Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform recently outlined an outrageous — if somewhat predictable — reality that will begin on January 1, 2011: A host of existing federal tax rates will increase, and a myriad of brand new Obamacare related taxes will also go into effect. In summation, it will be the largest tax increase in American history.
Just to cite a few examples, the lowest taxpaying wage earners will pay five percent more than they do now. Those inheriting estates worth over one million dollars will pay a crushing 55% tax. Capital gains taxes will go up another five percent, and dividends taxation will more than double from 15% to almost a whopping 40%. Any and all charitable contributions from IRAs will be banned outright.
How did any of this usury get started? The typical statist answer, of course, is to blame Obama and the leftist Democrats for heavy government spending and jamming socialism down everyone’s throat — as if Republicans had nothing to do with any of these tax hikes. And for that matter, then, where have Republicans ever made a serious effort to rescind and repeal these taxes and abolish the IRS? A few, like Ron Paul, have introduced bills to do just that, but those that even made it out of some preposterous conference committee only received a laughable handful of votes.
The real reason this institutionalized slavery exists is fundamentally inherent to the nature of governments themselves. All of them. Democracies, dictatorships, republics, you name it. In order to exist in the first place, governments must steal the earnings of others by force (or by the very real threat of it) in order to finance all the police, guards, soldiers and other agents of the State who work for it. It must also, in addition to providing loot and weapons to its employees in order to insure loyalty, convince them — at least to a certain degree — that what they are doing and defending is both noble and necessary. That without such enforcers as themselves, the world as they know it will descend into butchery, rioting, bloodshed, and chaos. As if governments themselves are not both directly and indirectly responsible for inciting such behaviors on a far greater and more destructive scale than any other groups of individuals.
Markets, which are voluntary and peaceful mechanisms, produce prosperity and hence, peace. Governments only plunder and destroy. They produce precisely nothing — except tyranny and misery. They exist, contrary to popular mythology, only to consolidate their power and continue to exploit and enslave the non-political class. That is their only true purpose.
As 2011 approaches, might it not be wise to consider that the impending further plunder and extortion that will begin in January is both wholly unnecessary, and in fact, nothing short of evil? It cannot be “reformed” by any voting, or calling for the politicians and bureaucrats to change. It can only be ended outright. And that happens when no one, out of a sense of personal honor and decency, wants to work for government anymore. I never have, have never wanted to, and never will. Before governments steal any more of your life, property, and liberty, won’t you join me?
