Theft by Another Name

The governmental action of taking assets from its citizens under a threat of civil or criminal action for noncompliance is, by definition, confiscation. Taxation, then, is legalized confiscation.

The United States Constitution allows the federal government to confiscate certain tax revenues for the purposes of funding constitutionally authorized government functions. But America’s political class long ago exceeded its constitutional authority.

The purposes for which government takes taxes today are no longer limited by constitutional language. If our government is not contained, if its constitutional limits are not restored, America can – and will – fail.

Among its other omissions, the founding document does not authorize taxation as a substitute for charity. Confiscation of the assets of productive, taxpaying Americans for redistribution to other, nonproductive but otherwise able-bodied citizens is not "sharing the American dream." It is theft by another name.

Our system guarantees every American the same opportunities to succeed, but it doesn’t guarantee the same outcomes for all, nor should it.

The Constitution doesn’t authorize taxation to provide a substitute for work, for paying attention in school or for sexual responsibility. Nor does it allow for those who ignore some or all of those things to escape the consequences of irresponsible decisions.

Economic history proves that, if government wants more of something, it subsidizes it. If it wants less, it taxes it. Government acknowledges that truth by taxing cigarettes and subsidizing activities politicians favor.

In the 1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson’s "Great Society" created public welfare as we know it today, the federal government effectively began subsidizing sexual irresponsibility and made single motherhood, to some at least, a rational "career choice."

Welfare didn’t create a safety net so much as it encouraged bad behavior.
Not surprisingly, America received millions of "applications" for the newly-created "job" of unwed mother. In the past 50 years American taxpayers have spent trillions of dollars to reward personal irresponsibility while creating a nearly permanent American underclass. Not only did public welfare begin payments to nonworking unwed mothers, but it increased payments incrementally for greater rates of illegitimacy and reduced payments if there was a man in the house. So, in addition to encouraging illegitimacy, welfare also discouraged marriage.

Johnson’s Great Society was advertised as a successor suite of programs to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. But Roosevelt’s Great Depression-era New Deal included programs that provided work relief for the unemployed, among them the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration.

Why isn’t there a policy component in public welfare or for long-term unemployment compensation that requires work for cash benefits? There aren’t enough jobs in the economy to draw down an already artificially underestimated official unemployment rate of more than 8 percent, so isn’t it obvious that, if the money is to be spent anyway, we should enact measures that would provide work in the manner of Roosevelt’s CCC and WPA in exchange for benefits?

Does it really make sense to encourage unemployed men and women to go on and stay on welfare and receive other nonworking benefits? A provision of President Barack Obama’s failed stimulus program actually gave incentives to the states to increase their numbers of welfare recipients and roll back the welfare reforms of the Clinton years. Why do liberal politicians promote cash payouts like welfare and food stamps instead of work?

Sadly, those are easy questions to answer: "Workfare" jobs are vehemently opposed by the public service employees unions that bankroll the election campaigns of liberal politicians. Public-service unions don’t want welfare and food stamp recipients doing useful work that overpaid union members might otherwise do.

To the unions, putting one more brick on the load of overburdened American taxpayers is a small price to pay for the power, cash rewards and special deals they receive from bought-and-paid-for politicians.

When liberals promote "fairness" and call on Americans to "share the American dream," remember that it is they who demand the sole right to define fairness, and that they intend to use other people’s money to fund their version of the American dream.

That’s a win-win for liberals, but it’s a lousy deal for taxpayers and an even worse outcome for those who have been encouraged or allowed themselves to become dependent on government.

Annville native Shenk writes from West Hanover Township. Email: [email protected]