Tax Lawyer's Blog

“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”

- Voltaire -

James Maule has published a series of posts that purport to respond to my criticism of the left’s propensity to demonize the belief systems of those with whom they disagree.

His last post addressed my contention that he attributed selfish motives to my belief that taxes should be kept low and government small. Here’s what he said:

Today, in conclusion, I will deal with what Peter Pappas describes as my third point, namely, the assertion that Pappas opposes higher taxes because he is either already rich or plans to be rich some time soon. Actually, what I wrote was the following:

“Either Pappas is already among the wealthy, or he is so sure or desirous of joining their ranks that he subscribes to their outlook. Surely he cannot think that the nation is economically better off now than it was before the wealthy engineered their tax cuts a decade ago. Or perhaps he does so think?”

In other words, I offered three possible reasons for the vigorousness with which Pappas opposes letting the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. First, perhaps he is among the wealthy. Second, perhaps he is certain to be or desires to be wealthy. Third, he thinks tax cuts for the wealthy have so benefitted the entire populace that more should be enacted.

This is true. Professor Maule did, in fact, posit three possible reasons why I believe that we should not increase taxes on the rich. Again, here they are:

1. I am rich and want to increase my own wealth
2. I will be rich some day and will then want to increase my own wealth
3. I think Americans are better off today than they were when the top tax brackets were higher

Now, if I ascribed to either one of the first two reasons, that would make me selfish and self-interested. If, however, I ascribed to the third reason, I would be a blithering idiot because it’s obvious that we are doing worse today, in the midst of a recession, than we were ten years ago when we were not in a recession.

That’s not much of a choice, now is it?

Maule claims that the offering of this third option proves that he was not assigning to me selfish motives. 

Come on, Professor. You might as well have said, “Pappas favors tax cuts on the wealthy because he either is wealthy, plans to be wealthy or thinks the world is flat. The third option is no option at all.

For the record, here is what I wrote about that last choice:

Maule is correct. Most of us are indeed worse off today than we were ten years ago. But that hardly means that we’re worse off because George W. Bush lowered the top tax rates. Correlation is not causation. There are thousands of subtle and not so subtle differences between the 1990’s and the 2000’s, any one or a combination of which might be responsible for our current predicament. Cherry-picking a single difference and assigning it all of the blame is both simplistic and silly.

So simplistic and silly, in fact, that anyone can do it. Like thus:

The reason we are worse off now than we were in 2000 is that during the 90’s, when we had higher tax rates on the rich, corporations moved their operations overseas in record numbers. The flight of the job creators eventually caused the massive rates of unemployment we began seeing in 2007.

The truth is, none of the possible motives Mr. Maule attributes to me are flattering. And that, again, is my larger point. Maule and many pro-big government, tax-the-richers are constitutionally incapable of seeing any nobility or decency whatsoever in a person who believes something different than what they believe: Namely, that the rich are undertaxed and that increasing the size of government is necessary in order to reduce the wealth gap.¹

I concede that Mr. Maule and those who share his beliefs are intelligent, decent, and caring human beings and I assume that they have formed their beliefs based on what they think is best for the country, not merely what is best for themselves.²

They, on the other hand, seem incapable of making the same concessions and admissions about those with whom they disagree.

Footnotes:

¹  It is, of course, possible that Mr. Maule is right. But the rightness of his position is not so apparent and unequivocal that anyone who deigns to disagree with it must, therefore, be selfish or ignorant.

²  I don’t challenge either the sincerity or the generosity of Mr. Maule’s views. I merely think they’re wrong. But, as Voltaire said, certainty is ridiculous and I am by no means certain that they’re wrong. This means that I am capable of being swayed by a coherent, logical argument. I will, however, never be swayed by ad hominem arguments that are designed only to make me feel bad about my views and to intimidate others from adhering to them.

Related Posts:

• Taxes, Saints & Sinners
• Truth, Taxes and the American Way
• Liberals, Conservatives, Economics and the Conflict of Visions
• Strawman Argument Used in Tax Debate
• If You Oppose Tax Increases, You’re Stupid, Exploited or Dishonest

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