Posted by
DrMNO on Thursday, October 23, 2008 7:13:18 PM
Someone in the past observed that intellectuals typically do not involve themselves in the politics of a nation unless a crisis ensues that threatens the very fabric of the nation. While I am not an intellectual, I also usually do not actively comment on politics in any public forum. However, I am greatly concerned about the possible results of the soon to be concluded presidential election.
With the likely election of Barack Obama as the President, I have a few thoughts I would like to offer in light of his proposal on taxation. I will present these from the perspective of our Founders, at least as that perspective is available to us in The Federalist and in Madison’s record of the Constitutional Convention.
Senator Obama’s plan to increase taxes on businesses and families at his announced level of $250,000 is troubling in light of the following from Federalist 10, written by Madison.
“The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.”
The “inferior number” to which Madison refers is any minority of persons or groups that can be outvoted by a majority in the legislature, and “property” meant all forms of wealth, not just real estate.
Hamilton, in Federalist 35, argued that taxes should be shared at the same rate among all. “Nothing remains but the landed interest; and this, in a political view, and particularly in relation to taxes, I take to be perfectly united, from the wealthiest landlord down to the poorest tenant. No tax can be laid on land which will not affect the proprietor of millions of acres as well [meaning at the same rate] as the proprietor of a single acre. Every landholder will therefore have a common interest to keep the taxes on land as low as possible; and common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.”
My concern is as follows: With a Democrat controlled House and Senate and Barack Obama as the President, will not the “predominate party . . . trample on the rules of justice” in order to “spread the wealth” around? What makes those earning over $250,000 a year a legitimate target for extra taxation? Our founders considered the protection of property (or wealth) rights to be paramount in the protection of liberty. Time after time in the Federalist Papers property and liberty are directly joined in the same phrase. Without the scrupulous protection of people’s wealth, there can be no real liberty. How can singling out and plundering anyone’s wealth be considered legitimate just because they fall into a certain income range? Are they not Americans as much as those of lesser means? Should they not be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor or intellectual talents often developed over many difficult and lean years? Why should anyone feel entitled to confiscate another’s wealth to “spread it around”? Why should any group be singled out for a greater rate of taxes than another? Isn’t there already too much of that in our current tax system?