“No Taxation without Representation” is one of the oldest slogans in U.S. history. It was a principal justification for the American Revolution, and predated it by more than 25 years. The slogan is still powerful because taxation without representation contradicts the underlying idea of a democratic society, which derives its power from the will of the people, not from a monopoly on force as is the case in dictatorships. And the slogan still retains its appeal today: it is written on the license plates of cars in the District of Columbia as a call to action for D.C. residents who lack voting representation in Congress.
But the slogan also has a more subtle implication, that taxation should reflect the desires of those being taxed. This principle is currently being ignored, however, by a major thrust of the Democratic candidate's platform. The proposal to raise the taxes of the top 5 percent of earners implies that it is the desires of the majority that are to be considered, rather than the desires of those being taxed. Surely it is akin to tyranny for the majority to pick out a small, and in this case, unpopular minority and take its property. Yet that is what our democratic society has come to.
There is a considerable imbalance between these two groups. In 2004, approximately 58 million individuals, or 44% of the total working population of 133 million paid no taxes at all: Approximately 15 million people had earnings but filed no returns, and 43 million filed returns but incurred no tax liability. (These figures exclude those individuals without any earnings at all.) Assuming that these figures reflect the voting population as well, 44%, or less than half of all voters are paying no taxes but are nevertheless contributing to decisions about how much the remaining 56% of the population should pay. But even this greatly understates the degree to which the tax burden is shifted toward the top: the top 1% of taxpayers contributes almost 40% of total taxes.
I propose we remove this imbalance between who decides and who pays by adopting a reverse of the old revolutionary slogan: “No Representation without Taxation.” Much federal spending is income redistribution, and there is much to be said for living in a generous society where those who are less well-off are helped by the more affluent. And the degree of after-tax voluntary philanthropy indicates that the wealthier members of our society are, indeed, quite generous. But it is contrary to the spirit of democratic principles to use the power of the federal government to create the current separation between the two groups—those who decide tax policy, and those who pay the taxes. Making voting dependent on whether or not one pays taxes would go a long way toward making politics more responsible.
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2 comments:
There are arguments both ways. It is important to have the entire population feel ownership in society, aside from the fact that a tax-based franchise is clearly never going to actually happen. It is true, though, that an element of the tyranny of the majority is the ability to expropriate assets. One must bear in mind the obvious similarities between governments and mafias; both use coercion to redistribute wealth. There is a case for limiting the incentive to use such coercive power. I view the existence of this incentive as a major flaw in democracy. I think Polybius may have recognized it in the second century BC.
The point missed in this post is the purpose of the current tax system itself. Since World War II the primary purpose of the national income tax has been a lever to control political agendas rather than a means to efficiently collect national revenues. As such we expect more from it than it is capable of accomplishing. More central to the debate of income redistribution is adopting a tax system that fairly and efficiently collects national revenues from the citizenry. Then, let the redistribution policies stand on their own.
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