Taxation and Income Redistribution: An Unsympathetic Critique of Practice and Theory

The United States has become to a considerable extent a redistrib- utive society. The taxing power of the state continues to be used to transfer massive amounts of purchasing power from those who earn their keep to those relatively few who are truly in need and to those relatively many who are skillful in finding ways to remain on the receiving end of government handouts. Many people now believe, and act as if, everyone can live at the expense of everyone else. As government welfare programs have expanded—or perhaps because of the expansion in those programs —democracy has been converted to a great extent into a competi- tive struggle over slices of the governmental welfare pie. The numerous groups who have an interest in the maintenance and ex- pansion of the welfare system must now scramble for money in the political arena, fearful that their budgets will be allotted to some- one else more skillful in securing political favors.