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The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

-Samuel Adams

Libertarians and Taxes

In a recent email exchange on taxes, Rammage made the following comment:

Any talk of going to a national, flat-rate sales tax is libertarians throwing their hands up in defeat. It's a *compromise*. And as such, I just can't stand behind it.

I have no idea what kind of defeat this would represent. Most libertarians would like a national sales tax - it isn’t a compromise at all. Libertarians recognize that there are legitimate functions of government, and that these must be funded in some way. User fees are a fairly extreme concept for most people to swallow, and can’t be seen as a realistic option. But a national sales tax is closer to being a user fee than is any kind of income tax. What Rammage sees as a moral compromise I would call a step in the right direction.

Other comments from the same thread:

Jib Halyard:

I lean towards a sales tax vs income tax because its a lot harder to hide purchases than it is income. Not to mention... I HATE filing taxes every year.

(An excellent point. Of course, there is always the black market, but I can’t see that being more of a hassle to deal with than is the current nest of income loopholes. And there are groups like the National Retail Sales Tax Alliance whose refund scheme seems like it would be as much trouble as the current system. But something more straightforward would be possible. And I still don’t see how the basic notion of a national sales tax would be a defeat for libertarians.)

Jon Henke:

Don't worry. You'll never get the opportunity to make this compromise. It will never happen. Among other things, it's simply not possible to fund our government at anything like current revenue levels with a flat rate national sales tax.

This is probably true. But this does highlight exactly why libertarians would like to see a national sales tax. They believe that it would awaken more people to the cost of our government and stoke the fires of libertarianism in the average American. I’ve got a stack of IRS forms and booklets that would feed those fires very nicely.

Posted by Wulf on September 24, 2006 at 02:40 PM

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"They believe that it would awaken more people to the cost of our government and stoke the fires of libertarianism in the average American."

This is undoubtedly an accurate portrayal of the general libertarian opinion. I've read stories in the LA Times, I think , indicating that tax attorneys and tax preparers like HR Block are the lobbyists opposing such measures. Rent seeking at its finest.

At our expense...

Posted by: doinkicarus at September 26, 2006 2:09 AM

The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

-Samuel Adams

Libertarians and Taxes

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