxation was ushered in along with social welfare spending with remarkably little effort made to explain its moral foundation. ”
Only the complete works of John Rawls. But that’s ahistorical, because progressive taxation precedes his birth by about a decade. But that’s also not quite right, because the first progressive tax in the US was implemented by that commie, Abe Lincoln.
(the open question on the other facet – did taking land from the Indians to give to common white folks really the first example of social welfare spending? If not, and if you exclude veterans benefits, then federal social welfare spending did begin in the 30’s. Though Rawls was in his teens then)
It sometimes seems as if Conservatives are most angry that President Obama is not the monster they want him to be. They’d almost be happier if he was actually doing all the horrible things they never want to see done so they can have more things to gripe about.
I swear to God, something about that speech just hit the “screaming idiot” button in some people’s brains. I’m watching people whose thoughts I have a good amount of respect for turn into gibbering fools.
The President made the unremarkable point that, you know, government costs. And that government does a heck of a lot for everyone, including and perhaps especially the ultra-rich who believe they got their entirely on their own — but didn’t. And that you know what? It has to be paid for. And saying “Screw you, I gots mine” now that you’re at the top? Just not acceptable.
And somehow, SOMEHOW, this has turned into the President being some sort of Socialist Ogre, who believes the fruits of all labor belong to the government, and OH MY GOD IF WE DON’T STOP HIM NOW HE WILL TAKE EVERYTHING AND GIVE IT TO THE POOR!
Get a freaking grip. He’s not venturing into some uncharted, dangerous waters!
He’s talking about NOT making part of a TEMPORARY tax cut permanent!
All this…weird, projective, psychoanalysis doesn’t make Obama look bad. It makes you look bad. Obsessed and crazy, actually.
Because you’re talking about how the President must apparently believe the government is entitled to everything you own and earn because, you know, he was talking about why it’s a good idea to only make permanent part of a temporary tax cut.
The scalded cat reactions have more to do with sensitive mechanisms of repression and displacement operating within the rightwing worldview – or within the minds of those who are determined to sustain a pristinely radical, narcissistically productive version of it at all costs – than with anything the President was advocating.
Following my previous posts on compulsory engagement, I would tackle the issue of taxes headon and make the assertion that Tim only wishes Obama had made.
No, you don’t own 100% of your income.
A portion of your wealth, property, and even personal sovereignty belong to the community, simply by virtue of your living in the community.
This leads to such places as Bowers v. Hardwick. Are you okay with that?
Self-ownership leads to places such as Somalia. Are you okay with that?
I mean really. We need some sort of Godwin’s Law for libertarian discussions.
Is someone here arguing that the claim of society upon your sovereignty is unlimited? Show me that person, I will happily argue him into submission.
Is it your position that Bowers v. Hardwick indicates some sort of unlimited claim upon personal sovereignty rather than “A portion of your wealth, property, and even personal sovereignty belong to the community”?
I assure you, your position is a lot closer to the arguments given in Bowers v. Hardwick than Somalia is to my own.
The claim is premised on the idea that your membership in society is not free- it comes with a price tag that is not voluntary. The claim upon your sovereignty is variable, depending on what compelling interest can be shown to justify it.
I am naught but a humble architect and make no claim to legal expertise; however, isn’t the logic of cases like Bowers, simply turn on whether or not intrusions into people’s behavior are, or are not justified by some compelling reason?
In other words, almost any restriction on rights and behavior (or claim on my property and sovereignty) is justified, if the state can show a strong enough rationale and follow due process.
Of course, the greater the claim, the higher the bar.
The claim upon your sovereignty is variable, depending on what compelling interest can be shown to justify it.
How much work is “compelling interest” doing for you there?
If I had a majority of folks saying “this is a compelling interest”, is your counter-argument going to be more substantive than “no it’s not”?
In order to answer that question, we would need perhaps a group of 12, or maybe 9, learned Constitutional experts who were empowered to review laws, and determine if there was enough compelling interest to justify intrustions upon the people’s liberty and strike down ones which didn’t comply.
The larger point is not to pinpoint the precise boundary of the claim; its to justify the fact that such a claim exists.
So why did you get huffy when I brought up Bowers v. Hardwick instead of saying “Yes! Exactly!”?
Lib: your snark nod to the Supreme Court whiffs when the extent to which they’re self-interested political figures is acknowledged. The same ones that’ll scream about federalism in one ruling will rip it to shreds in the next one basically because Fish Those Hippies.
Jaybird, your argument is spot on. And it should be noted that Lawrence v. Texas, which reversed Bowers, still didn’t establish a right to homosexual activity. O’Connor’s swing vote ruled that banning homosexual sodomy without banning heterosexual sodomy was a violation of “equal protection of the laws.”
If there’s a right to sodomy—or a right to property or the fruits of one’s labor at some minimal level, then no law is valid that violates those rights. However, past the level of unalienable rights, what prevents the state—via democracy, majoritarianism, social contract—from legislating what the majority believes is good, better or best for the greater whole?
Tom, the only thing that makes sense to me is that the folks make the assumption that the people in government will be like them… so, of course, they won’t infringe on *GOOD* liberties. They’ll only infringe on *BAD* liberties.
So when you bring up Bowers v. Hardwick, right out of the gate, the comparison is made that the person who brought up a Supreme Court case is bringing up something as off base as, say, bringing up Hitler would be.
When… No. These are laws passed by the legislature, signed by the executive, and, may I point out, upheld by the judiciary. Twice.
Liberty,
I am fine with your ideas if you will allow me to opt out of said society. Are you ok with this counter offer?
Roger-
Yes!
Renounce your citizenship and become a resident alien with a work visa.
You don’t get to determine my status when I opt out. I will opt out completely. Those of us that opt out will establish our own social contract and owe you all nothing. You can go on with your merry exploitation game but not with our funds, efforts or creativity. We will of course solicit additional members from your ponzi scheme. My guess is your system would collapse in about a week. Therefore I am confident you won’t really let us go.
You only got the tools to be able to leave because we gave them to you in the first place!
Roger-
Sorry, I really thought you meant something like move out of the country like that Facebook guy did.
If you mean, start a new civilization somewhere in the wilderness, without all our liberal crap, I am good with that too.
Seems like every couple years we hear a new proposal for that, and I wait eagerly to see it pass.
Who said anything about moving? I said opt out, not leave.
And it should be noted that Lawrence v. Texas, which reversed Bowers, still didn’t establish a right to homosexual activity. O’Connor’s swing vote ruled that banning homosexual sodomy without banning heterosexual sodomy was a violation of “equal protection of the laws
This is an error. TVD is right about what O’Connor said in her concurrence, but Justice Kennedy based the opinion of the Court in the right to privacy. He had a majority for that opinion, meaning O’Connor was not a swing vote, and so Kennedy’s ruling is the one that holds, and it does in fact state a right to engage in homosexual activity.
The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government
As usual when TVD speaks about a legal ruling, he gets it completely wrong. Interestingly, he always gets it wrong in a way that, if right, would be more amenable to conservatives. Convenient sloppiness/ignorance, or purposeful distortions for partisan purposes? I don’t know, but those seem to be the only available alternatives.
James Hanley is correct. O’Connor’s was the 6th, not the 5th vote in Lawrence. The rest of what he writes is of course a personal attack.
Of course it’s a personal attack. I am unfazed about attacking someone who repeatedly distorts legal cases, always in the same partisan direction. You, of course, would like to pretend that the wrong is in pointing out the pattern of partisan distortions, not in the engaging in partisan distortions.
