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The Many Ways in Which Freedom Won the Election.

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It is usually hard for many people to find any silver lining around the results of any election headlined by a contest between two presidential candidates who are usually indistinguishable from each other in their hostility to liberty and markets. Indeed, big government was on the ballot and big government won big. However, if you look beyond the presidential horse race,we can find a few reasons for good cheer.

For one thing, I enjoyed watching voters deliver a solid slap in the face to the peddlers of wokeness and hardcore progressivism – that is, to much of today’s Democratic agenda. It was delivered while getting rid of President Trump, which for many is a benefit. I have to admit that I didn’t see those two outcomes coming simultaneously. AIER’s Phil Magness puts it best:

“A complete moron with historically high unpopularity ratings basically fought this election to a draw (or near-draw depending on whatever happens in the counts), and did so facing the most aggressively one-sided media coverage skew against a major party candidate in US electoral history…. The ‘blue wave’ that was touted as a near-certainty by the same media and pollsters less than 24 hours ago didn’t materialize. … Whoever emerges victorious will do so without an electoral mandate, with a divided congress, and with nearly half of the country openly skeptical about the legitimacy of their win.”

Divided government is probably the best thing that could have happened to us this week, especially compared to the alternative of a unified Democratic government. This division, if it materialized, doesn’t mean that no big government policies will get through. Divided government during the Obama presidency resulted in several shameless Paul Ryan/Patty Murray budget deals.

Also, most people welcome bipartisanship but in reality, it is often synonymous with big government policies. So it will be this time around too as I predict the bipartisan enactment of many bad policies. Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already signaled that yet another gargantuan Covid relief bill will get through, in spite of the improved economic conditions. Adding insult to injury, it will contain idiotic provisions such as bailouts for state governments.

Still, we can take comfort in the realization that court packing, the Green New Deal, and other radically statist items on the Biden-Harris-Sanders agenda are, at least for now, off the table. Indeed, we should also celebrate the fact that there is now unlikely to be – at least not through the legislative process – a repeal of Trump’s corporate tax cut. Democrats are now quite unhappy at this unexpected failure of their dreams to materialize.

But the very best news came from the down ballots. Here are a few things deserving loud cheers.

First, in 2020 the war on drugs was finally won – by drugs. Reason’s Jacob Sullum explains here why that is. But I like how CEI’s Ryan Young sums it up: “Oregon decriminalized possession of hard drugs. Five other states legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, including socially conservative Mississippi. Oregon and the District of Columbia also decriminalized hallucinogenic mushrooms. These are important libertarian victories, and not in the snickering libertine sense. These are victories for the rule of law.”

Second, Illinois voters said no by a 55-45 percent margin to a progressive income-tax scheme. The so-called “Fair Tax Amendment” would have amended the state constitution to replace the flat income tax with a progressive one.

Third, California’s progressives and big-government lovers got kicked in the butt quite forcefully. Proposition 22 passed, thus defeating an effort to reclassify independent contractors who work for platform-economy companies as full-time employees. Rather than overturn the whole provision, platform companies promised to come up with a compromise. Kevin Williamson at National Review explains that

“The new arrangement will keep ride-share drivers as independent contractors but give them wage guarantees for time spent in the car and make them eligible for health-care subsidies.” This compromise is still a big defeat for California’s progressives who believe that the government should be in charge of every single aspect of our lives, including our freedom to work and contract.

Then there’s the defeat of Proposition 16. The epitome of wokeness, this initiative would have reintroduced overt discrimination into government and public institutions by allowing “preferential treatment to persons on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, and public contracting.”

Over at the Grumpy Economist Blog, John Cochrane lists more of the initiatives that were defeated or passed that should please libertarian types. Here are some:

“Prop. 15: Raise property taxes on business. Loses. Prop. 17: Parolees may vote. Wins. Prop. 18: 17 year olds may vote. Loses. Prop. 19: Property tax reduction. Wins. Note, it allows people who have multi-million dollar houses to keep the low property tax base when they move, and pass it on to heirs. So much for “tax the rich.” Prop. 20: Complicated. Stricter parole, crime classification. Loses. Prop. 21: Allows cities to impose rent control. Loses dramatically. (Per Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck, “…rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”) Prop. 23: Requires onsite physician at kidney dialysis centers. (Pushed by SEIU union.) Loses. Prop. 25: Eliminate cash bail. Loses.”

