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| TAX DAY | |
 April 16, 2001 
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| GWEN IFILL: Every year
in the middle of April, the great national tax debate lands on kitchen
tables across America; a debate not just about tax cuts, but about who
pays, how much, and why. We pose those questions to four taxpayers. Amy
Gutmann is a professor of politics at Princeton University. Walter Williams
chairs the Economics Department at George Mason University in Virginia.
Father Robert Sirico heads the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion
and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And Benjamin Barber teaches political
philosophy at Rutgers University. Benjamin Barber, Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes is quoted as saying that taxes are what we pay for a civilized
society. What about that?
BENJAMIN BARBER: Well it's even more than that, because taxation is emblematic of what it means for Americans to be constituted as a people. The prologue to our Constitution talks about establishing a more perfect union, securing a common defense, promoting the general welfare, and we need the wherewithal to do that. We need the wherewithal to be a citizenry and a common people and to do the work together. And taxation is, in fact, how we commit resources to constituting ourselves as a citizenship, as a "we," as a national republic that does things together. And citizens really pool their resources, pay their taxes, and thereby do work together. GWEN IFILL: Professor Williams, how would you respond if Justice Holmes were to come back and say this to you? WALTER WILLIAMS: Well, I would respond that we've gone far beyond that. That is, the average taxpayer works from January 1 until May 8 to pay federal, state and local taxes, going on five months out of the year. Now, he does not have the rights to decide how the fruits of his labor will be used. Right now, the federal government, two-thirds of the federal budget is not authorized by the United States constitution. James Madison said in the Federalist Paper 45, he said that the powers left with the federal government are few and defined, those left with the people and the states are many and indefinite. And we've gone far beyond that. GWEN IFILL: Professor Gutmann, have we gone far beyond that? AMY GUTMANN: No, I don't think we've gone far beyond that, although it's a very controversial issue and none of us particularly enjoy paying our taxes-- at least nobody I've met, recently. But I think it is the case that taxes are essential to the public morality of a democratic society. Without taxes, we wouldn't have a justice system, we wouldn't have an educational system, we wouldn't have environmental protection, we wouldn't have a host of things that we, the people, want. And we can't have them just by individually deciding upon our charitable causes. So I think it's very important that American Revolution was made in the name of no taxation without representation, not in the name of no taxation or no taxation only for the most minimal purposes. GWEN IFILL: Father Sirico, here in Washington when we debate taxes lately it's all been about President Bush's tax cut. Today, as on other days, he came out and keeps repeating his mantra, which is, "this is the people's money." What is your response to that? REV. ROBERT SIRICO: Well, there's an ancient tradition to private property. Thou shalt not steal is an indication that the people have the right to what they produce. When you get to high levels of taxation now approaching almost half of the income that people produce, you incite rebellion. You've heard reports of people rebelling against taxes and the IRS breaking down in terms of their surveying of that. I don't think it's a question of tax or no tax, but what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar is the real question. I take Dr. Williams' point to heart that when you go beyond the constitutional limits and you kind of have a self- perpetuating bureaucracy and where the mentality is that the normative society is the governmental sector, you have some real problems: Civil problems and moral problems. GWEN IFILL: So what are you suggesting, that the private sector should be the one taking responsibility for these roles that the government has taken on to itself? REV. ROBERT SIRICO: I think that needs are best met at the most local level of their existence. This in my tradition is called the principle of subsidiary. So I think that first, people who are close and have a certain proximity to problems know best how to raise the money, whether that's through local forms of taxation or charitable endeavors. But what I'm challenging here is the pervasive notion that the normative culture of society is set by the state, by the bureaucratic or the political sector. And I think that's the thing that needs to be questioned at that level. GWEN IFILL: Walter Williams you're nodding. WALTER WILLIAMS: Well, I think that one of the things that... One of our guests said, Barber said that the federal government has all these responsibilities. But James Madison... We'll all agree that James Madison is the father of the Constitution, and in 1792, Congress appropriated $15,000 to help some French refugees. And James Madison said-and I'm virtually quoting him-- he says, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purposes of benevolence." And two-thirds of what the federal government spends money on is an activity where they take the rightful property of one American and give it to another American to whom it does not belong. GWEN IFILL: What do you define as benevolence, and what do you define as the common good? WALTER WILLIAMS: The Constitution here is very specific on it. That is, there is Article I, Section 8 that lists 21 things that Congress can spend money on. And for the... for benevolence, you know, giving people... whether it's to bail out farmers, bail out the banks, bail out the poor people, that's what two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on, taking one Americans' earnings and giving it to another American. As Father Sirico said, in the Bible it says thou shall not steal. When God gave most Moses the Ten Commandments, he did not mean that thou shalt not steal unless you have a majority vote. GWEN IFILL: Amy Gutmann, is the Constitution being flouted here? AMY GUTMANN: Taxation is not