Opus 2021-219: Reminders: #4: Immortal Quotes: Taxes

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”  It looks like this was originally a statement made by Daniel Webster in arguing against the taxation and repeated by Chief Justice John Marshall in approving the law.  I originally wrote about this ten years ago but felt I needed to address it again.

This principle was always presented as one of the reasons that churches were tax exempt.  If churches could be taxed then the government could bring them down and violate the First Amendment.  We probably should have understood that it applies to the individual citizen also.  

The reason for runaway taxes is not the profligate habits of the ruling classes.  It might have been in ancient times but there is much more wealth today.  The reason is the entitlement attitude of the masses.  There comes a point where the masses who produce nothing will expect more than the workers can produce.  What you start doing is eating your seed corn.

Seed corn is a concept we have forgotten today.  Before the modern hybrids were common the farmer would set aside enough grain after the harvest to be able to plant the crops next year.  It did not matter how bad things got, you did not eat your seed grain.  If you ate it there would be no harvest the following year and you would starve.  If you read your Bible you will find other instructions, even though it is not a manual on farming.  The land must be allowed to lie fallow.  You only passed through to cut the grain one time.  You plowed in the fall to aerate the soil.  There are probably other things mentioned that I am to citified to see.

When you have high taxes that suck away the seed grain from the producers, the production falls the next year.  When those working see the slothful being provided for at the expense of the workers, they have less inclination to work so hard next time.

And the ramp only runs one way.

The goal of the Proregressives is to destroy the productivity of the free market.  Taxes are an effective tool for doing that.  Keep in mind that they think because they are the elite that they will get plenty because they deserve it.  The ones who will be destroyed are you and me.

homo unius libri