You don’t get to determine my status when I opt out. I will opt out completely. Those of us that opt out will establish our own social contract and owe you all nothing. You can go on with your merry exploitation game but not with our funds, efforts or creativity.
I’m waiting for the gas chamber scene.
I do tend to think that if you want to walk away from Omelas, you have to walk away from it.
I mean, if you can’t save the kid.
Actually, years of violent conflict & poverty exacerbated by foreign intervention & violation of the commons (the pirate thing started out with fishermen, a search will show why they picked up weapons) is what led to Somalia as we know it.
Which by the way, is mostly BS excuse making; fishing stocks all over the world have collapsed due to overfishing tragedy of the commons, yet the fishing villages of, for instance, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland did not turn to piracy. (and they practically invented it)
I thought the pirate thing started because countries were dumping tons of shit off the coasts of Somalia and, absent a government or army to stop them or advocate on the country’s behalf, the pirates took up arms, militia-style.
Which also doesn’t pass the smell test. Why is someone going to go through the trouble of transiting the Suez canal (and pay the toll) or the Strait of Hormuz (and pay higher insurance rates) or just go all that distance between Malacca and the Horn of Africa, when that same person could just go a few miles off their own coast and dump stuff after dark. The ocean, and even the Med and Persian Gulf are pretty big.
Kolohe: Nova Scotia has more economically going for it than Somalia, to say the least…
The claim of “society” on your “sovereignty” is in principle unlimited, though what that really means is that sovereignty attaches to whatever power is capable of making the unlimited, peremptory claim. That’s what “sovereignty” is.
Aha! CK, you’ve located the difference between social contract and unalienable rights.
The claim of “society” on your “sovereignty” is in principle unlimited…
I have a nice quote from American Founder James Wilson disagreeing with the British view of government
“Must our rights be removed from the stable foundation of nature, and placed on the precarious and fluctuating basis of human institution? Such seems to be the sentiment of Mr. [Edmund] Burke [!]: and such too seems to have been the sentiment of a much higher authority than Mr. Burke — Sir William Blackstone.” —Wilson, Of the Natural Rights of Individuals
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=831
This is what this is all about. Obama’s view is “social contract,” which is not the [uniquely] American view.
Geez, at least arguing services or infrastructure has some extent of claimed promise to benefit for the income given up! This is just “submit or fish off”!
“A portion of your wealth, property, and even personal sovereignty belong to the community, simply by virtue of your living in the community.”
Which raises the questions: Who is my community? Who gets to decide who my community is? What criteria should they use? How many of those criteria are arguable from principle, and how many of those are mere historical accident? How much moral weight can we actually ascribe to circumstances that arose from historical accident?
Haven’t you heard? We all live in the global community now.
Obama gave a speech with lots of phrases that resonated with potential voters on an emotional level. It isn’t expected to stand up to intellectual scrutiny. It doesn’t. It shouldn’t have to. Politics is politics.
Good God! Perhaps you and I should stick to discussing politics rather than economics. Because that is one of the smartest things I’ve seen anyone say about his whole mess to date. Thank-you.
Rod,
For the record I thought you had the best solutions to the environmental issues. I’m intrigued by your Georgian economics / philosophy too. You should write something on it.
I’ve been thinking about a guest post. I think you’d be surprised at some of policies I advocate while firmly maintaining my liberal commitments. I suppose it’s the many years of hanging with Georgist libertarians (i.e., geo-libertarians).
TVD, you say:
The [uniquely] American view is not now nor has it even been except in the minds perhaps of a deluded minority the same as Radical Whiggism [NB: not actually uniquely American]. There is nothing in Obama’s view that cannot fall within Popular Sovereignty, which is also not the same as “social contract,” even if in peacetime or normal business it is often taken that way, and even it evokes matters of abiding concern to the People at all times.
CK, you’re quoting Iredell’s dissent. You wanna discuss this, you gotta come to poppa. 😉
Has poppa read LOCKE IN AMERICA or even perhaps have a copy on hand?
Rights are pre-political, CK, at least in the American scheme, and therefore precede “popular” sovereignty, or any sovereignty [say, Hobbes’ leviathan’s].
That’s the problem these days. We don’t even know where our rights come from and it all turns into some giant mush. The President’s speech is a disaster of incoherence, with no delineation between the individual and society, between society and the state.
By the time he’s finished, the individual and the state are one. I didn’t build that business, “we” did.
Oops, garbled my “first comment of the morning” up above – meant “DOES poppa have a copy of L.i.A. on hand?”
Anyway, maybe after another cup of coffee or two, I could address the claim that rights could be “pre-political.” The statement is self-contradictory, since the claim that rights could be pre-political is clearly a political claim. It raises the question whether any right as a right is or can be anything other than political, whether the assertion of a right isn’t always a political assertion. The “scheme” seems to be an effort to define a realm beyond or outside of politics yet relevant to politics and comprehensible only in relation to politics. I find that a dubious construction, both logically unsupportable and unsupported in history, but I’d prefer to set aside such questions until we’ve decided we actually care about them – that is, whether we care about what particular statements mean or could mean, or instead are interested only in how the same statements as speech acts bear upon our non-negotiable ideological commitments. The assertion of values prior to and therefore higher than politics is an assertion of values prior to and higher than political discussion. It’s an assertion of non-discussable values. It is in this sense a religious and dogmatic assertion. It has a political meaning and political effects, but it proclaims itself insusceptible to alteration by reason. It could be proved or disproved only in fact or by force.
The “American scheme” that you describe is only your American scheme, a projection upon which you insist. The actual American scheme – or American science and system of politics – is more complex and robust, is greater than the sum of its parts, and does not reduce to any of them. It can, among other things, withstand the location of the moment at which individual and state are one.
Mr. MacLeod, come down from the ivory tower. Let’s see if you can put your thoughts into plain English. ;-}
No of course I haven’t read this book by “a freelance writer with a Ph. D. from the New School for Social Research.” Are you like fishing serious?
Come to poppa. You’ve taken much cyberink to not say anything yet except you appear to disagree.
The assertion of values prior to and therefore higher than politics is an assertion of values prior to and higher than political discussion. It’s an assertion of non-discussable values. It is in this sense a religious and dogmatic assertion.
Of course rights are pre-political in the American scheme. Call it religious, call it dogmatic, reduce it to mere assertion. All true.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Of course it’s a proposition, not a fact.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
Indeed. In fact, the South said that “all men are created equal” is “a self-evident lie.” So there you have it.
As for Locke in America, I do know a bit about it, and am willing to discuss Locke and America. If you think your book will help you, by all means use it. I’ll stick with the original sources: Locke, and the Americans who cited him.
It has a political meaning and political effects, but it proclaims itself insusceptible to alteration by reason. It could be proved or disproved only in fact or by force.
Ah. Another Hobbesian, then.
“Mr. MacLeod, come down from the ivory tower. Let’s see if you can put your thoughts into plain English.”
Are you fucking serious?
Tom, I disagree with CK on this & I understand exactly what he’s saying. What needs restatement?
Mr. Psycho, it was the reference to an obscure book that perhaps holds CK’s argument; the previous insistence that the American notion of rights expressed by the Declaration and by Mr. Lincoln were only the views of a minority of “Radical Whigs”; that Popular Sovereignty trumps all this “rights talk.” Such a reliance on scholarly [“ivory tower”] tools and jargon conceals more than plain English reveals.
