Though Gracchi over at Liberal Conspiracy has beaten me to it I'm going to continue writing out my response to the article on CentreRight about the supposed "moral case for lower taxation". It's not something I can at all sit comfortably on without commenting, this idea that the state is depriving us of our lifestyles and that when we talk of "us" that we are even possibly talking about anyone other than the top earners of this country.

Reading it, you feel Gingrich's outrage at the diminution of choice and freedom those families suffer at the hands of the greedy government, the frustration families must feel as their incomes are snatched from them and frittered away by inefficient and wasteful bureaucracies "for their own good".

It's an interesting move towards more traditional Tory ground, one that I've not really heard much in recent years but is perhaps an argument that will be heard more as the economy struggles for whatever reason, the idea that we're being taxed out of our minds for seemingly no reason at all. However I want to look at this and see just exactly how justified he can be in saying this or whether the greater social gains of benefit to us all by co-ordinated spending of our taxes are things that we couldn't reasonably attain while maintaining a semblance of equality.

Of course I know what the argument here is going to be, I've heard it all before. "Why should *I* be paying for them", "Who says they have the right to this", etc, etc. It's a very selfish manner of thinking but one that is justifiable and one we have to accept people hold, even if they do end up contradicting themselves by showing they don't mind the government paying for things they agree about, like...say...marriage vs gay civil partnership. The ultimate truth is that we can never please everyone with any system that is used for redistribution of wealth balanced against personal gain, but can we call the current system immoral? As Gracchi points out I'd be inclined to believe that certain policies are immoral but not the practice of redistribution around them.

The articles author, Alex Deane, tends to agree with Newt Gingrich when he said:

n 1950, the median household paid 5 percent of its income in federal taxes... y 1990 that figure had risen to 24 percent... Imagine how much better off the average family would be if they could spend... more on their own children, their own education, their own savings. Are we really getting such efficient, effective government providing such vital services that it is better for the government to have the money than it is for the family that earned it?

The thing that strikes me here is that it is a very upper class attitude to take, this idea that there would be enough money to spend on education, savings and their children (the theme is a little two dimensional) to their hearts content is a little far fetched for most of the country. For a start, looking at the statistics it is clear that only the top 20% of income earners in this country actually "suffer" by the way of taxation while the majority of the country would have much less money to spend on their children without it being there. In fact it's clear that through things like child benefit, even if you don't agree with the amount, the net effect of the action is to essentially tax you less so you can spend more money on your children. It may certainly be argued that it is immoral that a household earning more than £70k a year might only end up with £40-50k of that to spend on their little darlings, depriving them of the instant financial security to go through university perhaps, but to claim that holding this belief is an ethical one with the future of all the nations children in question would be patently false.

When looking to duties as another example I would definitely question how moral it would be to essentially give people cheaper sources of things we know to be harmful to them. As a liberal of course I believe that people should generally, within reason, be able to use whatever substances they want, but we also have to recognise the impact that has on the society around us and the services supporting us. Turning people away from potential treatment for cirrhosis or such because there is no funding their to treat the causes of their cheap vice is about as counter-productive and immoral as I can imagine any government policy becoming.

Quite frankly without the state and the money that we fund it with we would have not only the money back to spend on our children while hundreds of thousands of other children die of malnutrition, but also to spend on increased personal security against uncontrollable crime, on healthcare that swathes of the country can't access and on providing for ourselves in old age while thousands of others reaching the twilight of their lives die in the cold of their own homes. I know which moral life I would prefer to live, and it is certainly not that of Alex Deane's utopia of "low taxation" that moves us further from equality.