Code Breakers

The GOP has forsaken Reagan's tax message.

Max Schulz from the January 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

But the downside is obvious. Getting married and having and adopting children are good things, as are, in the case of the charitable gift deduction beloved by conservatives, philanthropic donations. But should it be the job of the tax code to reward virtue? Or should it be to raise revenue for the operations of government, no more and no less? Asking people who don’t marry or who choose not to have children to subsidize the activities of those who do is no less unfair than asking married couples to subsidize the activities of singles.

Worse still, when you start giving tax breaks for things like education or adoptions, you make it easier to give tax breaks for failed radio DJs and whaling captains. The tax code is now larger than it was before Ronald Reagan "cut the book in half" almost 15 years ago. The positive aspect to President Clinton’s veto of the recent tax bill is that thousands more words won’t be added to the Internal Revenue Code and its regulations.

Of course, the left has always been quick to employ the tax code to control human behavior and to punish activities it abhors. Hence the luxury tax on cars and boats a decade ago or, more recently, the push to jack cigarette taxes up to prohibitive heights. And for decades the right and the Republican Party have defined themselves in contrast to the noxious idea that the government should compel, or even nudge, citizens to do this rather than that. But if these few years of Republican rule in Congress are any guide, then the conservative movement is finding that it is very comfortable with nudging and compulsion after all.

Republicans often lament the fact that the party likely will never have another Ronald Reagan. He was and is the GOP’s ideal: popular, personable, charismatic, well-loved. But the tears they shed over Reagan have blinded them to the fact that they are forsaking his legacy rather than building on it

In terms of tax policy, Reagan’s legacy has nothing to do with personality. It is about a set of principles based on the simple idea that government shouldn’t be in the business of encouraging or discouraging behavior. Rather, government should ensure a level playing field on which people can live out their lives as they desire. Today’s conservatives and today’s GOP fail to acknowledge that these principles were a large part of why Reagan was a popular and successful leader.

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