As for the rest, you’re quite right, and I was a little hard on CK. His objection here is largely in plain English and not hard to understand. If I read him correctly, the “American scheme of rights” is bullshit.
[Martin Sheen, in voiceover]
“F**K, criticizing someone for referencing an obscure book around here is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500…”
And the resident co-blogger getting on others for their use of the English language is sophistry at its best.
My point exactly, Lib60. Dueling book reports. ;-P
Would a variety of web links and quotes taken out of context been better?
You’d probably like LOCKE IN AMERICA very much, but maybe I have you pegged wrong.
As for “the American scheme,” what I specifically suggested was that I find it as you present it, inadequate – part projection, part imposition, unable to explain what it wants to explain, unsatisfactory, potentially quite dangerous to children and other living things, bullshitopathic, and dead-parrot-like. That clear enough?
So, your answer is that it would be a waste of my time to pursue the matter with your further. Noted.
I stipulated, CK. Even the “bullshit” part. I’m easy.
But calling “bullshit” gets us nowhere. Sophomores do it all the time. BTW, are you indeed arguing via Hobbes? I have a soft spot for his arguments, as I do Nietzsche’s.
Was arguing under an awareness of Hobbes. The Hobbesian construction of the state is unavoidable, because it’s ungodly useful, but there’ve been a few fellers who’ve proposed interesting re-constructions, alternatives, workarounds. I’ll drop no names, since I’ve already been accused of sophomorism, now in two different ways, and after the third we’d be divorced.
Now if you want to get past “calling bullshit” back and forth, then be prepared to follow the matter whither it goeth. Speaking of which, if you wanna take this further, whenever, let’s re-start down below… or you can call upon your awesome blogging powers to start a new thread. You’re even welcome to come by my place one o these days – just lemme know ahead of time, so I can straighten up, and put on something comfortable.
Cheers, CK. That Hobbes was indeed your context was the result of careful and charitable reading. Gratified that it was correct.
Excellent.
As to where to go from here, I do not know. I never say Hobbes or Nietzsche is wrong, only that they leave us…nowhere.
As does our mutual friend Leo Strauss. On whom I find your writings bloody flawless, BTW, better than even many of his defenders, second to none of them.
See, I’ve paid you the courtesy of tracking you down [well, actually you earned that courtesy]
http://zombiecontentions.com/
and in fact issued a clarification on TVD’s position on global warming [more agnostic than “skeptic”] in a comments section, which got caught in your spam filter. I just thought I’d wait until the proper time [now] to tell you that.
So cheers, mate. We’ll show ’em how it’s done. Sophomores agree on conclusions, adults agree on premises.
[“since I’ve already been accused of sophomorism…”
Nay, nay, you were not accused of sophomorism, but much worse: graduate studentism. Sophomores can only lick the balls of the ivory tower. Graduate students put on their knee pads.]
Addressing all readers and commenters, I want to address two other points that have caused considerable consternation:
First, that I am reading too much into the President’s remarks about the nature of economic rights and that he is merely a politician giving a political speech and ought not be held to every implication of every philosophical parsing of his remarks. I’ve given this some thought. It would be another matter if we weren’t just over three months out from a presidential election; if the election weren’t so predominantly about the economy; if the President were not himself critiquing the implications of his opponent’s theory of economic rights; and if the President weren’t already on notice that a substantial number of Americans are deeply suspicious about his views on economic rights and are going to be engaging in this very kind of critical parsing of his every word on the subject. But this is exactly the context in which the President delivered his remarks. More than that, he’s got a substantial communications team working to ensure every message is presented to the American public just so. The President and his team immediately (within a day) came out with a defensive ad attacking Romney for running an ad that played several unedited lines of the audio of the President delivering his own speech. If the President wanted to clarify or retract those of his remarks critical of individualism, he is quite capable of doing so. He hasn’t. He made those remarks, and when presented with the opportunity, he chose to stand on them. The remarks deserve all the scrutiny they get.
Second, that it is unsavory to characterize the President as adhering to a view regarding individual rights other than the classical liberal one. But there is nothing unsavory about it. There are perfectly respectable political philosophies that distinguish themselves from classical liberalism. For example, Walter Blum and Harry Kalven wrote a classic work on the subject of progressive taxation, Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation. According to Hadley Arkes’s treatment of it,
If my interpretation of the President’s remarks is correct, it puts him squarely in the good company of Blum and Kalven. [On further reflection, this is not how I’ve characterized the President’s remarks, though it may be an alternative plausible reading; will have to consider further.] You could also paint the President as a Rawlsian, perhaps (I’m not a good enough student of Rawls to say whether or not it’s a fit), but Rawls also is distinguished from America’s classical liberal tradition.
But it cannot be said that I am trying to tar the President or blow a dog whistle. There are good reasons to believe the President’s views on the economy are left of center and distinguished from classical liberalism. It is prudent to demand to know more about those views. Attributing the logical implications of the President’s own statements to him is one way to fairly make such a demand and present him with the opportunity to affirm, deny, or clarify them. But we should not be resigned to elect the man to find out what is in him.
What is classical liberalism as distinct from liberalism simpliciter? (For that matter, what is liberalism (simpliciter) from your persepective, Tim?) Or as distinct from libertarianism?
Also, can you expand on what you mean by “America’s classical liberal tradition”? What does this consist of? Do you mean to say that this it occupies a place of exclusive centrality in American public-philosophical life and history (I wouldn’t deny that it does if it is defined inclusively enough), or simply that it is a tradition among others in that space (in which case I’m okay with however narrowly you’d like to define it, so long as we save the name of liberalism simpliciter for a higher-altitude perspective on evaluating political systems that might be defined in terms of values for the most part common to classical liberalism, much libertarianism, most of left-progressivism, and some conservatisms)?
I don’t have a thorough explain ready of the differences between classical liberalism with libertarianism. The relevant characteristic of classical liberalism still held by mainstream America is the importance of private property to the very idea of liberty. I think modern libertarianism and conservatism certainly hold this. Most “liberals” also probably believe this and pay lip service to it, though the affinity for spending on social programs essential constitutes a redefinition of liberty (positive liberty, “forcing” people to be free, a la Rousseau), and thereby undermines the primacy of private property. I think this is where the tug-o-war takes place: the right wants to re-assert the primacy of private property, the hard left wants to re-assess the very idea of ownership and distribution of wealth.
I think James Hanley and TVD and others have been talking about the question of how we assess what the “mainstream American” view is. I think there is a strong case that the Founders were classical liberals. Tracing that tradition to the present will certainly have its challenges, but in my view it would take a clear and defining event to overthrow the presumption of the classical liberal tradition that was established at the beginning of the republic. That such an event has not occurred strongly suggests that classical liberalism still presumptively describes mainstream American political thought.
Tim, you protest that “…the President has omitted from his case any compelling need for the increased taxation.” I don’t know about how compelling the need is, but he does make an explicit pitch for increased taxation, in the form of allowing certain “temporary” tax cuts to expire and “return” to their earlier levels:
That is the argument for progressive taxation: the top 2% are “doing just fine,” they don’t need help, they’re the ones who can pay. The argument is not that this money belongs to the government, it’s that the top 2% can pay it. There is a lot of moral justification for why people should pay taxes and a laundry list of all the good things the government does with tax money. That’s the part of it where the controversy has come from, but it’s in the context of seeking political support for what is, in effect, a tax hike; Obama calls for taxes to become more progressive than they are, and he’s making a pitch for why it should be that way.
