[QUOTE=spence;819694]Here's an interesting read. This does paint a picture of our Founding Fathers behaving like thoughtful people and not strictly adhering to an absolute. While natural law still rules, we are a bit unique in that humans have the ability to temporarily distort it's fabric to suit our interests...for good or bad.
One can be thoughtful and strictly adhere to an absolute--as did the founders in their declaration that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights--even as you do by saying that natural law still rules--even also by saying that we humans are (absolutely?) "a bit unique."
Whatever "distortion" of natural law may be seen as "good" will probably prove, over time and nature's evolution, to be a dead end strategy because to be outside of nature is not to exist. All things, even ideas, are a part of nature/human nature. Good ideas, if followed can bear good fruit, and bad ones die of rot. When "our interests" create conflict and oppression among individuals and suppress unalienable rights, revolution will eventually occur.
And, yes, the founders did not all agree on all particulars. Certainly they reflected on many things including wealth "inequity." And there are quotes by some that differ with those you cite. But in the final agreed upon document there was no provision for nor any power granted to the Federal Gvt. for a direct tax on the people except it be proportional among the states by census. What they also agreed upon, was that excessive taxation was wrong--an oppression of unalienable rights and cause for revolution. When I ask for a guiding principle for graduated taxation, I am not arguing for NO gradation, but for a principle that not only justifies it, but eliminates arbitrary power--especially that ability to tax more than is not only necessary, but that goes beyond what is the domain of the Central Government.
The founders would not look in favor on how the Federal Gvt. expanded the commerce and welfare clauses, the unjust expansion of the principal of eminent domain, the lawmaking by admisnistrative agencies such as the EPA, the FDA, etc., racial preferances, on and on, and the near absolute power the Fed Gvt. now has rather than the limited power that was enumerated in the Constitution, and the power to directly tax the people to fund "programs" that were not intended as federal responsibilities. These have helped the Fed. Gvt to create an economic albatross around our neck with its profligate deficit spending on programs undreamed of by the founders.
Jefferson believed the National Debt should not be passed on to future generations and shouldn't last for more than 19 years and any debt that was unpaid after that should be extinguished.
Where people seem to get all up in a froth is when someone uses the word "fair" around the word "taxation". I do think you can justify some progressive taxation under the guise of fairness for a simple reason.
Those with more wealth stand to benefit disproportionately from many factors of which there's a large government investment, historic influence or public interest such as economic strategy.
Was that sufficiently nebulous?
To say that the rich profit or gain more from the system is to overlook that it is their effort that makes the system work and that creates the wealth. To create a system that depends on the initiative and labor of its citizens in order to function and then punishes achievers by leveling their rewards to approach those whose talent and diligence contributes and fulfills less of what the system needs is a contradiction. Fairness can be defined from infinite perspectives (which makes it "fairly" useless as a principle). One perspective being that it is eminently "fair" that those who are more greatly responsible for the creation of wealth are more deserving of its fruit.
This could be items like infrastructure or public defense (i.e. without the US taxpayer subsidizing safe shipping lanes through defense appropriations we couldn't have maintained our economic might behind most of our wealth) or the argument of equal opportunity (i.e. those born with less means may never be able to gain an equal footing with those who do) that might leverage taxpayer money for education. Certainly this one is a slippery slope. (and then some).
National defense is clearly a federal responsibility and is not a cause of the massive debt accrued by social programs that were not intended to be federal responsibilities. If the central gvt. would stick to funding what the founders intended, its taxation would not be the burden that exists and undisciplined, arbitrary tax schemes would not be necessary.
So the logical counter argument would be that the same could be funded (if deemed desirable and/or Constitutional) via flat taxation vs a progressive system.
I might be inclined to think that we already have a flat tax on average. There are so many incentives available primarily to those who have wealth which acts as an offset to the progressive rates. I've read that under a flat tax most individuals would still pay about the same, and also that most flat tax proposals aren't really perfectly flat.
No, none of the flat tax schemes is perfectly flat. They all seem to have a cutoff below which no Fed. income tax is paid. Some have a one or two tier level of rates. The main argument against flat tax is that the rich come out ahead. Of course, that is a circular argument since being rich IS being "ahead." If the purpose of taxation is not to fund necessary and appropriate expenditure, but to level differences in wealth, the incentive for wealth is reduced. The more you tax an activity, the less of it you will have. This runs counter to the progressive argument that the rich paying higher rates ensures the maintenance of the system that enables their success.
A flat tax already has the rich paying more on a proportional basis (which is what the Constitution originally required of direct taxation). Making higher earners pay higher rates with the fiction that it ensures the system that favors them is not only denying the greater need for the existence of wealth CREATORS, but it credits TAXATION as being more important for the well-being of the State than the actual dilligence and effort of its people. That rather than the PEOPLE, it is the STATE that is pre-eminent.
As far as what the founders preferred, they preferred a tariff to fund the Fed. Gvt. Tariffs are consumption taxes. Hamilton bellieved that consumption taxes were the preferred method of Federal taxation and that they have a built-in safeguard from becoming too high--if the duty is too high consumption will decrease thus decreasing gvt. revenue. So Gvt. will keep taxation to "proper and moderate bounds."
Ultimately, I do believe that a balance between trickle down and trickle up economics creates a natural convection and is sound economic policy.
So the answer might actually be fairness after all. Is this to open to be considered a guiding principal? Perhaps, but take anything to it's extreme and it breaks...even individual liberty.
-spence
That
is sufficiently nebulous. But, whatever that "convection" is, it was originally intended to occur within the enumerated limitations of the Constitution. The Answer cannot be an arbitrary, undefined "fairness." Principles by nature are not nebulous. Individual liberty to the founders was not the extreme of anarchy. Obviously, by crafting a Constitution, they understood the necessity of government. What they intended was neither a society of misfits that trampled on each others unalienable rights, nor a central government that did the same.