Sunday, January 9, 2011

International Students For Liberty Keynote McArdle Supports Near Doubling of Illinois Income Tax

The idea that International Students For Liberty 2011 keynote speaker Megan McArdle can be viewed as a libertarian in any sense of the word appears even more of an absurdity today than it did even yesterday, as she writes more on her view of the world.

Although some continued to defend McArdle after her outburst against Ron Paul (See the comments section of the post), McArdle is making  it increasingly difficult for the ISL crowd to defend her. The latest anti-libertarian words to come from McArdle's pen are words of support for a near doubling of the Illinois income tax:

The state of Illinois is allegedly close to a deal to nearly double its income tax, from 3% to 5.25%...

The income tax increases, on the other hand, are both workable and necessary. Conservatives will holler, but Illinois is not going to eliminate its entire deficit by cutting spending; the cuts needed too deep, the citizenry dependent on the services. Whether or not you think these programs should exist, they do now, and you can't simply throw people off who planned their lives around them.

It should also be noted that she is against an online sales tax in Illinois, but not on principle, only on the technical grounds that it is unworkable:
 In a separate action, it's also passed a law allowing it to collect sales tax from any online vendor (read: Amazon) with affiliates in the state.

The latter law doesn't make much sense to me. It is a cause near and dear to the hearts of state legislators everywhere, but so far the only effect has been to embroil states in endless litigation, while causing Amazon (and for all I know, other online retailers) to cut off its affiliates in the states that have tried it. The affiliate businesses are making a lot of noise about all the jobs that will be lost, but this is highly exaggerated; almost definitionally, businesses that make the bulk of their revenue off of Amazon referrals, don't employ that many people. But if it won't cost many jobs, it's hard to see how it raises revenue, either; Amazon will terminate its Illinois affiliates, causing the bigger businesses to move across the border to another state, while the smaller businesses simply lose taxable revenue.

No one has yet advised me who recommended McArdle as a speaker at the heavily Kochanack packed speakers list, or why she was picked, as of all things, the closing keynote at a libertarian event.

Bottom line: It looks like the ISL gang has some more shoveling to do to explain this latest McArdle view.

10 comments:

  1. Taxation is theft!

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  2. Bob, they won't try to explain it. They will, as usual, criticize you for pointing it out, instead of addressing the substance of your complaint.

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  3. I've always viewed her as a member of the RWSD wing of the libertarian movement (Republicans who smoke dope).

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  4. If she's a "libertarian", what does that make me?

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  5. If people were directly taxed to pay for the spending(which would be the case if constitutional money were being used)then libertarianism's case would be much easier to make.

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  6. "you can't simply throw people off who planned their lives around them."

    Is she speaking of the recipients of the stolen goods or the tax feeders who administrate the programs? And what of those who had made plans based on the tax rate being 3%?

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  7. Wonder why she doesn't apply the same logic to online vendors that she applies to the Welfare-State's programs? Do you think maybe because it would lead to this? Restated it would read: Whether or not you think Amazon should pay state sales taxes, they do not now, and you can't simply throw off people who have planned their lives around them.

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  8. Megan McArdle is about as libertarian as Karl Marx's left foot.

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  9. People should pay more tribute to the mob enforcers collecting money for "protection" as too many story owners have built the security of their stores around the presence of said mob enforcers.
    If those mob enforcers don't have enough funds to buy weapons, their service quality will decrease. And what will everybody do if those mob enforcers disappear altogether?
    Why, they'd be unprotected against hoodlums and will be ROBBED by thugs.

    Now, some people might say that the mob enforcers themselves are immoral and should never have been there in the first place, but what's done is done and they are there, so people should be forced to pay more tribute to them.

    Oh, and Megan McArdie is a libertarian no matter what you say. She says so herself and the International Students for Liberty agree, so it must be true.

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  10. LINO doesn't really have as much of a ring to it as RINO, but why not use it anyway?

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