Taxation is theft!
Now that I've gotten that out of my system — for the moment — let's talk about taxation. Taxation is like no other financial transaction save robbery, as it is not voluntary; if anyone thinks paying taxes is voluntary, I would invite them to stop paying their taxes and see how long it takes for government men with guns to come around looking for you. Taxation, some will say, is the price we pay for living in an organized society; there's a nugget of truth to that, but only a nugget. It's more apt (at least, to my thinking) to say that taxation is a necessary evil, the only purpose of which is to fund minimal, essential government functions that meet the distributed needs of the citizens — like dealing with other nations, securing our borders (yes, I know) and running the military.
In other words, protecting our liberty and our property.
It should come as a surprise to no one that Kamala Harris doesn't see things that way. She views taxation as a tool for social engineering, for the artificial forcing of winners and losers in the marketplace, for punishing the successful, and for funding every socialist pet project to come down the pike.
Kamala Harris is even worse than Joe Biden when it comes to punishing the successful.
- Harris proposed returning to a 35 percent corporate tax rate, while the FY 2025 budget would take it to 28 percent.
- Harris did not clarify if ordinary tax rates on capital gains would apply to all earners or just a subset, while the FY 2025 budget would do so only for people making $1 million or more.
- Harris supported a version of Medicare for All, financed by a proposed 4 percent tax on incomes above $100,000. Biden has avoided a Medicare for All-style proposal and taxing those earning less than $400,000 during his campaign and administration.
All of that would be economy-damaging, but here's the worst part:
Harris was silent on changes to the international tax system, while the FY 2025 budget proposes a significant overhaul. Additionally, the FY 2025 budget includes a novel minimum tax on high-wealth individuals designed to bring unrealized capital gains into the income tax system.
Let's take a look at that proposal for a moment: This is, in the first place, an unconstitutional wealth tax. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
That is somewhat vague — the second clause does not mention taxes — but this has historically meant that taxes, as well as duties and excises, must be proportionate (uniform) among the states and based on the census. In effect, if Wyoming has 3 percent of the population, the people of Wyoming will pay 3 percent of a certain tax, duty, or excise; if California has 22 percent, they pay 22 percent. The Sixteenth Amendment was necessary to get around this, to levy an income tax:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
But that's not what's worst about the idea of taxing unrealized capital gains: This is a tax on a source of income that has not yet, in effect, come in. Say you own a stock and that stock triples in value in the first year you own it; under Harris's plan, you would be required to pay taxes on the increase in the value of the stock you own, even though this is not a liquid asset. Which begs the question, what happens if, the next year, the value of that asset tanks? Would the taxpayer get a refund?
To call this, a tax on unrealized gains, a stupid idea, is to do a grave disservice to stupid ideas throughout history. But then, Kamala Harris has been the proponent of many stupid ideas.
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Here's the Tax Foundation's conclusion on Kamala Harris's stance on taxation, which is theft:
As a US senator and 2020 presidential candidate, Harris supported steeper tax hikes and more aggressive redistribution through the tax code than President Biden. At the same time, she also has a record of departing from Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge and Trump’s tariffs. Her past tax policy stances raise the question of whether, and how far, she might depart from the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
The Biden administration was catastrophic for our nation's economy. Inflation alone has drained Americans' bank accounts, while Joe Biden, like Democrats anywhere, has never seen a tax hike he wasn't in love with; fortunately, the opposition was just organized enough to keep the Biden administration from running wild.
But Kamala Harris would be far worse, should she realize even a portion of her goals. She is, to put it bluntly, a socialist. She believes one of the primary purposes of taxation is social engineering, and another is wealth distribution. She would wield taxation as a hammer to punish constituencies she abhors, like people successful in business. She is fundamentally against capitalism, which is to say, she opposes people being free to do as they please with their own resources, finances, skills, assets, and abilities.
This is just one more of the many ways in which Americans simply cannot afford a Kamala Harris presidency.
