Man vs State

The only certainties in life are death and taxes.

I am sick of taxes. Taxes are theft – a standard refrain from Libertarians – that I hold as a truism precisely because they are extracted under penalty of law. Thus taxation is a coercive act.

The refrain of good socialist-minded folks is that the rich should pay their “fair share” and thus fund social goods and reduce income inequality. If only they understood precisely how regressive the tax structure is:

And if only they understood how inefficient the services provided by government are.

I have a glimmer of hope for Portland. First because many earners have moved into a higher tax bracket just as services are failing leading to a rejection of inane arguments to fund lawyers to defend evictions through capital gains. The tax-happy socialists with their pre-school for all and homeless tax have actually created a pain point such that the mayor is publicly calling for a moratorium. Now if we could only reverse the tide and make the socialists remember that they eventually run out of other people’s money.