Rodent Regatta

Marxicon Economics

by Craig J. Cantoni

Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT)

Public speaking and writing a newspaper column on public policy issues have introduced me to a new branch of economics: Marxicon economics. It is a bizarre combination of Marxism and free-market capitalism that is embraced by a large number of conservatives.

A case in point:

I recently shared the dais at a meeting of conservatives with British historian David Irving, who has been both praised and vilified for his books on the Second World War and the Holocaust. He spoke about his books, and I spoke about the new Medicare bill.

Both of us had a similar sub-theme: that governments, including democracies, engage in propaganda to further the interests of those in power. My example was Health Savings Accounts, which Republicans are touting as a free-market provision in the new Medicare bill.

To show why it is not a free-market provision, I read excerpts from the 676-page bill, a bill that probably few members of Congress or journalists have read in its entirety. Written in a stultifying bureauclese that will keep judges, lawyers, tax attorneys, accountants, lobbyists, benefits consultants, financial advisors and government bureaucrats fully employed for decades, the bill is replete with wage and price controls, onerous reporting requirements, special considerations for favored political groups, and handouts for large corporations. It is the antithesis of a free market.

Worse, in a propaganda ploy, the bill pretends to be giving taxpayers something when in actually it continues the government’s practice of taking much more away than it gives. For instance, Health Saving Accounts will let Americans save money on a tax-free basis for health care expenses, after paying tributes to accountants, benefit consultants and others to interpret the legislation, which has more red tape than a manufacturer of Christmas ribbons.

But here is the rub: None of this would be necessary if the government did not tax retirement savings at all. The government is not being munificent by allowing us to save a portion of our savings on a tax-free basis through Health Savings Accounts, Medical Savings Accounts, 401(k) plans, SERPs, SIIPs, Flexible Spending Accounts, Rabbi trusts and various other mutations of the tax code. It is being confiscatory by taxing our income and then taxing the investment returns on what we save for retirement out of the balance. Contrary to what most Americans and the ignorant media believe, letting us keep a little of OUR money from the tax collector is not munificence.

Anyway, during the question-and-answer period at the end of Irving’s and my remarks, a conservative in the audience asked the kind of question that I have learned to expect from conservative audiences: ”Craig, what do you propose that we do about the obscene profits of drug companies?”

Marxicon economics had reared its intellectually inconsistent head and presented me with a speaker’s dilemma. Should I disembowel the questioner in public or answer in a way that would not turn the audience against me? I chose the latter course and answered as follows:

”Good question. It’s something that I would be happy to debate with you after the meeting, but your question raises the question of how ’obscene’ would be defined and who would define it. Also, if we accept that the role of government is to put a limit on drug company profits, then what would stop the government from putting a lid on the profits of any other company or on what you can earn as an individual?”

With that, historian David Irving jumped in with his British perspective, proving that someone can be an expert in one area and the opposite in another. He said that he agreed with the questioner.

I responded to David with a question: ”David, what has happened to the British pharmaceutical industry under nationalized health care?” He stammered a non-answer answer.

Of course, what has happened is that the industry has declined because it could no longer attract the capital to invest in research and development and produce lifesaving drugs at a price to provide investors with a satisfactory return on their investment and to compensate them for the risk of losing their money.

It is not unusual to encounter socialism among Europeans. Sadly, it is no longer unusual to encounter a mutant version of socialism, Marxicon, among American conservatives.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Is voting immoral?

By Craig J. Cantoni

Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT)

Imagine for a moment that two presidential candidates were on the campaign trail espousing state-sponsored murder, with the Democratic candidate advocating the murder of all heterosexual white males and the Republican candidate advocating the murder of all Hollywood atheists. There would be a moral outrage, and decent citizens would conclude that it would be immoral to vote for either candidate. They would not conclude that it would be moral to vote for the Republican candidate because his platform would result in fewer murders.

Now picture a scene from real life.

Picture presidential candidate Howard Dean and President Bush advocating state-sponsored theft, as both of them do and as virtually every Democratic and Republican politician does. Instead of moral outrage, the candidates receive cheers and are praised in the press as compassionate people. Even self-described conservatives turn out en masse to vote for Bush, justifying their vote on the belief that he advocates less theft than Dean.

Why the difference? Why would there be moral outrage over the advocacy of murder, but there isn’t moral outrage over the advocacy of taking money from some people and giving it to others?

Some might answer that there is not a moral equivalency between state-sponsored murder and state-sponsored theft—that there is not a social good in murder but there is a social good, let’s say, in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

There are two problems with that argument. The first is the fact that most of today’s state-sponsored theft is not limited to taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor—not that taking from the rich and giving to the poor is justifiable. Over half of government revenue is taken from some people and given to other people. It is utter nonsense to believe that all of that redistribution is only going to the poor.