Will progressives in California learn any lessons from these results? Probably not immediately.The media and the elites learned nothing from the 2016 election. But for now, some pretty awful policies were defeated.

To end on a hopeful note, I will say this: May the utter disaster and election mismanagement unfolding before our eyes in many states right now lead a few people to wonder why on earth they should believe that a government that can’t do something as basic as running an election should possibly be in charge of the rest of our lives.

Veronique de Rugy is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

When The Government Takes A Dollar From Your Pocket And Spends It, It Doesn’t Mean The Economy Grows By A Dollar.

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When revenue shrinks by 1 percent of GDP and spending increases by 51 percent over 10 months, you get a $2.8 trillion deficit. That figure, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is significantly larger than the deficit Uncle Sam accumulated over the first 10 months of 2019. Yet, many in Congress demand that even more spending be enacted in the name of stimulating the economy.

More spending means more debt and more future taxes. That much we know. What we also know is that the calls for sustained spending—in the form of unemployment checks, individual stimulus checks, small-business grants, and payroll tax cuts—which are made regularly in newspapers, political speeches, and partisan punditry, are overblown to stay the least. The idea here is that if Uncle Sam continues paying people to stay home, their consumption will continue, and the economy will grow.

These calls are based explicitly or implicitly on the belief in an all-powerful federal spending multiplier, or the idea that if the government spends one dollar, the economy will grow by more than a dollar.

In Economics, What Matters Is The Level Of Production. Everything Else Is Secondary.

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Economics is truly a 3rd grade subject, and it would be more broadly viewed as a 3rd grade subject if people broke it down to the individual. Looked at through the prism of the individual, the easy answer for economic growth is always to remove or reduce the tax, regulatory, monetary and tariff barriers that invariably harm individuals.

No doubt there are groups of people who might benefit from taxes, regulations, currency devaluations and import taxes (tariffs) foisted on others, and no doubt there are countless individuals who thrive economically despite heavy taxes, regulations, devalued money and tariffs, but no individual benefits economically if more of his work is penalized, more of his time at work is spent complying with regulations, if the money earned at work is routinely being devalued by the government issuer, and if the imports he truly desires come with a tax.

Broken down to the individual we also know that our capacity to buy what we want is a consequence of our capacity to produce. Who knows when we figure it out, but it doesn’t take a high school, college or post-grad education to alert people to the direct correlation between production and demand. We buy things after we produce, so if we want to have life’s finer things, we must produce.

That’s why it’s always so comical to read about economists obsessing over “demand.” It seems economists know the 3rd grade subject that is economics the least well, and this is probably true because they sought higher education to learn what is so basic.

Why would anyone of sound mind focus on demand when the latter is always and everywhere what’s expressed after supply? There’s no getting around this truth. Underlying all demand for goods and services is production of goods and services, at which point the path to rising demand is a reduction of the barriers that limit supply. Nothing could be simpler.

What about money? Money is just the agreement about value among producers that facilitates the exchange of products for products. Long before state-minted money, producers sought a way to exchange with other producers, and “money” was created by those producers as a common language of sorts enabling exchange. If everyone agreed a seashell, a cigarette or 1/35th of a gold ounce had a market value, then these forms of money would facilitate exchange of products among producers with disparate wants: I have bread and I desperately want to exchange it for your wine, but you only want the butcher’s meat. Money makes it possible for me to get your wine at which point you’ll take my money and buy the butcher’s meat.

Which brings us to debt. Look around the internet in search of financial and economic commentary. If you do, you’ll invariably find all manner of alarmist commentary about “soaring debt,” “debt bubbles” whatever that could mean, and one seen by yours truly the other day about how “The World Is Drowning In Debt.” Such a view misses the basic truth that with all things financial, underlying them is an exchange of products.

With debt, there’s merely an exchange of existing production for future production. Getting right to the point, the world is drowning in debt because it’s “drowning” in production. People borrow money not to look at it, but because it can be exchanged for real products and services. If debt is soaring, then so by definition is production.

Soaring debt isn’t a flashing red sign of economic carnage as much as it’s the logical result of the exact opposite. When individuals are producing more, there’s logically quite a bit more to borrow.

