Harold Ford of Tenn., via Talking Points and Brad DeLong, points the way to a likely consensus on Social Security reform (politics being the art of a compromise to tax you more, and all that): in exchange for private accounts, the cap on FICA taxes will be lifted, so that the 20% of the population that earns more then $87,000 has to pay the 6.8%x2 tax on the full paycheck. This soak-the-rich approach will pay for the transition. This is the favorite plan of Daily Kos and many Democrats who otherwise oppose reform. We might ask how long the privatizers are going to ride this train as it plunges further and further into the abyss. My guess is all the way, since financing the reform requires “tough choices by the president and the Congress.”
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/3062/let-the-looting-begin/
Let the Looting Begin
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Social Security as a separate tax should be abolished and merged in with regular income taxes. The current system is designed to hide from the voters how much tax they are really paying (because employers pay half the tax) and trick people into thinking that SS is a legitimate pension plan when actually it’s a redistribution of tax money.
“Social Security as a separate tax should be abolished and merged in with regular income taxes.”
Why should it be merged with income taxes? Why not just abolish the program completely and forever?
More assertions from Libertarian Girl. Only DC Beltway types think this way. The only clear “shoulds” that apply to any tax is that it “should” be lowered, and it “should” be abolished. Everything else is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
This issue keeps coming up over and over again at my blog. Taxes aren’t going to disappear. Practical libertarianism is to suggest how taxes can be improved and made more efficient, and how the overall level of taxation should be lowered.
It’s not productive to accuse someone of not being libertarian because they make a practical suggestion about tax policy.
The political support to abolish SS does not exist. I offered a sensible suggestion to make the SS tax more understandable and consistent with the way the program actually works.
“Taxes aren’t going to disappear. Practical libertarianism is to suggest how taxes can be improved and made more efficient, and how the overall level of taxation should be lowered.”
Au contraire. As long as the democratic state has the power of forced, involuntary taxation, it will always tend towards more and more oppressive taxes. I suggest reading Hoppe’s a priori arguments on the subject.
There’s no such thing as a “reasonable tax” any more than there is reasonable theft or reasonable murder.
If enough people simply withdraw their support for the tax regime, it will wither and disappear. The re-emergence of freedom will depend on common people, not politicians or political maneuvering. Advocating a new and improved tax scheme to fix things is like using matches and gasoline to control a fire. Are you going to be part of the problem, or part of the solution, Libertarian Girl?
Paul, a state is necessary to preserve order. Capitalism requires that laws be enforced. Security requires armed forces to defend the nation.
A state, therefore, requires taxes! To suggest othewise is to be an anarchist not a libertarian.
Without a national defense, it would be not long at all before an agressor non-libertarian nation takes over the defenseless nation.
Mind you, this is not an argument for MORE spending. It may very well be that the U.S., for example, could get buy with a reduction in defense spending. But a certain level of defense spending is necessary in order for a free democratic state to exist.
If the U.S. could just cut spending by 10% it would be a huge step in the right direction. Advocating a 100% reduction in spending just makes the person advocating that someone that no one will ever pay attention to.
“This issue keeps coming up over and over again at my blog. Taxes aren’t going to disappear. Practical libertarianism is to suggest how taxes can be improved and made more efficient, and how the overall level of taxation should be lowered.”
“Practical libertarianism” (whatever that is) has done nothing to stop or even slow down over 200 years of the growth of the mega-state.
“Paul, a state is necessary to preserve order. Capitalism requires that laws be enforced. Security requires armed forces to defend the nation.”
On the contrary, the state is nothing more than political anarchy. Market anarchy, which is anarchy of voluntary agreements and trade brings order and prosperity. Political anarchy, which is anarchy of force and fraud is what we usually define to be chaos. Saying that we need to impose a regime of chaos to have order is childishly self-contradictory.
More on this here:
http://www.againstpolitics.com/voting/deep_anarchy.htm
“But a certain level of defense spending is necessary in order for a free democratic state to exist.”
Freedom and democracy are opposites of each other. I don’t want a democratic state, and anyone who values private property rights shouldn’t want one either.
“Without a national defense, it would be not long at all before an agressor non-libertarian nation takes over the defenseless nation.”
GASP! Canada doesn’t stand a chance among the non-libertarian nations!
“Without a national defense, it would be not long at all before an agressor non-libertarian nation takes over the defenseless nation.”
GASP! Canada doesn’t stand a chance among the non-libertarian nations!
LG, every statement you made seems flawed to me.
“Paul, a state is necessary to preserve order.”
Empirically false. Countless ordered societies have existed, exist today, and will exist in the future without an all-powerful tax state in control. States cause far more disorder through war, theft, and market interference than individuals ever could on their own.
“Capitalism requires that laws be enforced.”
Capitalism merely requires freedom. Society may enforce laws without taxation.