The fact is, there are thousands of government programs that take money from some people and give it to other people, irrespective of whether they are rich or poor. One example is the recent expansion of Medicare, an entitlement that is funded through intergenerational theft. Whether rich or poor, retirees are sending the bill for their health care to future generations.

It is intellectually and morally inconsistent for voters to somehow believe that it is moral for seniors to use the state to steal money from their grandkids but immoral for seniors to sneak into their grandkids’ bedroom and steal their piggybank. Hiring an armed robber to steal on your behalf is just as immoral as doing the stealing yourself. Likewise, voting for a politician to steal on your behalf is just as immoral as hiring an armed robber.

Let’s turn now to the social good argument.

The problem with the argument is that it is a collectivist argument. It places the good of the collective, or society, above the good of the individual. It is not good, for example, for my 12-year-old son to face the prospect of spending much of his working life as an indentured servant of the state, or collective, because of the profligate spending of earlier generations. If you think that his indentured servitude is a social good, then I think that my fist in your face is also a social good.

Today’s convoluted thinking about the social good stems from a concept of society that is embraced by socialists and was foreign to this nation at its founding.

What exactly is this thing called ”society?” It is an abstraction. It is not something tangible like an individual who has certain inalienable rights. Putting the good of an abstraction above the good of real individuals invariably results in individuals losing all or some of their rights.

The dictionary defines society as a nation or a group of people with shared values. But what values? Is it a value in a democracy that the individual is less important than society and thus can have his rights and money taken by the majority? If so, that leaves the individual vulnerable to the whims, passions and self-interest of the majority. The U.S. Constitution was designed to stop the tyranny of the majority.

What about helping the poor? Moral people help those in need, but not by robbing other people. The same holds true for society as a whole. A moral society helps the poor because it consists of moral individuals who help the poor. A society cannot be moral if it consists of immoral individuals who take their neighbor’s money for themselves or for someone else.

Which brings me back to the initial question: Is voting immoral? The answer is yes, if voters vote for something immoral.

Is voting for Democrats and Republicans immoral? The answer is yes, because both parties advocate state-sponsored theft.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com

Tax Fairness versus Tax Morality

by Craig J. Cantoni

Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT)

Politicians, especially Democrats, talk about tax fairness but never talk about tax morality. That’s because their notion of a fair tax is really an immoral tax, for it is based on theft—on some people taking money from other people for themselves. Let’s look at examples of moral and immoral taxes and four principles to use in determining which is which.

The first example is gas taxes. Gas taxes are a moral tax if the revenue is used for roads. The taxes are moral because the users of the roads pay for the cost of the roads and do not take money from nonusers.

On the other hand, gas taxes are an immoral tax if part of the revenue is used to subsidize riders of light rail, as is being done today. It is wrong for mass transit riders to take the money of car drivers and other taxpayers instead of paying the full cost of their ride in fares.

If you think this is a minor matter, think again. Someone who takes the typical light-rail system to work everyday over a 25-year career will receive $100,000 in ”subsidies,” which is a euphemism for ”stolen money.”

Direct taxes and fees are the most moral way of paying for government services, because the users pay directly for the services and cannot stick their neighbor with the bill. An example is a water bill based on household usage. An opposite example is a hidden telephone tax in which city dwellers subsidize the telephone service for expensive vacation homes in rural areas.

This leads to our first principle of taxation:

PRINCIPLE ONE: Direct taxes and fees are the most moral way of funding government services.

Of course, it is not practical to charge citizens directly in taxes or fees for many government services. In such cases, general taxes are necessary, and the following principle applies:

PRINCIPLE TWO: General taxes are moral if they are taken from all citizens in equal proportions and used to the extent practical for the equal benefit of all citizens—for the true general welfare, in other words.

An example of the above principle is taxes for national defense.

Some would argue that taxes that fund what they see as an unjust war are immoral. They would have a point. But in such a case, the war would be immoral, not the taxation. This leads to a third principle:

PRINCIPLE THREE: The morality of taxes should be judged separately from the morality of the use of the taxes.

Applying this principle in the national defense example, the use of the taxes, war, may be immoral, but the taxes are moral, since they do not take money from some citizens for the benefit of other citizens.

Contrast this with Medicare taxes for prescription drugs. In this case, the taxes are immoral, because they are a form of intergenerational theft. They take money from younger generations for the benefit of the retired generation. However, the use of the taxes, buying medicine, is not immoral, for there is nothing wrong with seniors buying medicine.

