What’s Yours Isn’t Yours

The Green Party recently highlighted a confrontation between Neil Cavuto of Fox News and Lisa Wells:

The video is important because I think it highlights an important point of this brand of liberalism. I don’t think either one of them did any credit to their viewpoint. I don’t think it’s hateful to want to level the playing field. Lisa Wells talks about how much of the middle/lower class’ pay is taken up in taxes vs how much for the upper class.

But she seems to me to be making a very clear implication that the money is not to be considered a possession. There *is* a clear and growing rift between the richest and even the middle class. That’s a fair point that Greens and other liberals espouse. But I always find it dangerous when that stance is used to create statements like, “the rich can afford it.” I don’t think The Constitution can be said to endorse the idea that, simply because one group says another has too much, that’s authorization to take it away. The only way that argument can carry any weight is to deny some pretty fundamental rights about private property that I believe are very clearly delineated in The Constitution.

Neil, for his part, goes way too far in trying to characterize Lisa Wells has having kind of hatred or prejudice against the rich. Lisa doesn’t have to want to “get back at” the rich in order to want a more fair tax system. It’s fair, I think, to point out that some of the same tax policies that have driven economic progress have also been abused into loopholes that create a rift in the relative tax burden among the various economic classes. how to fix that rift is a debate worth having. Do I oppose progressive taxes? Yes. But I’m willing to discuss it without accusing liberals of hating or wanting to hurt some class.