[IMC-Editorial] Letter on California's Deficit and Budget Crisis

[The Ayn Rand Institute]

Dear Editor:

The California legislature's "solution" to the state budget crisis reeks with 
evasiveness and self-contradiction. Pretending that they were not raising taxes, the 
Assembly in fact raised automobile taxes around $5 billion. Pretending to leave local 
governments' tax revenues untouched, the Assembly in fact pilfered $2.5 billion (to be 
made up, supposedly, with unspecified future spending cuts). Worst of all, while 
pretending to solve the budget crisis, the Assembly in fact borrowed its way out of it, 
leaving an eight billion dollar deficit to deal with next fiscal year.

The reason for all this sleight-of-hand is that the state budget is an attempt to evade 
the existence of a contradiction, a contradiction neither Republicans nor Democrats have 
the moral courage to acknowledge.  

On the one hand, there is the premise of the welfare state, which demands that the 
government act as a socialist re-distributor of wealth, taxing the "haves" in order to 
dole out freebies to the "have-nots." On this premise if someone has a need he cannot 
meet, the state must provide for it.

On the other hand, there is the original American premise of property rights, which 
assumes that no one--"not god nor society"--may deprive a man of the fruits of his 
labor. This premise is at least partly recognized in our hostility to new taxes. The 
contradiction between these two premises creates a public that demands ever more social 
spending, but rejects any attempt to raise their taxes.

By refusing to address this contradiction, and instead putting bandages over its 
effects, California's Assembly has merely prolonged the crisis and worsened the disaster 
that will occur when we can no longer put off the decision between respecting the 
individual's right to keep the results of his labor, and considering it the property of 
society, to be redistributed at the whim of lawmakers.

Robert Garmong

Sincerely,

Robert Garmong
Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway, #250
Irvine, CA  92606
United States
949-222-6550

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