Norquist's tax cuts=civil rights claim

In a TNR Online debate with Jon Chait over Chait's The Big Con, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist trots out the bizarre argument that a progressive tax system is equivalent to discrimination based on race and sexual orientation:

In the 1950s it was considered by too many acceptable for the state to discriminate against gays and African Americans. Now it is not. Back in those bad old days it was considered politically acceptable to target "the rich" and treat them differently than others. We are slowly moving away from tolerating discrimination based on economics just as we now reject discrimination based on race or sexual orientation. The drive for a single-rate, flat-rate income tax is the moral equivalent of the 1960s civil rights movement which rejected different laws for whites and blacks. Everyone should be equal before the law. The state must treat us without discrimination.

South Africa was a bad place when they discriminated by race. East Germany was not an improvement with its discrimination by economic class. Soviet Socialism targeting landowners/Kulaks and National Socialism targeting Jews and Gypsies were both wrong. Idi Amin went after the Asians; both a race and merchant class in Uganda.

George Wallace and Strom Thurmond recanted. Someday those who would promote hatred and discrimination based on income, wealth, or property ownership will do so also. We are making progress but it does discomfort those who were so used to their prejudices being recognized in law.

As the ownership society grows and deepens ... we are all Kulaks now.

This linkage is strikingly similar to the arguments made by the Heritage Foundation's Daniel Mitchell. Here's what I wrote about Mitchell for Spinsanity back in 2002:

In an Op-Ed in the Washington Times this week, Mitchell condemns the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case (which ruled that slaves who escaped to free states were still considered the property of their previous owners) and then attempts to connect the case with a proposed change in corporate tax policy, writing that "some U.S. companies soon may be treated in a similar manner" to slaves under Dred Scott due to a bill in Congress that would prevent U.S. corporations from re-chartering in countries with "better tax laws," such as Bermuda. "The politicians who support this are acting as if these companies belong to the government," he writes...

Last year, in an interview with the New Republic's Anand Giridharadas, Mitchell similarly compared tax evasion with the civil rights movement, saying that he could not condemn a family that "deposits their assets offshore in the face of a confiscatory tax like the death tax, any more than I would condemn Rosa Parks for sitting in the front of that bus."

I don't think this tactic is going to take off like, say, the "death tax." In particular, would any politician dare make these kinds of comparisons to an African American audience?

Comments

[David B.]

Brendan, your comments indicate that your income is in one of the lower tax brackets. If you're married and have a kid, you may even receive a net benefit from the federal government (i.e., your refund is more than you paid in taxes to the fed).

Try making more money and then talk about how the confiscation of 25%+ of your income in federal taxes alone is not a bad thing.

BTW, I don't agree with the analogy from Norquist or the HF guy. Discrimination is not necessarily bad - it just depends on who is discriminating and on what basis the discrimination is made. However, as all levels of government increase their respective taxes, economic liberty doesn't mean the same as it once did.

[Marie]

Well, if they feel so discriminated against, they know what to do, don't they? I will gladly take all their money and be discriminated in their place.
David B., nobody likes paying taxes. But seriously, between experiencing one painful moment in April every year and having to work several jobs, not being able to afford any of the nice things commercials dangle in front of your nose and not being able to pay your bills, I know what I would chose.
And what person in their right mind doesn't want the government to give back to people with families? Personally, I think it's nice that there are people out there who are willing to perpetuate the species.

[Richard Weaver]

What pro-corporate arguments like this don't like to mention is that corporations ARE governed by different laws from citizens. In exchange for limited liability ( something a citizen cannot get ) they are required to incorporate according to the laws of the State, and pay corporate taxes ( even though their stockholders will pay again for any gains or dividends ) The right wing is now trying to claim that these amount to "double taxation" and to corporations being owned by the government'.

Otherwise those who owned stock in the 1960's in tobacco companies, and received dividends, would be subject to civil action now, for amounts over and above any dividends.

If a corporation wants to re-constitute itself as a contract amongst its stockholders and workers, and of course then have all these people be liable for ages afterwards civilly and criminally, then sure, then they can have the rights of citizens.

[American Citizen]

Jack Abramoff's buddy Grover Norquist: http://havenworks.com/people/a-z/n/norquist-grover
Grover Norquist is NOT a good person, that is unless you agree with Norquist's
desire to 'drown' America's Constitutional Democracy in a bathtub. Why
do Republicans hate America?