Morgan Liddick: Taxes increased, so what happened to the service?

Alexander Hamilton said it best. Before there was a Constitution, when the United States only existed when “in Congress Assembled” under the government of the Articles of Confederation, he made an important observation about taxes.

On the eve of the Annapolis convention of 1786, Hamilton argued vociferously for a national taxing power. “A Government without revenue,” he correctly observed, “cannot subsist.”

Hamilton and his compatriots had real doubts about the ability of the Articles government to fulfill its obligations — doubts related to the government’s incapacity to raise revenue.
Both the Articles government and many states had used borrowing and fiat money to finance themselves; by 1786, these had brought about a deep economic depression which spurred Americans to embrace the profound changes a Federal Constitution represented. Experience was the basis for Hamilton’s comment that governments must pay for the programs they propose. It is also why taxing power is explicit in our Constitution.

Were he alive today, Alexander Hamilton might be considered an advocate of “big government.” Many anti-Federalists called him that and worse as they argued against his plans, and those of John Jay, James Madison, Gouverneur Morris and others, to form a “more perfect Union.”

Their concerns were misplaced, as Hamilton’s second remark showed. “Government implies a trust,” he wrote in a petition to the legislature of New York, then contemplating participation in the Constitutional Convention, “and government must be trusted so far as is necessary to enable it to attain the ends for which it is instituted.” But there’s the rub, for Hamilton as for ourselves.

What are the ends of government? City or county, state or national, why does it exist? Is its purpose to provide security and good infrastructure? A rational framework of laws, to which all are subject? The broadest scope for individual liberty compatible with public safety? This is clearly the sort of national government the founders envisioned. They were quieter on the purposes of state and local government, but given their varied backgrounds we can assume they accepted a multiplicity of ends — all assuming the Hamiltonian principles of popular trust and sound finance.

Many of the same questions about the ends and means of governments confront us today. Some want government to have a much larger role in our lives: to arbitrate who will succeed, and who will not; to control both public and private sectors in the name of often-conflicting “goods;” to decide who is worthy of opportunity and succor, and who not; to transfer wealth from those who are hardworking, foresighted, forbearing and lucky to those who are none of these; and more. Sometimes, such demands are made openly; often, they are obscured by the coded language of “fairness,” or “equality,” or newer Shibboleths.

We now find ourselves at a crossroads which the founders, particularly Hamilton and Madison, foresaw and feared. They were particularly concerned that “faction” — their word for political parties — would one day exploit people’s envy and greed to seize the machinery of government. They correctly saw this as the first step to ruin.

These men were shrewd students of human nature. Modern politicians’ penchant for office-seeking through promises of government largess to favored classes of supporters is proof that their concerns were well-justified. That these benefits are provided through the use of borrowed money only magnifies the concern; this was the approach of the Articles government, a government so utterly unequal to its task that it had to be done away with by its first citizens.

Lest you think this is merely philosophy, or that these issues are limited to some far-away problem of financing war or welfare, or a choice between funneling extractive industry taxes to individual scholars or public roads, consider this: a glance at our county’s budget shows we are not immune. This year, the Administrative portion of the budget rose by 4 percent. “Human Services,” including support for seniors and “youth and family” also grew considerably. But expenditures for public safety rose by less than one-tenth of 1 percent, and the Sheriff’s Department saw more than a 4 percent reduction. Is this prudent, considering what we have seen recently about crime in our county, including in the pages of this newspaper?

Maybe you think it is. Maybe not. Maybe, as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton feared, it depends on whether you are a beneficiary of the government’s largesse.

But is trusting government to achieve its ends only when those ends involve transferring money from others into one’s own pocket a good thing? Is avoiding discussion of taxation because one does not want an examination of the uses of government revenue prudent? The Founders would be appalled at such reticence.

How about you?

<i>Summit County resident Morgan Liddick pens a Tuesday column. E-mail him at mcliddick@hotmail.com. Also, comment on this column at www.summitdaily.com.<;/i>