Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on August 10, 2019
… is from page 293 of George Will’s 2019 book, The Conservative Sensibility:
In 1913, with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and enactment of the income tax, the foundation of the modern state – the mechanism for raising vast streams of revenue – had been put in place. The mere existence of this mechanism altered America’s political culture by quickening the itch of the political class to provide benefits to client groups who were convinced that they would be net winners from income transfers. This, in time, hastened the growth of the politics of envy, clothed in the language of “fairness.” Today, such politics is practiced by a political class offering an ever-expanding menu of popular benefits that ostensibly will be paid for by unpopular minorities (“the rich,” “corporations”).
DBx: Yes – and paid for also by a group that is such a small minority today that precisely zero of its members vote or vocally complain about the burdens they are made to bear: future generations.
“Progressive” and “national-conservative” intellectuals – whatever their intentions, and even considering the relatively minor differences that separate one from the other – are actually little more than suppliers of shabby rationales both for people who want to live at least partly at the expense of others, and for people who want to make careers out of enabling people to live at least partly at the expense of others.
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