Similarly, it is moral for citizens to help those in need. Not only that, but a case can be made that it is immoral for someone not to feed the poor and care for the sick. But this is a separate issue from the issue of taxation. Not only is the government lousy at distinguishing the truly needy from the phony needy, but it is not moral for the government to force some citizens to support other citizens through the tax code. Which brings us to our fourth principle:

PRINCIPLE FOUR: Compassion and charity are personal and religious matters, not matters for the tax collector.

Violating the four principles has resulted in over half of government revenue being taken from some citizens for the benefit of other citizens. Politics has become a gigantic Monopoly game in which the objective is to have the government take someone else’s money before the other person has the government take your money. Stated differently, over half of government activity is involved with theft. Thus, the power and reach of government and politicians would be cut at least in half if the four principles were followed.

Violating the principles also has resulted in uneconomic decisions, wasted capital and rising costs. When someone else is picking up the tab, cost is no object to the recipient. It is not a coincidence that the two most socialized areas of the economy, health care and K-12 education, are the most inefficient and costly.

Admittedly, there are gray areas with the principles as there are with any philosophy of government. In such cases, the best course of action is to discuss why the foregoing principles apply or don’t apply, and then to vote on the issue. That is quite different from what happens today, when there is no discussion of guiding principles and voting is based solely on self-interest.

What about public education? Is this a gray area?

The answer is no. Public education taxes are clearly immoral.

Sure, a case can be made that public education benefits all citizens by ensuring an educated populace—that the use of the taxes is moral. However, the ugly fact is that the taxes are immoral, for they are based on theft, and a huge theft at that.

Take two families with four school-age kids. Let’s say that Family A will pay $80,000 in public school taxes over a lifetime; Family B, $100,000. The kids of Family A attend public school, for a cost to the school district of $400,000 for 12 years. The kids of Family B attend parochial school, because their parents want to exercise their right of religious freedom and pay dearly to exercise that right.

Under this very real scenario, Family A gets a fivefold return on taxes (ROT), because it will pay $80,000 in taxes for a $400,000 benefit. Family B gets a thoroughly rotten ROT of zero, although it is saving the school district $400,000 on top of paying taxes of $100,000, for a net benefit to the district—and indirectly to Family A—of $500,000.

There are a number of practical ways of eliminating or at least reducing public education theft: 1) Users of public schools could pay a direct tuition to use the schools; 2) states could issue education vouchers to be used at the school of one’s choice, public or private; or 3) private school parents and homeschoolers could get a tax credit for the public school taxes that they pay while their kids attend private school or are homeschooled.

Of course, those who take other people’s school tax money would whine about the unfairness of the three options. Which leads me to conclude with the following tax maxim, or ”taxim” for short:

TAXIM: Citizens who take other people’s money always say that it is unfair to stop them from stealing.

Don’t believe the taxim? Listen to Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of HAALT. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

Free markets according to Republicans

by Craig J. Cantoni

U.S. Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) was one of the conservative holdouts on the Medicare bill who ended up voting yes after being pressured by President Bush and other Republicans. On a radio show with me after the vote, he tried to justify his vote by saying, among other things, that the bill’s provision for Health Savings Accounts is a free-market innovation.

Congressman Franks and other Republicans have a strange definition of ”free market.” Of course, Democrats have always been clueless.

HSAs are about as ”free market” as industry was in the Third Reich. When Hitler was asked why he didn’t nationalize German industry, he replied that he didn’t have to, because he controlled the industrialists. Similarly, HSAs will be controlled by the government.

The government is pretending to be benevolent and munificent by allowing citizens to save a portion of their income on a tax-free basis for their future health care expenses. In reality, Uncle Sam is confiscating our income and our savings in taxes and then letting us have a little of our money back. It’s akin to an armed robber who takes your wallet, watch and car, and then decides to let you keep the watch. Only a moron would say, ”Thank you, generous thief, for giving me such a nice watch.” And only an economics ignoramus would call such an exchange a free market.

Sadly, there are a lot of morons and ignoramuses in America, thanks to government schools, which are not about to teach students about free markets, economics and how the government deceives the public into thinking that it is giving them something when it returns a small part of what it takes.

Income is taxed twice in America—once when earned and once again when saved. And those who live below their means and save money are penalized in other ways. Because of progressive taxation, entitlements and other forms of income redistribution, they are forced to support those who live beyond their means and don’t save money. The construction worker who buys a Hyundai every 10 years ends up having his savings taken by the government and given to the construction worker who buys a fancy extended-cab pickup truck every two years. Democrats call this social justice. Republicans call this free markets. I call it stealing.