My gripe with him is that he doesn’t seem to be looking particularly hard for places to cut the budget. Having made a moral pitch that includes characterizing the government as both an agent for improving the lives of Americans and for building wealth, he has painted himself into a corner from which he can do very little cutting of the budget. So his only solution to the deficit is to raise taxes. I would prefer to hear a pitch for fiscal sanity at the Federal level that incorporates both tools — cutting spending and increasing revenue — and that includes within its revenue-increasing strategy tax reform that makes it more difficult to conceal and deduct income rather than increasing the rates at which the non-concealed income is taxed.
But what I don’t see is a vision of taxes as a vehicle by which the government acquires presumptive ownership of effectively everything. The basic premise is that one has an obligation to pay taxes just as one has an obligation to pay a mortgage or rent — my salary is my money, from which I am responsible to meet my obligations. The money I owe my bank for my mortgage is still mine, at least until I pay it, and the money I owe the government for taxes is also still mine, at least until I pay it. I just don’t see a paradigm shift in presumptive, legal, or equitable ownership. I see a call to raise taxes.
In order to hear a pitch for fiscal sanity, we would need at least one major political party that desired such a thing.
Increased spending is truly the most bipartisan concept we have.
It’s not even that hard to look, he just doesn’t want to. Nobody does really. Reconciling how people generally want low taxes while simultaneously thinking the deficit is a big problem and that virtually nothing should actually be cut that makes a dent is gonna be a doozy.
I have made this same post on RedState (before I was banned), on Balloon Juice, on Outside The Beltway, on Facebook, and any other venues where people talk about the budget:
Namely, I list the 5 big categories of gov’t spending:
1. Defense/ Homeland Security
2. Social Security
3. Medicare
4. Interest on the debt
5 Every other effing thing the gov’t does
Then ask people to change the numbers to create a balanced budget.
No one has ever even attempted a serious reply, because a quick glance shows how absurd a “cut-only” budget is. We would need to cut a full 1/3 of spending, in an environment where every penny is guarded with fanatical zealotry by special interests, and the lion’s share of all spending goes (unsurprisingly) to the most powerful groups in Washington- the military/industrial complex and senior citizens.
Even zeroing out every single program except Defense/ Homeland Security, SS, Medicare and interest still leaves a yawning deficit of about a trillion dollars a year.
But returning to the tax rates we had back when the budget actually WAS balanced is political taboo.
Well, that’s why you do it in steps. The deficit reduction package that ultimately resolved the debt ceiling crisis was a combination of cuts to #1 and #5. The first trillion dollars nobody noticed or cared about, except that the bad faith of the libs and Demos prevented any kind of meaningful cuts to President Obama’s proposed budget until the integrity of our economy was in imminent danger without them, and even then it was a close run thing. The point being, is that after two or three rounds of this, the sacred cows look a lot less sacred than they did before.
To that end, if we as Americans elect Willard “Mitt” Romney in the fall, we have the chance to create an economy of high growth and low unemployment, thereby helping the deficit from the revenue end as well.
Um…you do realize that Mitt Romney actually wants to increase spending on “defense”, right?
“To that end, if we as Americans elect Willard “Mitt” Romney in the fall, we have the chance to create an economy of high growth and low unemployment…”
And how, exactly, does Mr. Romney plan to do that?
I’ll take “What Rhymes With Ax Butts”, for $1,000.
Pretty much what I said before, that we can attrition government expenditures to create stability in American public finance.
And as far as Lib60 is concerned, tax cuts may or may not be a part of the answer. Well, there’s enough taxes in levied somewhere to where some of them will go up and some will go down as matter of course. But in the main, I think there’s a better chance of significant tax increases, ie, undoing the Bush tax cuts or the like, under President Romney than in President Obama’s second term, if there is one.
Most people have heard of the Laffer Curve, but what isn’t as widely known is that there is a specific spot on it, say somewhere between 30-45% where there are several compounding factors that dramatically hurt the possibility of raising revenue by increasing tax rates. The first is the usual: less marginal return on work lowers the available supply like any good. What’s less noted is that it lowers the demand as well. The effective tax rate for services that I perform for myself is 0%. Therefore I’m likely to redistribute my effort there instead of buying or hiring outside resources that may have a competitive edge. Finally, aside from the fact that we raise less revenue per incremental change in rates, there’s also the phenomenon that the changes in rates are necessarily smaller as well. A 5% change increase in a rate from 0 to 5% is the same as a 3% change from 37% to 40% in that the taxpayer loses about 5% of what he was going to get under the prior tax rates.
Add it all up, you come to the reality that we can undo Bush tax cuts if we need to, but in terms of raising real revenue that’s pretty much our last bullet. So there’s a tremendous opportunity cost to firing it. And there hasn’t been any reason to fire it yet.
The budget math is easy breezy and has been every time you asked Liberty. It (as you reference) is the budget politics which are impossible. I would gut defense spending to be half of what it is abort Obamacare, freeze salaries and hiring of government service workers for eight years and require Medicare and SS to pay for themselves (which I would do via options or choices). Problem solved. Indeed, this would allow us to substantially reduce taxes.
I agree; as they say, making choices is easy; living with the consequences is hard.
I remember when there was more of a rolling boil on budget issues & some websites actually had little simulators where you could attempt this across a simplified form of the budget. Tried a few at the time even.
Burt,
“I see a call to raise taxes.” Progressive taxes is what we’re talking about here. Proportional taxes do not carry the same moral problems as progressive taxes.
Just to be clear, that the top 2% “can pay it” is not an argument in itself for imposing an increased moral burden on a group of people based on their annual earning level, i.e., it is not a justification for taking it. Arguments concerning the diminishing utility of personal income are compelling in a system I’ve attributed to the President that subverts individual rights to earnings to the needs of the government qua the collective. And even if diminishing utility occurs it is only contingent, not a durable or reliable proposition—i.e., it is not of the nature of a logical proposition. “[S]ince there is no ground of principle which can establish the right allotments of income and pleasure,” Hadley Arkes explains concerning Blum and Kalven’s work, “there can be no moral ground for taking more money in taxation merely because some people have more money or feel less pleasure. Nothing in these attributes would define anything of moral significance, which could establish why certain people deserve to be taxed at a higher or lower rate.”
You are on the right track by indicating the President would need to build a case for a moral justification of a progressive tax. But “good things the government does” doesn’t get us there, without much more specificity and limitation. The government does lots of so called “good things,” but only certain narrow domains of those “good things” have moral significance—e.g., caring for sick children, yes; filling potholes, no. It would be a “good thing,” for example, if you gave me a ride to the hospital if I had suffered a life-threatening heart attack. But it also would be a “good thing” if you gave me a ride to the market for a quart of milk, or helped me patch a hole in my fence. These latter examples do not amount to moral justifications that create a moral duty on your part to act. They are not instances of moral tragedy that I was helpless to prevent. They are mere favors. They may even be efficient and beneficial from your standpoint: You might be on the way to the market yourself; your property values may increase if your neighbor’s fence is in good repair. But these are contingent propositions, not durable moral propositions.
