President Trump and Republicans: Stop Apologizing for Tax Cuts

If President Trump and his Republican majority in Congress fail to pass their tax cuts and tax reform package, here’s the reason why:

Trump and the architects of the Republican plan insist that the overhaul is aimed squarely at benefiting the middle class and wouldn’t favor the wealthy. Still, a cut in the tax rate for Americans making a half-million dollars or more would drop by almost 5 percentage points as the wealthiest sliver of the nation reaped tremendous benefits.

When you apologize for something you attempt to champion, you lose the battle right there. You cannot tell people, “I want to cut taxes because it’s economical. It’s not moral or fair, but it’s economical,” and then expect them to jump on board with you.

Advocates of tax cuts ought to say, “It’s moral for people to keep more of what they earn, and ideally ALL of what they earn. They earned it, and it’s their money. It belongs to them, not to the government or anyone else. It’s also economical, because wealth producers spend more wisely than politicians. Try finding a politician who’s either moral or thrifty!”

The people to whom the money belongs are more likely to spend it in a way that innovates and expands the economy than politicians who—we can all plainly see—care about nothing other than their own careers and the advancement and maintenance of their power.”

It worries me (although it does not surprise me) to hear President Trump and other supporters of tax cuts apologize for them by claiming they help the middle class, not the wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with helping everyone, at least when it involves restoring rights, money or property to people to whom it belongs in the first place. Stop apologizing!

If someone else has or earns more money than I have, they have neither violated my rights nor hurt me. They only hurt me or violate my rights it they attempt to encroach on my body, mind or property. That’s what politicians and government officials do to nearly all of us every single day.

It worries me to hear the phrase “tax reform”. You can’t reform something inherently bad or wrong. Taxes as we know them have nothing whatsoever to do with funding a properly limited government, and everything to do with wealth redistribution, power and pull. Stop pretending that we can or even should try to “reform” taxation, particularly the confiscatory taxation found in the income and corporate taxes. Taxation in today’s world is legalized theft and government-sanctioned mafia activity, plain and simple. Most of us at least sense it, which is why we’re so disgusted with “the swamp”.

Ideally, we should be getting rid of taxes. Cutting them is the next best thing, so long as the cuts are across the board and respect the fact that individual and property rights do not end the moment you earn more than a certain income. Restoring what rightfully belongs to its owner is not a “favor”, whether it’s a tax cut or any other repeal of the violation of an individual’s rights. Only once Republicans start acknowledging this truth will they score any meaningful or lasting wins.

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