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Obama Tries a New Leadership Tactic to Divide Americans: Guilt-Tripping and Shaming

6,435 Shares By Michael Hausam 3 days ago



At one of his fundraising speeches yesterday, the President voiced a novel approach to leadership and the tax code:
I don’t care if it’s legal, it’s wrong.

(U.S. companies) are essentially renouncing their American citizenship so that they can ship their profits overseas to avoid paying taxes, even as they benefit from all the advantages of being here in America.
In other words, he is trying to manipulate corporate behavior by making a distinction between the morality of an action and the legality of it with regard to the tax code. This is a new approach and not only is it absurd, it’s a clear-cut example of how the leftist administration is knee-capping business growth in the country.
To be sure, just because something is legal doesn’t make it moral. One can think of many examples, the biggest one in our history being be slavery. But applying it to the tax code has myriad problems.

  1. The tax code by its nature is values-free. Applying an amorphous sense of morality to particular financial activities based upon how the President wants a company to behave is a completely subjective standard that makes no sense.
  2. If paying more taxes is the correct moral choice, then any deduction or exemption is by definition immoral. For example, writing off mortgage interest is in effect stealing from the country.
  3. There’s no standard of how much more puts a company or individual on moral ground. Is paying 10% extra tax correct? 20%? How can one possibly know?
  4. Compliance to the massive tax code is already expensive and complicated, subjecting business to an additional layer of requirements, without any specificity and based upon value judgements, creates uncertainty which will only hurt commerce and job growth.

Scolding companies for following the law and playing the game per current rules is tyrannical behavior. An alternative approach, one that would actually benefit all Americans — and their pocketbooks — is to reduce restrictions on commerce to unleash the powers of the marketplace.

Furthermore, federal tax receipts are at all time highs so this clearly isn’t just about the money. It’s about criticizing those he doesn’t like.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/1609...pping-shaming/