“Fighting for the middle class” may indeed mean “all of us will prosper.” But, like helping me run errands or fix my fence, it is an empirical reckoning based on outcomes, as Arkes puts it, derived from the “low arts of prediction” and “directed toward a series of ends whose goodness may merely be contingent on a variety of conditions that are highly mutable.” They are not moral justifications that cause a moral duty to arise—particularly to the extent such duties would be imposed simply on the basis of one’s annual earnings (as one commenter said, if progressive taxation were consistent in moral logical with a system that respected individual rights, net wealth would be more consistent with moral logic, if such were practicable.)
We do have commitments to the community. But a commitment to the community that would separate a person every dollar that he “can pay,” if that commitment is to co-exist with any meaningful right to his own labor and property, must be limited in nature. Requiring individuals to pay for “good thing the government does” does not fill the bill. The limiting principle must instead be along the lines of paying, where one can, to prevent moral tragedy to those who were helpless to prevent it.
The President is asking more than that wealthier Americans to simply, in effect, “pay their mortgages.” If that were the case, there would be no controversy. We enter into a compact whereby an institution (a bank or a government) will make certain investments (a mortgage or infrastructure), and I agree to pay (mortgage payments or taxes) based on defined terms, irrespective of how well the enterprise pans out. If the market is kind, I enjoy the windfall—neither the bank nor the government has any greater claim to repayment than if the market was harsh. Instead, the bank or the government may decide to make additional similar investments: the bank may offer you a HELOC; the government may invest in still more infrastructure. But in neither case is the homeowner or the taxpayer a partner with or a shareholder in the bank or the government. They are at arm’s length and have different interests, even if they are aligned in some ways (it’s easier to get paid back if the homeowner or taxpayer is successful).
This is different from the moral argument the President is making. He is arguing that government’s infrastructure has served the rich well, and thus they are morally obligated to pay more for it than the terms originally called for. If a bank tried to do that with a mortgagor, it would receive sharp rebuke, and rightly so.
Can we rid ourselves of the notion that people will work less if we raise the highest marginal tax rates in a progressive tax system? Let’s run a few numbers…
First off, tax brackets in 2012 for an individual are…
10% Bracket $0 – $8,700
15% Bracket $8,700 – $35,350
25% Bracket $35,350 – $85,650
28% Bracket $85,650 – $178,650
33% Bracket $178,650 – $388,350
35% Bracket Over $388,350
So, someone making $1M would pay $870 + $4000 + $12,500 + $26,400 + $69,200 + $214,000 or $326,970, just over 32.5% of salary. So, on a $1M salary, take home is $673,030.
If the tax cut on the top bracket is allowed to expire, it would rise to 39%. You know how much less take home pay that means? About $24,500. HOLY CRAP, THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY! Well, yes and no. It is less than 2.5% of total income, so a 4% rise in the top marginal tax rate really only amounts to a 2.5% raise for someone making $1M. I’d venture to guess that folks aren’t going to start giving up 7 figure jobs over $24,000. So, yea, the whole “diminishing utility of income” argument doesn’t hold much water when we actually look at the numbers. Most folks (not necessarily here, but generally speaking) don’t realize how marginal tax rates and tax brackets work. Some actually think making MORE money means less take home pay, which would be laughable if so many people didn’t actually believe it.
Kazzy,
I don’t disagree that the wealthy will need to pay more taxes in the future, even though I would much prefer lower spending and that farts smelled just like roses.
The problem I have with our system is that it encourages adversarial relationships and battles. We have a system which encourages struggles over those who pay more so other can pay less. It would be more fair and just and predictable and less disruptive if we had a large personal exemption and a set rate above that which applied equally to every person with no exclusions to every dollar above that. Something like zero income tax below 60,000 a year and twenty five percent on everything above.
The problem I have with our system is that it encourages adversarial relationships and battles. We have a system which encourages struggles over those who pay more so other can pay less.
Would you be interested in a proposed system that eliminates income taxation–both personal and business, sales taxes, (most) property taxes on improvements (buildings), and tariffs? A system that can generate at least as much revenue as we currently collect at all levels of government with no deadweight losses to drag down the economy? A system that has been endorsed by a great number of influential economists and politicians including Libertarians, Republicans, and Democrats?
If each side can only be convinced to give up one cherished philosophical commitment it can become a reality.
Yes, tell me more young man!
Guess I’ll have to do that guest post then. It’s too big for a comment at the bottom of a long commentary section. Takes some explanation and a paradigm shift, but once you get it the damn thing will forever change your perspective.
Dude, this sounds amazing. You absolutely must write a post on it! Should I do some pre reading?
I have a feeling Rod is suggesting something I have heard of before, but damned if I can actually dredge what it was out of my memory. So I second Roger; write it up. Hopefully it’s either more memorable than the idea I heard before, or if it’s the same thing, it will stick in my head this time.
James, I would be surprised if you hadn’t run into it somewhere. It’s firmly in the classical liberal sphere of political economy. The problem is that the central thesis runs counter to conventional economic thought starting about a century ago. That would suggest one should be skeptical–and for good reason, critical thinking is good! But I can indulge since I’m not a professional economist and therefore don’t have to concern myself with stuff like tenure and professional advancement. Going against the grain is dangerous.
BTW, Roger, the philosophy dovetails nicely with that paper you linked to elsewhere, the one from George-Mason. I’ve read most of it and despite generally not liking much that comes out of that institution I can find little to object to so far.
Now you’ve got us all in suspense! Can you at least float the name of the theory so those of us who can’t weight can look it up ourselves?!?!
Actually I already mentioned it in an earlier exchange with Roger above. But this has been fun. I used to sell cars for a while and I managed a Radio Shack store. Selling the sizzle before you bring out the steak!
I managed a Radio Shack store. Selling the sizzle before you bring out the steak!
How come my local Radio Shack doesn’t sell steak?
We were a test market for an battery-operated Hibachi. Didn’t work out so hot.
I managed a Radio Shack store.
You mean you’ll want our home addresses before you’ll tell us?
Ah, I’ve figured out what Rod’s proposal is. I won’t ruin the suspense, though. I’ll just feel smug about having figured it out first. I’m pretty sure I disagree with the normative claims on which it is based, but I’m interested in seeing the pragmatic arguments in favor of it.
Psssht. I Wiki’ed it an hour ago, Hanley. I just didn’t feel the need to brag about it.
Apparently you feel the need now!
Sounds like VAT to me, but I wonder what important commitment libs are supposed to give up to implement that. Maybe that consumption taxes are inherently regressive?
Nope, not VAT.
Kazzy, here is why marginal tax rates matter: If I take a job, it comes straight out of our top tax bracket. I mean, that’s where the taxation starts. When my wife gets a bonus for excessive call or whatnot, that comes straight out of the upper bracket.
Normal people may not be particularly aware of how this all works, but the people who make over a certain amount do. For me, it was when taxation (state and local) exceeded 1/3 of our income. That’s when I started to care and really started to notice. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t raise the marginal rates for higher incomes, but it does have at least a marginal effect on our attitude towards my taking a job or starting a business, or my wife making more call, taking on a job that pays more money, or shifting to a lighter schedule.
I suspect that raising taxes by another 5% or so won’t have enormous impact, but this stuff does matter. You might be surprised how much you notice, when your raise, bonus, or second job isn’t bringing home as much income as you thought.
It matters, yes, but not as much as many people insist. Some people think folks will just stop working if the top bracket goes up a few ticks. I just don’t see it.
Personally, I’d rather see the current top bracket raised less and another bracket (or several, perhaps) instituted on top of that. We shouldn’t treat someone making $500K the same as someone making $500M.
And why should we care if they do work less?
What benefit has acrued to me by the top 0.1% working long hours?
