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Do Higher Taxes Make Us Happier?
- An Article from Maket Watch makes this somewhat outrageous claim. They base their assertion on a study which finds that countries with high taxes and a huge social safety net are generally happier. Let’s not forget that correlation does not imply causation. In other words, if everything else was equal, except the tax rates, when comparing the happiness of these countries, then you could make that claim. However, there are MANY other factors involved. What this article fails to mention is the amount of freedom taken away from us in the process of applying higher taxes and providing “free” social services.
- We receive less income which constrains our purchasing power. Not being able to buy everything I want makes me happy!
- We have no choice of doctors or medicines to take due to mandates and rationing of healthcare. Rationing makes me happy!
- The government takes the rights away from others to provide for your “government-given” rights, which if coercion is in the definition of this “right,” it’s not a right at all.
- Where is the happiness when over 10% of the population can do nothing all day because of outrageous unemployment benefits when you have to work 40 hours a week. Paying for someone’s unemployment makes me happy!
- The article says we have to worry about paying for more things because they aren’t provided to us in America. But is it not the desire to relieve ourselves from worrying that pushes us to success? Where is the incentive to advance?
- Sure, these countries could be experiencing relative happiness now, but what happens when market distortions creates market booms and the country becomes destabilized, prices soar due to too much government spending, and GDP begins to decline. These welfare-states did not survive in the 1960s or 70s, and economists cannot expect them to succeed for future generations.
- De Tocqeville warned of a loss of freedom when the government promised to provide happiness. Fascism, Socialism, and Communism promises these things.
- We are a nation ruled by laws, not ruled by men and I would rather be poor and have the freedom to do as I pleased than be forced into allegiance to the state in return for government services that supposedly make everyone happy.
Libertarians Arrested in Mississippi
African-American Family only buying from black-owned businesses
- What if this story were about a white couple?
Obama says Debt is Unsustainable
- Ya think?
Dead People Get Stimulus Checks
- Waste?
- I don’t want a girl! Just Abort it until I get a boy! (And until we achieve a master race.)
- CATO’s Michael F. Cannon explains how getting rid of employer provided insurance, decreasing third party payers, and making consumers care about healthcare costs will bring competition and reduce the cost of healthcare for everyone. In an earlier article, he explains that we have no right to healthcare.
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