Today in the Kansas City Star…

SHRINKING GOVERNMENT

Robin Hood revolt comes to Kansas

Greetings from Sherwood Forest.

I’ll be camping out here to assure myself of a front-row seat when the action begins. It would be great to see Kevin Costner gallop by in tights, but I’ll probably have to settle for Kansas politicians — not in tights, hopefully.

The action I’m anticipating is a taxpayers’ revolt. Kansas legislator Brenda Landwehr says her state needs one, and she seems pretty determined to make it happen.

“The classic struggle of the people against the political class is found throughout history and folklore,” Landwehr, of Wichita, notes on her Web site.

While we enjoy the Kevin Costner shout-out and politicians-in-tights imagery, further reading makes us wince (and not because our tights are too small):

…But when small government is the overarching value, you deny citizens — through their elected officials — the opportunity to assert any other values.

A state can’t mount a campaign for a healthier population, for instance, if its revenues are steadily constricting. The people can’t collectively decide to make schools and universities a source of excellence without clearing the high bar of a statewide vote to increase taxes. Elected leaders can’t be visionaries; they can only manage scarce resources.

Another thing: Small government is expensive. Families must pay more out of pocket for college tuition. Vehicles driven on bad roads need extra repairs. Missed childhood immunizations result in expensive medical bills later.

So small government infringes on liberty? That would mean Big Government enhances freedom…like in North Korea.  Yeah, the people there do seem particularly free, allowed to assert their values and live an autonomous life.

Let’s get serious: In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson set out certain "self-evident truths," the foundations of freedom: "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

What that means, quite simply, is that we're all born free to pursue happiness as we wish, by our own initiative, provided we respect the equal rights of others to do the same. In short, America's basic moral principle is "Live, and let live." This American Leviathan has evolved to incorporate limited laws that allow for freedom in an organized society. 

But excessive tax and regulation undermine this liberty and restrict personal and societal growth.  What is needed: simplicity.

Tax policy need not be rocket science: When you tax something, you get less of it. When you tax the formation of capital and revenue, you get less capital and revenue. When you decrease taxes, you get more wealth and revenue. Simple is as simple does.

So this business about small government being “more expensive” is sheer lunacy.  Everyone knows the government is not the most reliable agent of efficiency and that individuals know how to spend their money better than the bureaucrat in the back room.

Given these age-old axioms, a Taxpayers Bill of Rights is just what Robin Hood himself would have endorsed (had he taken a second to stop frilling around in the treetops).

For instance, in Kansas, Johnson County’s spending increased an incredible 13.2 % this year and approximately 81 % since 1997 -- far exceeding the inflation rate and population growth to which a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights would limit spending increases.

If a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights had been in effect in 1997, Johnson County government would have spent $344 million fewer taxpayer dollars over the past years. That's a lot of money that the taxpayers could be putting to much better use creating jobs and providing for their families. The hard-working taxpayers of Johnson County and the rest of Kansas (not to the mention the rest of the nation) deserve a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

Let us conclude with this:

"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censored, checked, valued, enrolled, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so."

—Pierre-Joseph Proudhon