SCOTUS Affirms Fascism as Domestic Policy

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." –Benito Mussolini

The battle lines have been drawn. For those who have taken the apathetic path, the luxury of a middle ground is fading away. The time to pick sides is now and the choices couldn't be any more clear: Capitalism, freedom, individual rights, and economic prosperity or Statism, a society equal only in suffering, enslaved to the whims of the mob, unfettered force released upon you and your fellow man, and economic degradation.

Today's Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling in regards to ObamaCare reminds us of a very simple fact; both political parties are united on a statist vision for this country, differing only in how to achieve that vision. 

It also reminds us of the consequences of compromising one's principles. Chief Justice John Roberts is nothing less than a traitor to all liberty-seeking people. The entire purpose of the SCOTUS is that of keeper of our republic- to preserve the individual rights of the people recognized by our Constitution and protect them from encroachment by the Executive and Legislative branches. It has utterly failed as such institution. It is true this hasn't been the first time such a failure occurred. ObamaCare is the culmination and consequence of a decades long slide away from freedom. But today’s ruling has now affirmed fascism as the de facto domestic economic policy of the United States.

As Benito Mussolini pointed out, fascism is merely the merger of political power (force) and economic power (trade). It involves property “ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of the property to the government,”¹ in this case, health insurance. Also, it should be noted that individualism holds the tenet of self-ownership; your body is YOUR property and under YOUR control. What this ruling essentially does is invalidates any vestige of individualism existing within this country’s borders and declares that even though you own your body, it is under the control of the federal government. You must buy this product because Big Brother says so. 

Now, I’ve tried to wrap my head around how a Supreme Court Judge, seen as a Constitutionalist in the eyes of many, could uphold such an obvious abrogation of individual rights. In his Washington Post piece entitled “Why Roberts did it,” Charles Krauthammer, essentially states that by calling it a tax, Chief Justice Roberts has cornered President Obama to admit it is so, with the hope that this fires up the people enough to support and elect Romney to the presidency and Republicans to the House and Senate, who promise to repeal it. It’s an interesting theory, but there's one problem with it: if Obama is reelected it falls apart and we are left with four more years of a Statist plus ObamaCare. If the theory holds and Romney wins the presidency and is able to rescind such a “tax,” the dangerous precedent set today by the Supreme Court remains–Congress can now compel any action from the people, so long as it is justified as a “tax”. Chief Justice Roberts had the option to just strike it down, to stand on principle and vote against it which would have been the deciding vote in outright invalidating the law today while protecting and preserving the rights of the people. He compromised and now it’s the people who will suffer. 

Krauthammer also asserts that Roberts voted this way to give the appearance of a non-ideological Court. That is a total cop-out. So what if people believe the decision was ideological? It should have been! To be ideological is to have a set of core beliefs and principles that one stands by no matter what. That is not a vice, that is a virtue! We need leaders who are rationally ideological, who understand the importance of individual rights and who are not afraid to defend them absolutely. This justification, if true of Roberts, shows him to be nothing more and nothing less than a coward. 

Also, there seems to be an odd denial of the “law of identity” at play here. As I recall from the first day of oral arguments, it was decided that the case can be tried since this was not a tax being imposed. The Anti-Injunction Act stipulates that one cannot bring suit against a tax before it has been levied. The individual mandate, which is now considered a tax, won’t be levied until 2014.  So, according to Roberts, a non-tax is a tax. A is not A. Go figure.

But make no mistake about it, individualists like myself have surely been empowered by this ruling to advance the cause of true freedom, to ensure that the government works for all people, and not just those in need, and not just those with large bank accounts. A government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth–because we won’t let it. 

Emboldened we are!

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Sources:

¹ "The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 202

The Nature of Deficits: It’s the Spending, Stupid!

Earth to Democrats/Statists/Leftists: tax breaks do not cause deficits!

If there is one economic fallacy that completely drives me crazy, it’s this one! So, in order to dispel this notion that truly defies all logic, I figured the best way to prove this point is through graphical analysis. But first, let’s define some terms relating to the three possible scenarios pertaining to government taxation and spending.

Surplus: A situation in which assets exceed liabilities, income exceeds expenditures, exports exceed imports, or profits exceed losses.¹

Deficit: A situation in which liabilities exceed assets, expenditures exceed income, imports exceed exports, or losses exceed profits. ²

Balanced Budget: a budget is balanced when current expenditures are equal to receipts. ³

With those terms in mind, let’s imagine a hypothetical society. We’ll call this society Atlantis. Atlantis' government was just founded and has immediately incurred expenses for its functioning. In total, these expenditures will cost $75.00 (Hey, we’re talking Atlantean dollars here! After all, their economy is just starting off.). 

No matter how much Atlantis spends greater than $0, absent tax revenue, it will never be in the positive (i.e. deficit). Spending is an expense and an expense is a negative (-). You either have spending (-) or no spending (0).

Now, let’s take a look purely on the revenue side. Let's say the government of Atlantis has imposed an income tax on all productive members of society as a source of revenue and brought in a total of $100.00.