“Security requires armed forces to defend the nation.”
Security which actually serves the protected instead of oppressing them can easily be provided by a free market.
“A state, therefore, requires taxes!”
Your premises are incorrect, so your conclusion is illogical.
“To suggest othewise is to be an anarchist not a libertarian.”
If the absence of a an all-powerful tax regime is the same as anarchy in your books, you have quite a polarized view of reality.
“Without a national defense, it would be not long at all before an agressor non-libertarian nation takes over the defenseless nation.”
To a freedom-loving people, there is little difference between an oppressive foreign state and an oppressive domestic state. People will defend themselves from both if they have anything worth defending and have not adopted the mentality of a slave.
Your remarks are *astoundingly* statist and state-centric for someone claiming to be a libertarian. I have no problem with someone who admits to being statis and non-libertarian, but to espouse both liberty and policies that are completely anti-freedom seems bizarre to me. Why not just come out and say that you favour big government, market regulation, and restriction on personal freedom, so long as you think they can be done in a cost-effective manner? At least we’d know where you were coming from.
Are you going to be part of the problem, or part of the solution, Libertarian Girl?
I would opine that anyone who wants to move in the libertarian direction (such as making the cost of a social program clearer, in hopes that the public will respond with calls for smalller government) is definitely part of the solution. Nothing wrong with arguing about where we want to end up, but let’s not forget that we’re all friends, working to make the world a better place, one libertarian reform at a time.
I see nothing wrong with LG posting her opinions considering she’s already declared herself to be–for now at least–a “practical libertarian.” I’ll leave it up to her to define her idea of practical; many these days assume that term to mean keeping one’s mouth shut and going along to get along–or blatant defiance of the Pinocchio nose-curse if working for mainstream media (or as plants within alternative media).
I will say that practical libertarians and market socialists seem to be dancing to similar tunes.
Look out, Libertarian Girl, you’ve come up against the hard core of liberty found only here at the mises blog.
I don’t know how far into this “libertarian” thing you are, but I’m sure all those who offered critique above once considered such solutions as you proposed. I did. However, when the principle of liberty is your guiding thought in this realm, I think over time you will lose faith in political solutions.
But don’t be discouraged by critique!
“The political support to abolish SS does not exist…
“The political support to abolish feudalism does not exist…”
Don’t take my critique too hard, LG. I just hate to see anti-freedom policies portrayed as some kind of libertarian solution. Like Buzzo, I once explored “fixes” and alternate political arrangements for lessening the economic problems of the welfare state. Eventually I realized that no such fixes existed within a socialist framework, and that an all-powerful state was perhaps the wost candidate for protecting personal freedom and property; that’s when I became a libertarian.
LG is correct!
“Countless ordered societies have existed, exist today, and will exist in the future without an all-powerful tax state in control.”
Please name the non-religious societies that exist and have functioned for more than 2 generations.
“To a freedom-loving people, there is little difference between an oppressive foreign state and an oppressive domestic state.”
Seems to me that historically people don’t mind being oppressed by their own kind (religion, culture and race) of people. They may complain but it is human nature to complain. For example, socialism “worked” in Norway as long as Norway was 90% Lutheran Church supporting Norwegians. One big happy family against the world.
I’ve posted further thoughts related to what I wrote in these comments at my own blog.
“Please name the non-religious societies that exist and have functioned for more than 2 generations.”
How about the free-masons?
LG wrote:
“Without a national defense, it would be not long at all before an agressor non-libertarian nation takes over the defenseless nation.”
Possibly, but as the US is painfully experiencing right now, a ‘defenseless’ people can BEAT BACK an aggressor’s advance, if the army can’t. It is just a question of letting The People arm and defend themselves, like Switzerland does – ever wondered why Leviathan approves all those gun-control laws??
Libertarian Girl: “This issue keeps coming up over and over again at my blog. Taxes aren’t going to disappear. Practical libertarianism is to suggest how taxes can be improved and made more efficient, and how the overall level of taxation should be lowered.
“It’s not productive to accuse someone of not being libertarian because they make a practical suggestion about tax policy.”
This is what the Beltway, activist-libertarian types ALWAYS do: they judge a comment or argument by whether it’s “productive” or “likely to work”. They are always thinking strategy and tactics. So much that the confuse validity with popularity. It is not germane whethet LG is “a libertarian” or not; and we libertarians are free to oppose a policy because IT is unlibertarian, i.e. evil, wrong, immoral.
I am not sure what “practical libertarianism” is but LG seems to assume everyone knows what this is. To my mind libertarianism has always been first and foremost about discerning the truth about what is moral as between people in society. As for “practical” aspects–if you are in it to achieve change, you are deluding yourself. We are not going to wake up one day and have “won the battle”. We enjoy fighting the battle because it is right to do so, but we need not delude ourselves at our efficaciousness. We are entitled to argue with, pick at, make fun of, dissect, study, and annoy our jailers, if we wish.
