Government, Huckabee, and the FairTax

January 14, 2008
by Evans Munyemesha

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's drastic proposal of abolishing the current tax system (and the IRS) and introducing the Fair Tax seems to have great appeal to a lot of well-meaning persons some of whom are some of our highly trained economists in our reputable colleges. Whatever the benefits of this proposal, I, on the hand am not persuaded that there could ever be such a thing as a 'fair tax', particularly that I do not in any sense subscribe to the concept of a there being a legitimate system of taxation.

Without entering into a detailed examination of the fundamental errors of the concept the Fair Tax as speciously laid down by Mike Huckabee on his website, I here merely offer a few observations on taxation in general and as to why I oppose such a seemingly necessary system.

I am mindful of the fact that while the subject of taxation is admittedly more abstract, still it may nevertheless be thought useful to attempt to arrive at some conclusion as to whether the principle upon which it rests is scientific, and whether, in practice no less than in theory, there is a basis for believing that its application for revenue purposes can, under any conditions, not only be successfully confined within safe limits but be rightfully defended.

Note in the first instance that a person who earns his income will be compelled to exercise caution and thrift in his expenditures, keeping in mind the trouble that he has to endure to earn his income. Here the demands of productive effort act as restraints on aimless and extravagant expenditure. Yet there is no such restraint upon the government, which, regardless of its efforts, can still earn its living by indiscriminately confiscating incomes. As presently done, one gets the impression that the collection of compulsory taxes is founded on some valid and justified ground, and that this ground accords with the right to property. And as is commonly known, a person could not be deprived of some of his property without causing him to forfeit his right to that property.

In the second instance, note that the idea of collecting compulsory taxes is in bitter conflict with the government's supposed principal role as protector of rights(or as administrator of justice). And still, it is nowhere known that there is a certain legitimate power given to a few select men to confiscate other peoples' incomes without harming them ---regardless of degree of harm.

While it is everywhere said that order and harmony are essential to human progress, and that the government should aid in fostering them, it is doubtful that such a condition could ever be attained with the aid of the government if the vicious system of taxation persists. For some to earn a living at others' expense, namely, through taxation, the hope for mutual dependence, free and voluntary, is diminished, and thus prospects for order and harmony are made less certain, for the organization of systematic theft by the government must induce further immoral practices everywhere.

Observe how this system punishes prudence and saving, robs people of their lottery winnings, encourages tax shelters, intrudes on inheritances, discriminates against certain businesses through the sin tax, and empowers the unproductive to live on plunder. The infusion of an artificial and wicked system among a body of diligent and honest workers poisons that social arrangement for now the greater temptation will be to influence the taxing power towards one's own interests in opposition to, and at the expense of all others, who are equally disinclined towards other peoples' interests but to their own. It is therefore here then that unhealthy, ceaseless, and heartless competition for favors from the taxing power is established.

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While tax experts propound vastly differing opinions on the subject, they are however agreed on this: That taxation is a fundamental necessity for the maintenance of society through government. Without taxation, and thus without government, they threaten, society would quickly slide into barbarism. This ominous threat, apparently firm and almost universal, is glorified even among the best of our contemporary economists in spite of the fact that there are no definite general rules commanding widespread acceptance, admitting of the practice of taxation. I have found none.

There exists no single maxim or a multiple of them, right and just, that could be used as a basis for the practical application of taxation notwithstanding that immense energies and much effort has been directed in this particular direction. Writers of all shades continue to offer us prescriptions for this age-old problem but none of these prescriptions is a promising cure.

The difficulty of not being able to find a sufficient method that would make taxation fair and equitable, or as an involved science, has not for some strange reason aroused in the minds of these writers, including Mr. Huckabee, the screaming signal that taxation is nothing but an extension of the fraudulent practice of tithing as commanded by ecclesiastical authorities; and therefore, it could have no supportable foundation---economic or otherwise. The foundation of taxation is unquestionably implied force. Still, taxation, a bastard of political perversion, indefensible and without a just foundation, could have no ethical warrant in practice. Then the search for a Fair Tax by Huckabee and his economic advisers shall forever be a search for naught.

In the third, note that taxation provides the tax gatherers the power to legally practice theft as they go about collecting and distributing wealth and creating dependency; selling public services for favors as well as encouraging corruption in the political arrangements and among political officials; mastering the art of writing a tax code that is so discordant that it ensures a constant stream of income to its professional interpreters at the expense of the rest; adopting measures that work badly as the tax gatherer bears not personally the full cost of his errors; and perpetuating the power of some over others.

It certainly could not be doubted that innumerable harm and damage indeed in our midst is a consequence of the scourge of taxation. Hope for a better society by way of taxation is a reverie for where the right to one's property is violated constantly with the full support of the very institution that is said to have been instituted as the defender of that right, there could be nothing but a well-paved thoroughfare to social decay and eventual totalitarianism. And thus no civilization survives long under a regime of totalitarianism, however subservient its population.

In view of the foregoing, I dutifully object to Huckabee's radical proposal, bearing in mind that there is a better way of generating revenue for the government without recourse to the threat of force.

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