Tax Policy

An interesting article in the NY Times today got me thinking more about US tax policy and theory. The article casts the new health care bill in terms of economic inequality and argues that it is a corrective force against the rising income inequality since the 1970s. Opponents of taxation argue that government should take as little money from its citizens as possible, and that it is a matter of freedom to be able to spend one's money as one chooses. For me, the questions that arise from this position are: How much money does the government need and how free should people be to spend their money as they wish to?
How much money the government needs depends on what the government is expected to do. Everyone basically agrees that government should provide military protection and domestic services like police and fire departments, and there is a large consensus on issues like public education, transportation infrastructure, and social safety nets for the poor, elderly, and disabled. To put it another way, the government is the best source of collective security. This security applies at least formally to all races and genders equally (though unfortunately not all sexual orientations) and covers areas like risks from attack, fire, flooding, starvation, robbery, financial hardship, and now medical disasters. Yet another way to think about these areas are protecting rights of citizens to freedom of action, belief, speech, religion, education, health, and opportunity. Really only in health care do we fall behind most other advanced nation. We in the US seem to think that it is the uninsured person's fault if they get sick without insurance, when more likely their situation getting coverage was irrational or impossible. The government needs enough money to protect these basic rights. The idea that government should be smaller is probably correct, but it's hard to disagree with the need for government to provide these goods and protections for its citizens.
The issue of a right to spend the money one earns is trickier than it sounds. First, the money we earn is predicated upon a system that we have accepted (through continuing to live here) and profited from. We are protected by US laws, given the services mentioned above, and profit from the opportunities that our citizenship entails. In addition to our debt to the government for these services, we are all living in a world that is socially, historically, and culturally biased. We know that heterosexual white males have a much easier time making money and achieving positions of power in this country than any other race or gender. While it is easy and comfortable to assume that what we earn is what we have a right to, it may not be the case where we have been unjustly privileged. Do the super-rich deserve all their after-tax income? What if they benefited from discrimination and a system that gives them a better chance for success than others? Then they have a moral claim (a right) to only a portion of their actual income. This is in fact the state of affairs in this country. There will always be structural inequality, so there must always be some level of redistribution to counteract it. This is where additional taxation and governmental policies must enter in again. No other organization has the ability or legitimate claim to correct these structural problems.
The government may not be anyone's favorite institution, but it is necessary for protecting people's rights and correcting for structural inequality and discrimination. Taxation isn't popular, but it is morally justified.