No matter how much tax revenue Atlantis takes in greater than $0, absent any spending, it will never be in the negative. Taxes are a source of revenue and revenue is a positive (+). You either have revenue (+) or no revenue (0). 

Now, let’s see what happens when the two are stacked up side by side.

Atlantis’ revenue is greater than its expenditures by $25.00. As mentioned above, this is known as a surplus. 

Calvin Coolidge, America’s 30th President, once said “Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.” Atlantis agrees, and so it has decided to cut its income tax by 50% (For now, we'll assume everything else remains constant. And later we'll see examples of what actually happens to state coffers when taxes are raised). 

Ah, we’ve arrived at the dreaded deficit and the source of all this confusion. In the beginning I asserted that the belief that tax breaks cause deficits defies logic. But it seems logical that this is exactly what happened. Spending didn’t change, taxes were cut, and now a deficit has arisen. But this is one-dimensional thinking that does not get at the fundamentals. It’s important if we are to solve a problem that we get to the fundamental nature of its cause. What the left ignores is the side of the graph the deficit resides on. It’s not coming from the revenue side but the spending side. They ignore the nature of the deficit: spending.

To further concretize my point, let’s examine just the revenue side. If it is true that tax breaks cause deficits, then we will arrive at one in this example and put this debate to rest, either way.

Let’s once again start with $100.00 of tax revenue. 

From the outset, we have a surplus of $100.00. Now let’s offer a tax break and give back 50% of what we took in back to the people. Now remember, the mindset is that tax breaks cause deficits, so we should surely arrive at a deficit after enacting this tax break...

Hmmm… no deficit. We just hacked the revenue a whopping 50% and not only did we not arrive at a deficit, on the contrary, we still have a surplus. No matter how much we lower taxes, we will still have a surplus until the point where we take in no revenue, where we will ultimately reach $0.00. There is no possible way to get into negative territory. The fundamental truth to be gained here is that there can be no deficit without spending. 

Keep in mind in order to make that point, assumptions were made above that everything else remained constant. In actuality, tax revenue is known to increase when tax rates are lowered. There is a plethora of evidence that shows government revenue actually decreases when taxes are raised, especially on the rich, and increases when taxes are lowered. It has a lot to do with the fact that lowering taxes allows more money into the private sector leading to greater and more efficient use of capital visa vi investments in start-up companies and expansion of already established businesses. Also, people are less inclined to seek out loopholes in the tax code when they perceive their rate of taxation to not be oppressive. 

A great example of this phenomenon is what happened in Oregon in 2010. Reported by The Wall Street Journal, "Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix its budget hole, but now the state treasury admits it collected nearly one-third less revenue than the bean counters projected... One reason revenues are so low is that about one-quarter of the rich tax filers seem to have gone missing. The state expected 38,000 Oregonians to pay the higher tax, but only 28,000 did."⁴ Can somebody say "Who is John Galt?"

But this scenario is not exclusive to Oregon. Another similar case played out in New York a few years back. Then Governor Paterson is quoted as saying "We increased the income tax for millionaires last year. We projected that we would get $4 billion and we actually got well short of it. Tax the rich, tax the rich. We've done that. We've probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state."⁵

And how about the state of Maryland? "We reported in May that after passing a millionaire surtax nearly one-third of Maryland's millionaires had gone missing, thus contributing to a decline in state revenues... Well, the state comptroller's office now has final tax return data for 2008, the first year that the higher tax rates applied. The number of millionaire tax returns fell sharply to 5,529 from 7,898 in 2007, a 30% tumble. The taxes paid by rich filers fell by 22%, and instead of their payments increasing by $106 million, they fell by some $257 million."⁶

So the left says tax breaks cause deficits but in reality tax increases actually bring in less revenue. I guess another truth to be gained from this is that wishful thinking clouds all reason.

Final Word:
I am unequivocally against all forms of coercive taxation. The reason is simple: a person who does not get to keep the products of his labor is a slave. At tho point one might ask "But who will fund the government?" This saying succinctly makes my point: 'I don't need to know who is going to pick the cotton to know that slavery is wrong.'

But for those who are still unsettled by that unanswered question, a great mind at The Objective Standard, Craig Biddle, has written on exactly this subject with an article entitled "How Would Government Be Funded in a Free Society?" (The link offers just a preview of the article but it's well worth the purchase price.)

Now, the unfortunate reality is we live in a country that has imposed an immoral right's violating income tax. With that knowledge, currently the best we can ask of our government is to act in the most moral way possible. When faced with a deficit, the more moral and more responsible thing to do is not to further violate one's rights by increasing taxes (we know from examples above that this also lacks practicality), but to reduce the spending, reduce the burden on the people, and bring the budget into balance. Not only is it a moral imperative for our government to do so, our future quality of life is depending on it!

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Sources:

¹ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/surplus.asp##axzz1yjnP0AtM

² http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deficit.asp##axzz1yjnP0AtM

³ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/balanced+budget

⁴ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576026233823935442.html

⁵ http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jborowski/tax-hikes-on-the-rich-wont-work

⁶ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703976804575114241782001262.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h