I attempted to post this response to a blog, and ran into a technical error. But even without the post to which it was responding -- which praised the so-called FairTax -- I though it worth sharing here.
I'm still in Henry George's camp. Why tax the results of individual human effort -- stealing from the individual, or for that matter the corporation that which he/it created -- BEFORE collecting the economic value of that which the community created?
If we collect the lion's share of that economic value that we all together created, instead of letting it sit in private pockets as if the owners of those pockets actually created it and the rest of us didn't, AND the resulting revenue isn't enough to meet all of our revenue needs, well, then, I guess we might have to tax something else besides land. But I'd hate to tax the other things first, and let the land value be somebody's windfall, even if it is the windfall of 30% of us, or 40%, or even 70%. (I think most of the windfall falls into a rather narrowly held group of pockets -- say, 80% going to 10% or 20% of us -- but my point would be the same even if it were 70% of us as "winners" and 30% as "losers.")
Landholders have the power to create jobs, but nothing short of George's land value tax motivates them to go ahead and do it. And when others create jobs utilizing their landholdings, the landholders reap a portion of the benefit -- without lifting a finger. A lottery win. A windfall. A free lunch, paid for by the rest of us. Not free. A privilege for some, at the expense of others. Something like slavery.
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