Core Republican Beliefs - Taxes

I am a liberal and think that I have rational and even noble reasons for my beliefs. A major personal goal for this blog is to figure out why Republicans/conservatives have difference beliefs, ones that seem detrimental to poor people and the environment. It is easy to assert that they are ignorant, mean-spirited, selfish and racist (as some Demoncrats/liberals are) but I want to understand those beliefs and why some people accept them.  This posting is a beginning, and will have things added over time.

In a recent Washington Post story this statement appears:

... conservative principle that the government must not increase the amount of money it takes in through taxes.

Further down is this amplification:

... 41 senators, including Coburn, and 237 House members have signed the pledge, in which candidates vow to oppose “all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business” as well as “any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

The pledge was instituted 25 yrs ago by Grover Norquist who heads his own organization, Americans for Tax Reform.  The group's website gives this reason for being against taxes:

The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized.

This is a sentiment that has ebbed and flowed throughout US history. Some mistakenly think that our revolution was because of unfair taxes, but the founding fathers were against taxation without representation. All of the taxes that exist have been approved by representatives (congress people) of US citizens so conservatives' complaints must be that they do not like the laws that our representatives have passed and presidents of both political parties have signed.

There is ample historical precedent to be afraid of your own government. In the past, nearly all governments acted in dictatorial ways to control their people, and that is still true, to varying degrees, in many countries today. But America's founders specifically wrote a constitution that shared powers between different actors so that dictatorships and illegal and immoral activities would be more difficult to get away with. 

I think most people would agree that the government should not have excessive power to control the lives of its citizens. The issue is not black and white, but rather what should be the limits of government's power. For example, governments regulate the flow of traffic with laws and policies - e.g. stop signs, air traffic control, inspections to make sure vehicles are safe, etc. Most people believe these are important roles for government, although a neighbor says they aren't and that, for example, after a certain number of plane collisions, airline companies would work out control procedures that would maximize their profits. I would not want to fly on those planes, and would ask who is going to make sure that solutions are followed by all carriers in all nations?

Similar arguments have been made about safety and protection of people's lives through work place safety, food inspections, auto safety, air and water pollution. Businesses have been against every one of these because they increase cost. But the public has supported them, that is why many safety laws now exist. In general, many people feel they have a right to be protected from fraudulent and unsafe practices, and only the government can do that. Many conservatives seem to accept caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. In other words, if you aren't smart enough to avoid being taken advantage of, it is your own stupid fault. Unfortunately, it is impossible for each citizen to investigate the ingredients or cleanliness of food processing plants, for example. During the second President Bush's term he reduced the funding for food inspectors and food contamination outbreaks resulted. Caveat emptor is a philosophy of the past, and laws have grown up in every modern country to protect their citizens.

This introduces another concept that will be discussed in another posting: capitalism. Conservatives generally want no restrictions on a company's ability to make profits. Companies were largely uncontrolled during the 1870s thru 1900s so that gross inequalities became so outrageous that a Republican president (T.R. Roosevelt) was forced to introduce government regulations. This episode demonstrates why so much government regulation was approved over the last 100 years: both small companies and large corporations were unfair to their workers. 

As discussed below conservatives tend not to accept nuances - their world view is typically of right and wrong. That is not the topic of this analysis but is a factor in understanding behavior.