Taxing Snookie, Giving the Money to Rangel

An evaluation of the concept of forcible redistribution of wealth would consider at least some of these topics:

First, the nature of the enforcer. Clearly the leader who has no plan should be shunned. This would include those whose vision is little more than an optimistic hope, people whose motive is mainly the hate of those who are successful, the peculiar anarchists, anyone who includes murder as a legitimate tool to reach their goals. This exclusion leads to the assumption that the leader should have a public plan--not just a personal good will--that lays out the aims, direction and endpoint of the intervention.

Second, every thinker in the last three centuries has connected personal freedom and the sanctity of private property. Even Marx felt there was an intimate connection between property and freedom, he just thought the freedom was an unhealthy right of man as he thought freedom of religion was unhealthy. (He thought man should have freedom from both.) If the government is going to take property from owners, this question of freedom must be answered first.

Third, what about the Laffer Curve? It states that as confiscation of earnings rise, the amount the government takes rises to a plateau, then declines. This implies there is an intimate connection between the ability to keep one's earnings and how much work one is willing to do. If Laffer is correct, the expropriation of property from the public discourages work and causes a decline in government returns. This question must be answered as it assumes a decline in national wealth.

Fourth, should property be taken from everyone? Taxing the rich is a peculiar slogan as it implies a general equality. But there are vast differences. No one would suggest putting everyone weighing over 200 pounds on a diet because a six foot three inch man weighing 200 pounds may be lean while a five foot two woman quite in need of calorie reduction. Similarly one would look with suspicion on shifting money from a successful company like Apple to a bureaucratic relative of a senator because one could easily assume that Apple would put it to better use. One probably does not feel the same about a man with a criminal record who wins the lottery; it is unlikely that he would do as good a job with his money as Apple. So there is either an insincerity here--the government wants all the money regardless of the competence of its source--or some distinction must be made about who is taxed and what is to be achieved.

Fifth, there should be some requirements on the people who manage the money taken from the public. The Ponzi schemes the government has created and run over the last years probably should disqualify anyone with a governmental history. Who would you feel more confident in, Pelosi or Peter Lynch, Charlie Rangel or Warren Buffett? There should be some criteria, some qualifications.

Sixth, there have been many attempts to control incomes and guide economies by nations. Some in the Pacific Basin have worked. But many have not and have ended badly. Some criteria must be developed to analyze and judge the results during the project with the option of changing course if necessary.

There are countless problems with the state controlling the lives of its citizens. Property ownership has been a proven bulwark against tyranny. And government has been shown to be quite incompetent in many of the fields they have magnanimously entered. But these six points seem to be a worthwhile practical starting point on the question.