Given all the scandals of Wall Street over the past decade, what good is them working hard, if all they are working hard at is how to screw me in ever more novel ways?
Please, Jamie Dimon- do America a favor and go Galt, like, now!
Or to be more direct-
“Jump you fuckers!”
Because economics is a positive sum game. They are making money off investments, creating products or services, exploring new entrepreneurial activity, blah, blah, blah. If they produce less then others are benefitted less. The size of the pie is decreased. That means fewer jobs. Lower productivity. Lower wages. Less consumer surplus. blah, blah blah.
In other words, as usual that which you recommend is exactly what you go to the park to protest. You just fail to connect the dots
Liberty60,
I had a longer response, but for now I’ll just leave it at this: you’re living up to an image that, when described by conservatives, I consider to be a strawman.
We have our differences, Lib, but this really doesn’t suit you.
Kazzy, I suspect the more we hammer it down, the more we would agree. I am a tad hypersensitive to “it’s only marginal rates” arguments cause the margins are where the decisions are made. I agree that it’s not all-important and, to be honest, taxes are low enough that they can afford to go up somewhat.
I’m inclined to agree with you about new higher tax brackets, though I’m a tad nervous about doing so because the view from having a certain amount of money is different from the view of something thinking about the people who have that amount of money. If that makes sense. I’m wary of looking at them as a money spigot – not that I think you are, but it’s a common enough perception – because I know before look people would have to start looking at us in the same vein. A few years down the line, when we’re more settled, I might take a different tack on that.
Will-
I’m not sure what caused your unhappiness with my post-
The sharp tone at the end, perhaps.
Unpleasant emotion, but given the seeping ooze of malfeasance and self-dealing and corruption that we are learning about how Wall Street investment houses operate, “jump, you fuckers” is probably the most polite admonition anyone could give them.
Aside from that, I would stand by my contention that all the effort and hard work performed by Wall Street banks acrues not one bit of benefit to the American middle class.
The vaunted “investment” of capital they provide is an illusion; the esoteric financial wizardry of the past decades produced only a mirage. We as a nation are poorer now than when we began deregulation.
“We have our differences, Lib, but this really doesn’t suit you.”
Oh but it does. Libs’ (ie, liberals in general not just L60) participation in our political culture is very bad and this is a useful illustration why.
It’s a combination of their desire for unattainable things and the implicit license to escalate their actions when their first attempts fail.
If a conservative imputed to libs generally what L60 actually said, it’s usually not useful to treat it as a strawman. If what the conservatives are afraid of isn’t here today, it’s coming soon enough.
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Lib60 makes a live point
Aside from that, I would stand by my contention that all the effort and hard work performed by Wall Street banks acrues not one bit of benefit to the American middle class.
The vaunted “investment” of capital they provide is an illusion; the esoteric financial wizardry of the past decades produced only a mirage. We as a nation are poorer now than when we began deregulation.
that should be discussed, not buried under “liberals suck.”
To his point I reply that Republicans/conservatives are too often associated with defending Wall Street and faceless, soulless high finance—and often because they mindlessly do so, in an attempt to defend the current “system” as The American Way, of free enterprise, of capitalism.
Of individual initiative, although that has very little to do with Lehman, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs.
In fact, Lib60, I think you’ll find—not very well articulated by the GOP’s reform movement, the Tea Party—a hostility toward bailing those manipulative bastards out, hence their relatively wealthy investors, too.
To return to Tim Kowal’s OP, conservatives,—incl Tea Partiers—see President Obama’s mention of “business” as an attack on entrepreneurship and free enterprise, the economic liberty on the individual and personal scale that they [and I am one] believe made this country prosperous on a scale unimagined in man’s history.
A point of order, then, Lib60. “Capitalism” to you means the high finance pirates; to the conservative, it means the guy who risked all and worked 18 hours a day to make his vision a reality.
A point of order, then, Lib60. “Capitalism” to you means the high finance pirates; to the conservative, it means the guy who risked all and worked 18 hours a day to make his vision a reality.
You nailed it, Tom. We spend an awful lot of time talking past each other and arguing invisible strawmen. Liberals are in no way attacking “the guy who risked all and worked 18 hours a day to make his vision a reality.” Hell a lot of liberals are that guy. Maybe our side doesn’t make that distinction clearly and forcefully enough, or maybe your side isn’t listening closely enough, or maybe some of both.
Perhaps the real culprit here are the academic economists. They’ve officially embraced a position that says that the only thing that matters is the rate of return. It’s a kind of quasi-Calvinism that assumes that somehow, through whatever maze of complexity and obscuration, the fact that a profit has been made by someone is prima facie evidence that value has been created and that’s a Good Thing (TM).
That leads to an uncritical equivalence of any activity involving money, risk, and anticipated reward, with productive investment. And it’s just goofy; shoving a quarter in a slot machine satisfies that definition.
Rod, the problem is Obama’s machete approach to “the rich” nails ’em all: the “good” entrepreneur, the “bad” CEO alike.
Perhaps the real culprit here are the academic economists. They’ve officially embraced a position that says that the only thing that matters is the rate of return.
…
That leads to an uncritical equivalence of any activity involving money, risk, and anticipated reward, with productive investment.
And Obama’s war on both baby and bathwater. It’s the same ignorance.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/07/elizabeth-warren-damages-two-campaigns-with-one-rant/
Tom,
So you’re more interested in bitching about Obama than having a conversation. So Noted. Good-Day, sir.
See below for more on your comments. But the OP is about Obama, and the criticisms are earned. He screwed up, he spoke his heart.
Tim,
You make great points, but I am not sure what the point is. Congress can raise taxes. It may help them to protect their jobs by gussying it up with fancy rationalizations, but that is all it is: lipstick on a pig. They can make taxes more progressive, less progressive or whatever they like and they can explain it any way they like. They can even say it is for God, or to protect the American Way, or because it is needed to protect ice cubes in the arctic.
This whole discussion assumes the truth of my original objection. President Obama made a call for higher taxes. Maybe his pitch isn’t all that good, but he has not made a call for a wholesale revision of the idea of property rights.
My first concern is with understanding the argument because it has generated so much more heat than light. If we’re moving on and saying, “Okay so this is really a pitch to raise taxes, and that’s a good/bad idea because…” then great, my work here is pretty much done.
Is it a pitch to raise taxes? Sure, but that’s not what my argument is about. I couldn’t care less about the arguments based on low arts of prediction, i.e., the pragmatic effects of hiking or easing taxes under particular circumstances. The President hasn’t been overly concerned with the low arts of prediction in making this pitch, either. He’s primarily gone about it by offering durable moral propositions about “fairness,” by claiming that certain people, because of their membership in a certain economic group, deserve to pay higher taxes. It’s a claim that, I’ve argued, fails to co-exist in terms of moral logic with an individual right to earnings.
Progressive taxation has been with us for a while, so in that regard, the pitch is unremarkable. But given the President’s vigor in advancing the moral proposition anew, and in a campaign featuring a bout-to-knock-the-other-guy-out over economic worldviews, no less, the argument and its implications are especially and independently significant.
“Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
Uh huh.
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2012/04/10/2012-tuesday-with-buffett-rule-obama-ignores-economics-and-leans-on-fairness/
Tom,
I wouldn’t argue fairness with you if for no other reason than I have no wish to waste either of our time. I will say this: Romney pays a higher effective rate than I do, but I wager he pays a lower effective rate than people like… well, you, probably. The people that should really be incensed at our current tax structure are people who earn in the mid-six figure range from salaries or ordinary business profits. You can argue about fairness if you like, though I’m not particularly interested, but you have to admit the optics on that sort of thing are terrible for your side.
