I have been reading quite a few articles lately in which the individuals (politicians, bureaucrats and just ordinary citizens) are asked about various issues related to the presidential campaigns. One answer I have heard quite a bit is simply that “the government” should do something. Sometimes the issues are even cast in terms of a […]
Archives
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Frederic Bastiat as Prophet
28 Feb 2016
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Taxation and Ethics: Further Reflection
16 Feb 2016
I have continued to read the comments on Jeff Haymond’s blog about progressive taxation, and my own complementary blog, and have decided I should make another foray into this subject to address in more depth the ethical theory of policies such as taxes (but, indirectly, others as well). The question to begin is: Is progressive […]
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It’s time for another book review. I am reading several books but just finished one by Larry Siedentop, entitled Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Penguin, 2014, 434 pages). The author has a fascinating and somewhat counterintuitive thesis that what we call “Liberalism” ( I will capitalize the word) was really “created” by […]
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A Biblical case for Proportional (flat) taxation
09 Feb 2016
In my previous post, I suggested progressive taxation was not Biblical, and challenged readers to convince me I was wrong. In the voluminous follow up comments, I didn’t see any Biblical arguments for progressive taxation. However several posters suggested that there was not Biblical support for any method of taxation (regressive, proportional or progressive). In […]
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What an interesting post and discussion in the comment section on progressive taxation. I hope Jeff Haymond doesn’t mind. Let me just add a little on the philosophical and ethical side, since the theological/Biblical has been pretty well covered and the economic problems have also been addressed. One word raised several times in the “Comment” […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach