Most people, if candid, would admit that a 100 percent tax rate would be akin to slavery by definition. What about a 90 percent tax rate? How about a 75 percent tax rate? Would that mean that the taxpayer is under a state of 75 percent slavery? The analogy is not perfect. (Slavery, after all was supported by a vast array of laws and government policies, including fugitive slave laws, slave-harboring laws, etc.)
The noted economist John C. Goodman is out with a critique of leftist Paul Krugman’s desired tax policy. Like most trusters of expansive intrusive government, Krugman proposes high taxes on the rich, as much as 75 to 95 percent.
As Goodman writes:
So why doesn’t Krugman want to admit that, by his own criteria, LeBron [James] would be taxed to the hilt? I was perplexed.
Then I realized something that I’m sure every basketball fan already knows. LeBron James is black. What Paul Krugman wants to do to James today uncomfortably resembles what slave owners did to his ancestors more than a century and a half ago.
[W]hen it comes to confiscating the product of someone else’s labor, the parallel is unmistakable.
