In his
State of the Union speech Tuesday night President Obama played
the fairness card in calling for higher taxes on upper-income
people. He said:
There are lots of claims there that cry out for examination. For example, what’s need got to do with it? Does Obama really favor a tax system that leaves you only what you need—as determined by someone else? And look at that term “tax breaks.” If a burglar decides not to break into your house and take your things, have you gotten a break? Or have you simply kept what is yours? Is Obama really suggesting that how much of your income you retain should depend on what “the country” can afford? What does that even mean?
Buffett Rule
All that aside, I want to home in on Obama’s
notion of fairness. “If you make more than $1 million a year,” he
says, “you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.” How does
he know that constitutes fairness? Obviously 30 percent is an
arbitrary figure. If he’s concerned that income and payroll taxes
take a smaller percentage of Warren Buffett’s income than the
percentage they take from his secretary’s income, why not reduce
his secretary’s tax rate? It’s certainly not obvious that
Buffett should pay more. (For an interesting discussion of the
secretary’s tax rate, see
this and
this.) Obama (like most other politicians) regards government
spending growth as inexorable and virtually untouchable, but why?
(Proposed “cuts” are merely reductions in the rate of growth.)
On this matter of tax fairness, no one tops Murray Rothbard’s discussion in his classic Power and Market: Government and the Economy (online in PDF format here). Rothbard starts by noting that for many years people thought products had a “just price.”
He goes on next to ask: “If the search for the just price has virtually ended in the pages of economic works, why does the quest for a ‘just tax’ continue with unabated vigor? Why do economists, severely scientific in their volumes, suddenly become ad hoc ethicists when the question of taxation is raised?”
We might also ask why a president makes ethical pronouncements about levels of taxation without first laying out his moral philosophy plainly for all to judge.
Canons of Justice in Taxation
Thus the “canons of justice” in taxation must not be taken for granted. Calling something just does not make it so. Rothbard writes:
[W]e need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. [Emphasis added.]And:
When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference. . . . [Emphasis added.]
There are lots of claims there that cry out for examination. For example, what’s need got to do with it? Does Obama really favor a tax system that leaves you only what you need—as determined by someone else? And look at that term “tax breaks.” If a burglar decides not to break into your house and take your things, have you gotten a break? Or have you simply kept what is yours? Is Obama really suggesting that how much of your income you retain should depend on what “the country” can afford? What does that even mean?
Buffett Rule
All that aside, I want to home in on Obama’s
notion of fairness. “If you make more than $1 million a year,” he
says, “you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.” How does
he know that constitutes fairness? Obviously 30 percent is an
arbitrary figure. If he’s concerned that income and payroll taxes
take a smaller percentage of Warren Buffett’s income than the
percentage they take from his secretary’s income, why not reduce
his secretary’s tax rate? It’s certainly not obvious that
Buffett should pay more. (For an interesting discussion of the
secretary’s tax rate, see
this and
this.) Obama (like most other politicians) regards government
spending growth as inexorable and virtually untouchable, but why?
(Proposed “cuts” are merely reductions in the rate of growth.)On this matter of tax fairness, no one tops Murray Rothbard’s discussion in his classic Power and Market: Government and the Economy (online in PDF format here). Rothbard starts by noting that for many years people thought products had a “just price.”
It is clear, even to those (like the present writer) who believe in the possibility of a rational ethics, that no possible ethical philosophy or science can yield a quantitative measure or criterion of justice. . . . Economics, by tracing the ordered pattern of the voluntary exchange process, has made it clear that the only possible objective criterion for the just price is the market price. For the market price is, at every moment, determined by the voluntary, mutually agreed-upon actions of all the participants in the market.”Rothbard of course is talking about a market unblemished by government monopoly privilege and other interventions.
He goes on next to ask: “If the search for the just price has virtually ended in the pages of economic works, why does the quest for a ‘just tax’ continue with unabated vigor? Why do economists, severely scientific in their volumes, suddenly become ad hoc ethicists when the question of taxation is raised?”
We might also ask why a president makes ethical pronouncements about levels of taxation without first laying out his moral philosophy plainly for all to judge.
Canons of Justice in Taxation
Thus the “canons of justice” in taxation must not be taken for granted. Calling something just does not make it so. Rothbard writes:
The prime objection to these “canons” is that the writers have first to establish the justice of taxation itself. If this cannot be proven, and so far it has not been, then it is clearly idle to look for the “just tax.” If taxation itself is unjust, then it is clear that no allocation of its burdens, however ingenious, can be declared just.
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