It’s no mystery to me why the Mittster is balking at releasing his tax returns. I imagine he and his campaign team have correctly surmised that his candidacy would never be able to survive the collective “WTF??” moment when everyone compared what he “earned” with his tax bill. Especially considering that a cornerstone of his proposed tax policy would only further reduce his liability.
You know, back in the day, your team had at least a plausibly cogent argument vis-a-vis double taxation wrt dividend incomes (though not so much for capital gains, IMO). The problem is that the fix you wanted (and got) was perverse, and it set the stage for precisely this kind of argument by making it possible for gazillion-aires to skate by relative to… perhaps not working stiffs, but at least the professional class.
Considering how little of our federal receipts are currently extracted via corporate income taxes and how low the effective rate for many corporations is compared to the nominal rate, I would be happy to simply eliminate the corporate income tax. Not lower it to make it “competitive,” but simply do away with it entirely. That should eliminate about 80% of our tax code right there. BUT, with the proviso that it was tied to treating dividends and capital gains on stock as ordinary income.
That would do several things:
1) tax advantage the small investor so that it would be easier for the little guy to build up something of a nest-egg.
2) Have the effect of making it at least marginally more difficult to make your tenth million than your first, which would put something of a brake on this ridiculous trend in wealth/income inequality.
3) Nullifying a hell of a lot of the distorting special tax advantages enjoyed by this industry relative to that one or this company relative to this other one over there.
4) Eliminate business decision-making based on tax consequences instead of where it should be, i.e., market opportunities, innovation, and competition.
Could you see signing on to something like that?
Rod, I like your list. Let’s unpack it:
1) tax advantage the small investor so that it would be easier for the little guy to build up something of a nest-egg.
1) The gov’t backing off so we [“the small investor”] can build a nest-egg? Aren’t we already doing that with the 401(k) and IRAs and such?
Here’s the thing [been meditating on this]: From one side of our mouths we bemoan “corporations” as the root of all evil. But we’ve put almost the entire weight of our present and future on the stock market! The “small investor’s” portfolio is weighted toward stocks, not bonds. Hell, look at the public employees—the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is richer than anybody, with $235 billion under management!
[The #1 human, Carlos Slim, is worth a lousy $69B.]
2) Have the effect of making it at least marginally more difficult to make your tenth million than your first, which would put something of a brake on this ridiculous trend in wealth/income inequality.
2) I don’t give a flying fish for this “inequality” stuff. Ideology, class warfare. The question is ever only whether the poor have enough, never that the rich have too much. It’s none of my business, and Donald Trump has made nobody poorer.
3) Nullifying a hell of a lot of the distorting special tax advantages enjoyed by this industry relative to that one or this company relative to this other one over there.
For the latter, Adam Smith hated those cozy gov’t-business monopolies. As for favoring this industry over that, green energy over tobacco companies, hard to say.
4) Eliminate business decision-making based on tax consequences instead of where it should be, i.e., market opportunities, innovation, and competition.
Well, you just hit the free-market antichrist, where avoiding taxes adds more to the bottom line than boldly and baldly creating wealth.
Obama is particularly vulnerable on 3) and 4) with his green energy ideology, where Solyndra pisses away a half-billion taxpayer bucks, where we subsidize the ugly Chevy Volt and the much cooler Fisker Karma, both unsupportable “advances” in transpo unless we build a couple hundred million recharging stations like yesterday.
Hey, I’m a conservative, not a libertarian. I’m all for what works, and contrary to popular belief, conservatives admit that Social Security and Medicare work. The only “conservative” thing to do is to save them.
The Chevy Volt, not so much.
Tom,
Thanks for the discussion; let’s keep it going…
1) The gov’t backing off so we [“the small investor”] can build a nest-egg? Aren’t we already doing that with the 401(k) and IRAs and such?
Yes and no. Those instruments tax-shelter retirement savings, true. But those instruments only shelter retirement savings. You can’t use the funds for any other purposes; “Substantial Penalties for Early Withdrawal” apply. Oh, you can borrow against a 401k, I guess. But there’s caveats to that as well as I understand it.
The point is there’s big strings attached. I couldn’t take the funds built up in an IRA or 401k and start a business if I chose to, or maybe purchase a house. They basically lock you into putting aside money now to provide for an uncertain future decades hence, regardless of how your situation may change in the meantime. The biggest problem for the poor and middle class is the lack of productive capital; they (well… unfortunately, we, as I’m in that cohort) lack the means to really earn our own living. In this, despite not being Catholic, Christian, or theist in any way, I side with G.K. Chesterton and the Catholic Social theorists.
I don’t give a flying fish for this “inequality” stuff. Ideology, class warfare. The question is ever only whether the poor have enough, never that the rich have too much. It’s none of my business, and Donald Trump has made nobody poorer.
Sufficientarianism, eh? Well, I believe inequality is a living issue, but not for emotional reasons of fairness or whatever. My concerns are strictly instrumental. On the one hand, there’s robust evidence that inequality, per se, correlates positively a number of negative social indicators such as crime, violence, bad health, teen pregnancy, etc. And the correlation doesn’t hold for poverty. I.e., poor countries that are more equal fare better on measures of social health than richer but more unequal societies. Unfortunately, like much of social science, the correlation is robust but the causitive theory is weak. IOW, it’s not clear how or why this is so.
On the other hand, I’m concerned that the rapidly rising inequality is indicative of some underlying injustice. And here we all have our pet theories of how certain individuals are gaining unjust advantages. It would be nice if we could come to some agreement on that score, but alas, I’m afraid our pre-existing political commitments make that a tough row to hoe.
Like Mitt Romney (in)famously declared, “I’m not concerned about he poor.” Really, the poor are in relatively the same position they have been since the Great Society reforms. My concern is that their ranks are swelling. I’m primarily concerned about the broad middle, where median incomes have stagnated since the mid-70’s and actually fallen in the last decade. I’m concerned that the only way that the middle class has managed to advance at all has been by the increase of two-earner households, which put them in much more precarious straits in an economic downturn. I’m concerned as well with the degradation of family structures those changes entail, a concern I would hope you would share. The problem isn’t the single mother on welfare–her situation has always sucked, but predictably so. Rather, I’m concerned that the problems she has always faced are now evidencing in the broader working/middle class.
If that’s ideological, then fine. I’ll own it.
As for the Chevy Volt… boy you guys really have a bug up your ass about that thing, don’t you? I don’t know about you, but I already have a charging station suitable for a Volt. It’s the 110-volt outlet in my garage. You should install one; it’s handy for other things as well, like, you know… power tools and stuff. And since the Volt also has a gas engine and fuel tank for longer trips it really doesn’t demand any new infrastructure. I think it’s pretty cool. Maybe it’s expensive but the first of anything is. I remember when 4-function calculators first came out and cost $400.
Pleased to, Rod:
Obama is not a distributist, that’s the problem. Distributism requires subsidiarity, the devolvement of power and responsibility to the smallest molecules of society.
[Wiki]
“Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.”
—Pius XI
Obama’s wrong on both counts: seizing the fruit, building the Leviathan.