stealing. We're not rendering unto Caesar, we're rendering unto a democratic system of government. And I think there is no evidence that we're close-- the ordinary taxpayer, that is-- to a revolt against the idea that we should be funding such causes as education for our children. The Education for All Handicapped Children's Act is just an enormously expensive cause. And if the federal government doesn't pay for it, as it doesn't, then it follows on local and state officials and taxpayers to pay for it through their local and state taxes, which we cannot forget also get paid on this very sacrosanct day. If I earn $60,000 a year, I have to ask two questions on taxes: One is, what is my fair share compared to someone who earns $600,000 a year or someone who inherits $6 million a year? And the other is, what public purposes do I think are worth funding? Now, just asking those questions can give us a sense of why taxes are so controversial. But their being controversial is not an argument against our wanting to live in a society where children are cared for, environment is safe, where we can drink water without fearing that we're going to be poisoned over our lifetime. GWEN IFILL: Let me interrupt to ask you another follow-up question. We've lost Benjamin Barber for the moment so you get this one too. Is it possible that the government's role is not to be a social safety net; that being a social safety net inhibits people from doing for themselves or taking care of themselves? AMY GUTMANN: Yes, it is possible. That's one of the reasons we have a debate over taxes. But remind ourselves that this debate is over what kind of society we want to live in as individuals, whether we're rich or poor. And therefore, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to live in a society where people like some of our friends and neighbors and children do not have a safety net below which to fall, but they only rely on the charity of other people? GWEN IFILL: Father Sirico, how about that? Is this an economic question or a moral question? REV. ROBERT SIRICO: I think it's both an economic and a moral question. I think the fact that people produce money involves a moral question, and what is left out of the equation... Dr. Gutmann says that she has not met anybody who likes to pay taxes, but we all want all of these things. I mean, it is a problem. When the government goes beyond its just role, what ends up happening isn't just that this money is taken and not used for the purposes that people decide are best and that they know about best, but all kinds of disincentives are put in place. And it kills the civilizing impulse and the philanthropic impulse of people. We know that people are very generous, especially when they know that there is a need. No one is debating here whether or not there should be taxes, much less that the poor should be taken care of or what they should we should live in a civilized order. The question is how we go about that. And I suggest when we begin to approach confiscatory levels of taxation, that this is a moral injustice and economic folly. GWEN IFILL: If I was listening right, Professor Williams, you were making exactly the argument that it's confiscatory and that this is not a question of how much, but that the government should have no role at all. WALTER WILLIAMS: Wait, no. In the Constitution Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, it lists the things the government should do. I agree 100%, and I think we all should pay our right share. Now, there are safety net problems. There are people who are poor and people who have various problems, but that's... Charity should take care of that. Look, Americans, we Americans should be very proud of ourselves, that is, we do... we're the most generous people on the face of the earth. We do 85% of all world giving. And this has been true since Alexis de Tocqueville came here in 1840 and wrote "Democracy in America." And he went back to France saying, you know, those Americans just love committees. Somebody's barn gets burned down and they have a committee. Somebody gets widowed and they have a committee. We have to ask ourselves -- we've been a nation since 1787. Now we didn't have the welfare state until 1936 at the beginning. What happened to poor people? They weren't dying in the streets. What happened to old people - they weren't dying in the streets. GWEN IFILL: What about education? A federal role or a government role for education is not spelled out in the Constitution. WALTER WILLIAMS: That is absolutely right. I don't think the federal government should have anything to do with education. By the way, what has happened to education since the federal government has gotten involved with it? That is since 1962, and when we got a Department of Education, education in America started going down the rat hole. GWEN IFILL: Professor Gutmann, a chance to respond? AMY GUTMANN: Taxation funds education not only at the federal but at the local and state levels. We have children who through no fault of their own have parents who can't afford to give them an adequate education -- children who are handicapped. If the federal government requires that all handicapped children get a decent education, the federal government should share the burden of funding that with local communities who cannot possibly afford it, and who will not actually be able to educate all children well unless the tax burden is fairly distributed. And quite the contrary to what some people say about charity, people are more likely to give to charity if they feel that taxation is fairly distributed among taxpayers. And people are more generous when they think that they're better-off fellow citizens are being required to pay their fair share. Now there's a big debate over exactly what the fair share is. But as we saw with the inheritance tax debate, many people who were very well off think it was fairer that the federal government take a percentage of those... the inheritance that their children would otherwise get. This is not a matter of confiscatory taxation. It is a matter of furthering the public welfare through a representative democratic system. GWEN IFILL: We're going to have to leave the conversation here for tonight. We apologize to Benjamin Barber. We had technical difficulties and lost that signal from New Jersey. Thank you all for joining us. |
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