Taxation

Dan Quayle, in his acceptance speech at the 1992 Republican convention, attacked the idea of progressive taxation, in which the rich are taxed at a higher rate than the poor. His argument went like this: "Why," he asked, "should the best people be punished?" The line brought thunderous applause.

It should now be clear why, from the conservative world-view, the rich should be seen as "the best people." They are the model citizens, those who, through self-discipline and hard work, have achieved the American Dream. They have earned what they have and deserve to keep it. Because they are the best people – people whose investments create jobs and wealth for others – they should be rewarded. Taking money away is conceptualized as harm, financial harm; that is the metaphorical basis of seeing taxation as punishment. When the rich are taxed more than others for making a lot more money, they are, according to conservatives, being punished for being model citizens, for doing what, according to the American Dream, they are supposed to do.

Taxation of the rich is, to conservatives, punishment for doing what is right and succeeding at it. It is a violation of the Morality of Reward and Punishment. In the conservative worldview, the rich have earned their money and, according to the Morality of Reward and Punishment, deserve to keep it. Taxation – the forcible taking of their money from them against their will – is seen as unfair and immoral, a kind of theft. That makes the federal government a thief. Hence, a common conservative attitude toward the government: You can't trust it, since, like a thief, it's always trying to find ways to take your money.

Liberals, of course, see taxation through very different lenses. In Nurturant Parent morality, the well-being of all children matters equally. Those children who need less care, the mature and healthy children, simply have a duty to help care for those who need more, say, younger or infirm children. The duty is a matter of moral accounting. They have received nurturance from their parents and owe it to the other children if it is needed. In the Nation As Family metaphor, citizens who have more have a duty to help out those who have much less. Progressive taxation is a form of meeting this duty. Rich conservatives who are trying to get out of paying taxes are seen as selfish and mean-spirited. The nation has helped provide for them and it is their turn to help provide for others. They owe it to the nation. What is punishment and theft to conservatives is civic duty and fairness to liberals.

There are, of course, other ways of conceptualizing taxation, proposals that stand outside of the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models. These are proposals that come from the business community.

The government is commonly conceptualized as a business. If it is seen as a service industry, taxes can be seen as payment for services provided to the public. Those services can include protection (by the military, the criminal justice system, and regulatory agencies), adjudication of disputes (by the judiciary and other agencies), social insurance (as in Social Security and Medicare and various "safety nets"), and so on.

Under the conceptualization of government as a business that provides services to the public, the questions asked are whether the service is cost-effective and efficient, whether the public is getting the kind of services it wants and needs, and whether the public is willing to pay for the services it wants. If taxes are conceptualized as what you pay for government services, then they are neither punishment nor theft nor civic duty.

One might, at first glance, think that such a conceptualization of government might be compatible with conservative moral views. The reasoning goes like this: Conservatives are pro-business. Why wouldn't they want to see the government operate as a business, in this case a service industry? It would force government to become efficient and cost-effective (see References, Dl, Barzelay 1992).

Indeed, President Clinton's "Reinventing Government" program, under the direction of Vice-President Al Gore, has many of these elements. But as Rush Limbaugh would probably say if he got the chance, "A rose by any other name smells just as...." The government may be downsized, streamlined, and made more efficient and cost-effective. It may be de-bureaucratized and made much more responsive to the public. Taxation may be reconceptualized as payment for services. But from the perspective of conservative morality, it is still taxation. It violates the Morality of Reward and Punishment in two ways. First, you don't have a choice as to whether to purchase this service. The government still takes the tax money you've earned, which by the Morality of Reward and Punishment, you deserve to keep. Second, it is still a huge system that does not work by the Morality of Reward and Punishment. It is an enormous system in which the incentive for profit motive does not apply, and the Morality of Reward and Punishment sees such systems as serving the immoral purpose of removing the incentive of reward, the very basis of morality.

You may metaphorically think of the government as a business, and bring principles of good business practice to it, and make it responsive to the public as a good service industry would be, but the government will still not be a profit-making enterprise. That is why conservatives want to privatize government as much as possible. And it is why President Clinton's successes in streamlining government and making it more cost-effective did not earn him high marks with conservatives.

Taxation is not merely a moral issue; the very basis of morality is at stake! That is why the issue of taxation is at the very heart of conservative moral politics.

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