Supply Side blog editor-in-chief Ralph Benko, writing in his capacity as chairman of the Capitalist League at Newsmax.com, discourses on the “secret origins” of the Second Commandment of Capitalism, Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge:
Why is the Pledge so important as to warrant inclusion as the Second Commandment of Capitalism?First, eliminating tax deductions is a sneaky way of covertly raising taxes. It allows Uncle Sam to take more money out of our pockets without raising tax rates. Taking money out of our pockets is, per Norquist, “like bank robbing,” however done. It makes us taxpayers poorer. The Second Commandment of Capitalism does not prohibit eliminating deductions if the money is used to reduce tax rates, checkmating Big Government!
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Governments’ addiction to over-tax their people goes back to before the dawn of history. In The Way of Life, written well over 2,000 years ago by Lao Tzu (translation courtesy of Poetry in Translation) says:
The people are starving.
It’s because their rulers over-tax them
That the people are starving.
To keep “we the people” from starving it is crucial, and certainly legitimate, to stop our rulers from overtaxing us.