As the US tiptoes toward defaulting on the national debt in a ridiculous game of chicken, I find the thinking of those who see a default as a way to pressure the government to further lower taxes eerily familiar.
In VYJN, the Freedom First Party sweeps Republicans and Democrats from power and immediately begins dismantling the federal government, starting with the IRS. The promise of no federal income tax is core to their philosophy.
It isn’t difficult to see where we have come from and where we could be going. It started with “government isn’t the solution, government is the problem” in the 1980s. From there economists asserted the unproven and questionable premise that “taxes inhibit growth”, which led to “read my lips”, the no tax increase pledge, temporary tax cuts which have become more or less permanent and have significantly added to the national debt, and finally an apparent willingness to default on that debt and risk the economic stability of the country in favor of the principle of reducing taxes on the wealthiest citizens.
Is it a great leap to imagine a political party running on a program of further reducing government, eliminating income taxes altogether and releasing the unfettered power of the “free market” as a solution to the country’s economic woes? Do we really want to return to the pre-depression 1920s? Have we learned nothing from history?
In VYJN, the Freedom First Party sweeps Republicans and Democrats from power and immediately begins dismantling the federal government, starting with the IRS. The promise of no federal income tax is core to their philosophy.
It isn’t difficult to see where we have come from and where we could be going. It started with “government isn’t the solution, government is the problem” in the 1980s. From there economists asserted the unproven and questionable premise that “taxes inhibit growth”, which led to “read my lips”, the no tax increase pledge, temporary tax cuts which have become more or less permanent and have significantly added to the national debt, and finally an apparent willingness to default on that debt and risk the economic stability of the country in favor of the principle of reducing taxes on the wealthiest citizens.
Is it a great leap to imagine a political party running on a program of further reducing government, eliminating income taxes altogether and releasing the unfettered power of the “free market” as a solution to the country’s economic woes? Do we really want to return to the pre-depression 1920s? Have we learned nothing from history?
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