I love GK Chesterton [and Belloc] but never got into distibutism much, as I see it inextricable from Christian charity. Consider that next time we scoff at our foundations bing [Judeo-]Christian values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
This sez that Dorothy Day, etc. opposed Social Security as anti-subsidarity! Clearly we have a lot to sort out if we’re to go down this road.
As for the Chevy Volt, again, we have Leviathan competing against private enterprise. Bad.
Neither is “industrial policy” much more than a crapshoot on its good days. As political philosophy AND as utilitarian policy, el stinko.
http://leadenergy.org/2011/02/grounding-our-innovation-policy-debate/
Obama’s ad today is for us to “invest” in education, manufacturing, energy.
The first has resulted in the higher education price bubble, with our little #Occupy darlings screwed with massive debt.
Obama’s “investments” in manufacturing and energy were not to create plenty [cheap energy creates wealth], but enviro-ideology, making energy more expensive [albeit a bit cleaner], at best to break even. But this is not “building roads.”
And we financed dead-end technolgies [Solyandra], and put Chevy and Fisker in competition with the free market [Nissan Leaf], at the cost of billions upon billions for what shouldn’t have been done in the first place.
This election’s about something, not cheap rhetorical points. [Nice try on the Romney, BTW, but this ain’t about that.]
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/feb/02/context-romneys-comments-whether-he-cares-poor/
ROMNEY: And, by the way, I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.
I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.
O’BRIEN: All right. So I know I said last question, but I’ve got to ask you. You just said I’m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. And I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. Can you explain that?
ROMNEY: Well, you had to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have the safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them.
O’BRIEN: Got it. OK.
The biggest problem with Barack Obama’s political philosophy is its lack of discernment and hence its ultimate incoherence. Tax the rich, feed the poor is turnip truck stuff, indeed taxing the rich is good in its own right, to make things “fair.”
In fact, I wouldn’t mind dissecting him on distributist grounds alone, which although I think is soft-headed in the real world, is on firm moral ground. Its duty is to provide equal opportunity, so that the human quest for excellence and accomplishment is enabled. Obama and his supporters may think they’re distributists, but they know nothing about it. Although they nod to the fruits of hard work and initiative, their only interest is in taxing it.
I don’t think he can talk his way out of this one. It’s the defense that’s sophistic; the attack is fair.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/24/obama-still-trying-explain-you-didnt-build-comment/
[BTW, Rod, I had addressed some of your other points in a reply that got ate by The Ghost in the Machine. Since this version got too long, I’ll leave the lesser points, like if you can use your 401(k) for wealth creation and not just stocks & bonds. I think you can, or so the ads on the radio tell me.]
, I again note that the President has omitted from his case any compelling need for the increased taxation
Paying for all the benefits voters want doesn’t count? Seriously?
Congrats on the first birthday party–you’re about to hit the toddler years, which are just magical.
James,
Off topic, but did you see this awesome primer on rent/ privilege seeking? It won’t teach you anything new, but it is a great intro to the topic for those desiring to learn. It seems like the type of thing your students would love.
http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/The-Pathology-of-Privilege-Final_2.pdf
Roger, no, I had not seen that. Thanks for the link.
That’s a good read and I can’t find much of anything to argue about. Were you aware that liberal economist Dean Baker made much the same argument in The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive?
There’s a lot that’s currently messed up that we (liberals, libertarians, and true conservatives) can agree on if we can stop yelling at each other.
I haven’t been always consistent or precise here. In place of “compelling need” it should read “morally significant need,” which I’ve alluded to elsewhere as something to the effect of preventing the moral suffering of innocents.
Let me play devil’s advocate here in two ways. Our continuing budget deficits place a burden on unborn generations; does that count as “moral” suffering of innocents? If not, is it not still more moral to have the current generation pay for its own benefits than to charge future generations for them?
From another angle, when we’re talking about marginal changes in tax rates, is “morally significant need” really the right metric? If the President proposed to raise the rates on each tax bracket by .01%, would you demand he demonstrate that there’s a morally significant need to do so? If not, at what point does the necessity to demonstrate a morally significant need kick in, and why there?
What if Bush’s tax cuts had dropped the top marginal rate down to 5%, and Obama was calling to double (!) it to 10%? Would a morally significant need requirement kick in there?
If I follow your logic correctly, don’t we need to demonstrate a morally significant need to justify keeping tax rates at the status quo, rather than lowering them further?
I’m no Paul Krugman. I prefer cutting spending to increasing taxes. But I’m just not sure the logic of your argument travels well across the tax spectrum. If you intend it to, then you’re making rather a more radical argument than you’ve made clear so far. That’s OK, as long as you really mean it.
I had the same thought over the weekend, and it’s really just a variant of Jason’s question: ‘Okay, say i agree the rich should pay more, then how much?’ That’s no different really from the simple question, “How high should federal taxes be at this and that and that other income level?” To which Obama could reply, “35% on income over $250,000 and descending as income descend from there.” (I.e. the status quo.) To which proposal Tim could equally reply (or he has given us no reason why he couldn’t), “That fails to sufficiently respect the *rights* of income earners/producers to keep their earnings” as he could to the proposal that Obama is actually currently (though i’d argue separately from the argument we’re paying attention to in this speech) right now. To which in turn Obama could respond with basically the argument that is at issue. (again, my contention is that this argument on its face doesn’t claim to justify any given tax level or change thereto, but merely addresses a particular rights claim against same . (Not the same thing at all – in my view Tim needs to wait and stay tuned, or at least look elsewhere, for justification(s) for particular tax proposals; it’s essentially not on the table here, in this particular argument we’re addressing, to which I think Tim has confined his analysis. For all I know the ostensible justification is in the same speech. The point is this argument is not being advanced as that justification.)
Anyway, as you say, it seems to me this is remains arbitrary, both from Obama’s perspective, and from Jason’s, and from Tim’s. It’s hard to see why this debate is a function of a proposal to raise taxes. It’s equally applicable to the simple question of what tax levels across incomes should be from a static perspective. I.e., it’s just a question of how progressive, if at all, a tax structure is morally justified. And I’m not sure it’s an answerable question.
I haven’t had time to read through all the comments yet, but here are my thoughts:
I had an opportunity to talk to our field engineer the other day. His background is in bridge building. I actually know more about the water treatment facility because of having worked on a similar site.
But that was for a powerhouse (coal-fired). Coal bad.
This is for a refinery. Refinery bad.
This company is really dedicated to being environmentally-friendly. However, they bought the site from another company, and there was a big fire there back in the 50’s, and a lot of crap seeping out of the ground from that still.
Both of the aforementioned facilities are drawing their water from Lake Michigan. So is the utility company.
Which one is bad?
I’m just an inspector on this site. My job is to ensure the safety of the public.
Public, you better damned well have a filter of some sort for your drinking water.
You’re only supposed to eat two servings of fish per week out of this lake. Most of that’s because of the chemical pollutants from farming.
Wisconsin has banned some of the chemicals because of the steelheads.
I have to crawl up on top of a tank full of jet fuel to make sure your sorry asses are safe.
The danger of exploding I can deal with; but it’s damned hot out there.
How good of a chance of dying do I have to have before I can get some AC out here?
Is it really all about the money?
How much does the gov’t get from the fishing/refining/power generating industry to say it’s ok to poison X no. of people?
And what about the guy crawling up the catwalk on that tank of jet fuel?
How many of him can you blow up safely?
If they held out another 20%, do you think I would eat better that evening?
Would my laundry cost less?
How much do I have to give?
I’m full of questions.
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