It’s Fair to Have a Fair System for Fairness
10th August 2010
Tim Cavanaugh points out some Inconvenient Truth.
A tax system that’s both fairer and better? What’s not to like? Well, here’s one thing: The proper role of taxation is not to promote fairness or equality or social engineering. It is to raise revenue to fund the appropriate functions of government. Nowhere in his argument does Surowiecki ask whether tax hikes on the idle rich actually raise more revenues. It’s a good question to avoid, because they don’t.