I received in an email recently a quote from Albert Einstein:
A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it.
So what does a wise society do? It prevents problems. It seems to me that the solutions we've been attempting for our most serious problems
- poverty (education, marriage, EITC, food stamps, etc.)
- expensive housing (lower and lower down payments, increasingly relaxed lending standards, lotteries to allocate scarce affordable housing, public housing, rent controls, etc.)
- sprawl (command and control measures, more infrastructure, etc.)
- urban blight and underused land (programs of tax abatements, tax incentives for the few, etc.)
- low wages (EITC, longer hours, etc.)
- pollution (hybrid cars, higher mpg standards someday, etc.)
- demand for more fuel (biofuels, more drilling, etc.)
- funding government spending through deficit spending or through taxes that burden the economy (sales taxes, wage taxes, borrowing, taxes on buildings, etc.)
- an economy with boom and bust cycles which create havoc and heartache
aren't getting us anywhere very quickly.
What would help? Let's be wise and instigate the kinds of policies that avoid these problems. There IS a better way to tax -- one that
- would generate considerable revenue (anywhere from 40% to over 100% of the revenue now needed at all levels of government, at least in peace time);
- would not burden the economy as our current taxes do; which would smooth out the boom-bust;
- would redirect sprawl back into our central cities, where the infrastructure is already in place;
- would produce an economy where jobs are chasing workers, driving wages upward, instead of workers chasing jobs;
- where the private sector would be motivated to put the well-located land to something approaching its highest and best use -- and continue to redevelop it -- creating jobs in the process, and venues for entrepreneurs and job creation in the process, as well as housing to meet the needs of the entire economic spectrum.
Is this too much to ask of government? Is this to much to ask of tax reform? NO!
Land value taxation can deliver, on all these fronts. In fact, we're not going to make much progress on any of these fronts WITHOUT land value taxation. What's the old line,
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Guess who it is attributed to. Albert Einstein.
A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it.
Incidentally, you might be interested in what Einstein (1931) had to say about Henry George, whose name is most frequently associated with advocating Land Value Taxation:
I have already read Henry George's great book and really learnt a great deal from it. Yesterday evening I read with admiration -- the address about Moses. Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice. Every line is written as if for our generation. The spreading of these works is a really deserving cause, for our generation especially has many and important things to learn from Henry George.
The "great book" is Progress & Poverty. (You can read it online, if you like, and there is a new contemporary language abridgment.) The speech entitled Moses is available here.
And for a few others' comments on Henry George's ideas, see http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/quotable_notables.htm. A fair amount of wisdom among them!
What sort of government do we want? Wise government, which avoids problems. Work for wise government.
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