But activism, for 99.9% of all libertarians, means, at most, an ever-so-slight contribution to an ever-so-slight increase in the chance of an ever-so-temporary and ever-so-slight increase in liberty that mostly benefits our socialistic neighbors who don’t deserve it. In short, it is self-sacrificial and altruistic. The only reason to do it is not for the sake of the end, but because doing it is the right thing, and enjoyable. But one need no strategical, tactical, rhetorical calculus to know this.
“The political support to abolish SS does not exist. I offered a sensible suggestion to make the SS tax more understandable and consistent with the way the program actually works.”
But this does not show why liberty would increase. The problem is not that taxes are too complex. It is that they are too high. If you want simple taxes, just fork over all your income to the feds, I’m sure they’ll take it.
“Paul, a state is necessary to preserve order. Capitalism requires that laws be enforced. Security requires armed forces to defend the nation.
“A state, therefore, requires taxes! To suggest othewise is to be an anarchist not a libertarian.”
While this is an acceptable position for a libertarian to take–they are called minarchists, or minimal statists–it is astounding that LG just asserts this here as if it is obvious, as if she is blithely unaware that some poeple are actually anarchists, heavens to betsy. It is just an assertion, no argument; and an assertion won’t do the trick, as there is healty disagreement among libertarians on this matter.
Perhaps many people still regard anarchism as being the “evil” that the statists have been insisting in their propaganda marketing.
Following that logic, maybe the next great socio-political evil will be “liberal anarchists.” Whatever they are.
I’m a Libertarian, a libertarian, and an anarcho-capitalist. One could arguably say that “practical” libertarianism is really no different from ideological libertarianism because it is (we believe) the best form of political philosophy and would naturally lead to the best possible human society.
Perhaps what LG is referring to is pragmatic libertarianism. Fine. While I still think that getting completely rid of Social Security is the best and most practical thing to do with it, I freely admit that I do not know how to make that happen. Still, I will argue against it, and if I find some convenient “stepping stone” towards its abolishment, I’ll take it, with the understanding that it is just another step, and not the final destination.
There has been enough argument against the Bush administration’s ideas for SS that I’m not sure it’s one of those stepping stones. At the same time, I can’t stand how the mainstream is treating this subject, as if these are the only two possible options to dealing with SS.
I, for one, would rather see my SS tax separately itemized, as well as everything else. I think it would be far easier to fight a program when we see exactly how much we’re being billed.
Imagine…
“(X) dollars for (useless immoral government program)?! What the #@%!! I didn’t order a (useless immoral government program)!”
“What’s this? I have to pay (X) dollars out of my paycheck to kill foreigners? I got nothing against foreigners! What the #@%!!”
…& so forth.
If LG got her way, the reality of the SS tax will melt out the public view. Out of sight, out of mind. Brilliant. Let’s take this one step further & not show what the government takes at all. Less people might complain. Problem solved.
How practical!
Sorry. In my above post I meant “FEWER people might complain.” I know some of you can be sticklers.
Your usage of “less” is fine in real English (as described in the OED, for example); the insistence that it should be replaced with “fewer” is a rather odd American thing.
Interesting! Of course, with the money the government forced me to “save” in my SS “account” I could have bought my own OED. I’m not even counting my employer’s “contribution.”
Libertarian Girl: The hard-core libertarians rally around Murray Rothbard’s formulation, that government=tyrranny. How can he say that – that’s just anarchy?! He came to that position because he saw the effect that efficiency-maximizers such as Milton Friedman had on the state. Far from working to reduce the size of the federal leviathan, the efficiency-maximizers actually facilitated the growth of the federal government. So although Friedman talks like a Libertarian, he walks like a Keynesian.
Having said that, I can appreciate where I think you are coming from – you sincerely want to see a reduction in the size and scope of the federal government. You want to flip the switch on the federal ratchet, so that it starts ratcheting down instead of up – that’s why you are advocating first steps like putting Social Security “on-budget”. It seems like a sensible first step, from which other steps (“privatization” (forced savings) or phasing out benefits in favor of private saving) will logically follow. This is a vain hope. This is why even those of us who for years just wanted to “flip that switch” that would put us back on the path to limited, constitutional government have recently come to grips with the fact that even if there IS a ratchet (and I now would argue it is more akin to a garbage chute than anything so precise and neat as a mechanic’s tool), there is simply no way you, me, or anybody else with a desire to reduce the size and scope of the federal government is going to be allowed to get anywhere near it. We radical anarcho-capitalists have to be content in the knowledge that when the whole groaning edifice finally collapses, we will have at least had not part in its creation or operation. The same will not be true for the Keynsians and Friedmanites who, along with the Straussians, history will harshly judge.
“Libertarian Girl” huh?
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005079.php
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