Libertarians on Sales Tax

I am involved in a group that advocates the elimination of an income tax to be replaced by a sales tax and recently they have gotten frustrated with the lack of support they have received from libertarians, and the Mises Institute in particular. Many libertarians are puritans when it comes to their approach to government and this is definitely the case when it comes to Mises.

I pointed out that terms like "realistic" and "Mises Institute" simply don't belong together. In the 1980s I was with the National Center for Public Policy Research, in the 90s I was the Executive Director of the Free Enterprise Institute, a Senior Fellow with the American Economic Foundation, and listed in the Heritage Foundation's Guide to Public Policy Experts. I dealt with the Mises Institute on several issues and found it very difficult to get any of them to be interested in any pragmatic approaches to solving our problems. I knew they were libertarians, but these people are real libertarians.

I believe they see their purpose is to set a philosophical benchmark of the right way of approaching government and a free society. They would argue that the bigger problem is spending and would be right. But we would also be right in saying that no one is going to want to eliminate income taxes without something to replace it. The policy will be changed in the real world and that world requires trade offs. Many strong libertarians have gotten very enthusiastic about sales taxes because it taxes consumption rather than investment and it gets government out of the social engineering business when it comes to taxes. Hopefully our friends at Mises will agree to wage this battle in a way where we can win. A sales tax instead of a tax on prosperity would be a huge victory on the side of liberty.

I'm glad there are people who think like those at Mises. I just wish they would be more willing to do what is necessary to move many of their sound principles into the public arena.