When there was a lot less government stealing in the early 20th century, there was a lot more saving. And because there was a lot more saving, a lot more capital was available for investments in industry, jobs and productivity improvements—in the things that grow and economy and improve the standard of living.

Today, we have a disincentive to save because the government taxes the hell out of savings. Worse, we have become so morally bankrupt that we are taxing children who don’t vote and are not of working age. For example, we are sending a $20 trillion bill for today’s entitlements to future generations.

Merry Christmas, kids.

Chew on these numbers: If the projected revenue shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare were paid off today, the government would have to seize half the nation’s household wealth or increase the payroll tax to 22.4 percent. Of course, we’re not going to pay off the shortfalls today. Instead, we’re going to send the shortfalls to our kids and turn them into indentured servants of the state.

Shame on us.

Many Republicans favor HSAs and their tax-code cousin, 401(k) plans, because many Republicans are CPAs, tax attorneys, benefits consultants, stock brokers, financial advisors and human resources managers. Instead of doing productive work that grows the economy and closes our trade deficit, they will make money from deciphering HSA regulations, just as they have earned a nice income from deciphering 401(k) legislation.

The following is an example of what the six-figure-income decipherers will be deciphering in the HSA legislation:

”(h) EXCEPTION FROM CAPITALIZATION OF POLICY ACQUISITION EXPENSES.—Subparagraph (B) of section 848(e)(1) of such Code (defining specified insurance contract) is amended by striking ”and” at the end of clause (iii), by striking the period at the end of clause (iv) and inserting ”, and”, and by adding at the end the following new clause: (v) any contract which is a health savings account (as defined in section 223(d)).”

Incidentally, the legislation will follow you to the grave. For example:

”(I) REDUCTION OF INCLUSION FOR PREDEATH EXPENSES.—The amount includible in gross income under clause (i) by any person (other than the estate) shall be reduced by the amount of qualified medical expenses which were incurred by the decedent before the date of the decedent’s death and paid by such person within 1 year after such date.”

Congressman Franks and others don’t seem to realize is that all of this gibberish, and all of the leeches who feed off the gibberish, would go away if the government would stop taxing people’s savings and start letting them invest their own money as they see fit for their old age. That, Congressman Franks, is not only a free market but also a free country.

I still put the Stars and Stripes in front of my house and am proud of serving my country as a Vietnam-era artillery officer. But my patriotism is for the America of yesteryear, not for the nation of thieves that it has become today.

It is time for lovers of liberty to read the first page of the Declaration of Independence, the page that says what people should do when ”any Form of Government becomes destructive” to liberty. Hint: It does not say to vote for Health Savings Accounts.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

Why are Italians patronized?

By Craig J. Cantoni

(For Internet publication)

Last night, as part of a school assignment, I took my son to an exhibit on aviation. There was only one display at the exhibit that spotlighted ethnicity, and true to form, it was about Italians—Italian pilots to be exact. How embarrassing and insulting to feature my ethnic group and no others, as if it was surprising to the organizers of the exhibit that Italians have enough intelligence to fly an airplane.

There was a front-page story the same day about Italians in the Arizona Republic, which is the largest-circulation daily in the Gannett empire next to USA Today. The story was even more embarrassing and insulting than the exhibit. Fortunately, I was able to throw the newspaper away before my son could see it and think that there is something wrong with his ethnic heritage.

The story said that Italians are a minority, because they represent only 6 percent of the United States population, have olive skin, are not Anglo, immigrated to this country speaking a foreign language, and took menial jobs that no one else wanted. It went on to say that Italian students have difficulty adjusting to college life, due to their minority status and due to the fact that they are often the first member of their family to attend college and don’t have anyone to explain the ropes to them. Accordingly, Arizona State University singles them out for special hand holding, apparently assuming, as the organizers of the aviation exhibit did, that all Italians are inherently inferior because of their ethnicity and can’t make it on their own.

Isn’t that the definition of racism? Whatever it is, I find it very troubling that when my son goes to college, he will treated differently, solely because he has a vowel at the end of his name. That’s not why my impoverished grandparents immigrated to this country.

Thank goodness I was not treated differently when I went to college, even though, as the son of working-class parents, I was the first Cantoni to attend college. Had I been singled out, I might have grown up with an ethnic chip on my shoulder and viewed myself as an oppressed minority the rest of my life.

Okay, time to come clean. The exhibit and newspaper story were not about Italians. They were about Hispanics, who outnumber Italians in Arizona by a factor of four but are mislabeled as ”minorities” by the establishment media, the government, corporations and universities.

The question is, why don’t Hispanics feel insulted and embarrassed over being patronized and treated as inherently inferior to other ethnic groups?

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and leader in equal rights for 30 years. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.