Crucial here is that borrowing is similarly an exchange of products. In the present the lender has money exchangeable for goods and services, and the lender is willing to pass up accessing those goods and services now in order to get more goods and services in the future; the difference being the cost of borrowing tacked onto the loan (rate of interest) that the lender adds on. Of course the lender doesn’t want to get less in the future, which means the lender seeks a producer seen as a good when it comes to paying the monies borrowed back. Lenders aren’t predators on the weak as financial journalists naively assert, and they aren’t because they once again want to get more goods and services in the future then they’re transferring to the borrower in the here and now. Borrowers are seen as good to pay back their debt precisely because the work they do is seen as worthy of generating the income that will pay the monies borrowed back.

But wait, some will say, governments borrow excessively. Yes they do, and they’re able to do so because their borrowing is backed by the productive people they’re empowered to tax. Governments produce nothing. That’s why it’s so comical when economists claim government borrowing and spending stimulates economic growth. Economists remind us how silly it is to seek a credential in something so 3rd grade. Governments can stimulate nothing. The debt they run up is a consequence of economic growth, not a driver of it. The more that the citizens they tax are producing goods and services exchangeable for goods and services, the more that governments can tax their production. Governments don’t stimulate growth as much as they tax and borrow it, only to mis-allocate it.

Which brings us back to the individual. Individuals produce, and often times those producers delay the consumption of their production with an eye on transferring it to others. This is where debt comes in. It’s a happy result of soaring production, and expected future production that creates willingness on the part of the producer to delay consumption. In short, debt is a consequence of savings, which never harm the individual, and by definition never harm the economy. The alarmists all around us can relax.

 

 

John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, Director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks.

What Exactly Is Political Economy? It’s Nothing But Three Big Myths (Busted Here).

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Myths abound. This reality is unsurprising given that the number of ways to be wrong is immensely larger than the number of ways to be right. And because of the enormous complexity and dynamism of society and the economy, myths about society and the economy are especially abundant.

Most economic myths are (relatively) small. Trade deficits are evidence of domestic economic failure or of foreign government cheating – minimum-wage legislation is a boon for low-paid workers – government debt owed to ourselves isn’t a problem even if the size of this debt is massive – active supervision by antitrust authorities is necessary to keep the economy competitive – more immigration lowers the standard of living for many native-born workers – middle-class Americans have stagnated economically for more than 40 years – sound money can be supplied only by the state – economic growth depletes resources: these and a practically uncountable number of other such myths are, and for many years have been, current.

Although such myths will never be completely slain, their baneful impacts can be reduced by sound and unrelenting economic education and public commentary. (To this end, AIER is doing more than its share.) But even more destructive than are these (relatively) small myths are three Big Myths – foundational misconceptions of the nature of social and economic reality.

Big Myth #1

The most pernicious of all Big Myths is that the economy and society – or, at least, any economy that is productive, and any society that is good – are the conscious creation of the state. Classical-liberal scholars have fought for centuries against this social-creationist myth. In the 18th century Adam Smith celebrated the market’s invisible hand and warned against the “man of system” who arrogantly fancies that he (or she) can rearrange flesh-and-blood people in society as a chess player rearranges inert pawns and princes on a chess board.

In the 19th century Herbert Spencer observed that nearly all legislative schemes for uplifting society are doomed to fail because “[t]hey have their root in the error that society is a manufacture; whereas it is a growth.” In the 20th century F.A. Hayek repeatedly insisted on the vital importance of recognizing that while modern society and the economy are indeed the results of human action, they are not – and cannot possibly be – the results of human design.

In the 21st century this essential truth is emphasized and explained eloquently by a host of brilliant scholars, including, for example, Steve Davies, Richard Epstein, Deirdre McCloskey, Tom Palmer, Matt Ridley, and Mario Rizzo.

Yet this Big Myth seems only to spread and strengthen. Listening to politicians, and reading everything from popular punditry to much seemingly deep scholarship, makes clear that large numbers of people – I dare say most – conceive of social order, economic growth, and widespread prosperity as being unobtainable unless engineered into existence by the state.

Big Myth #2

An implication of this Big Myth is another Big Myth – namely, because all that is good in our social and economic relations is made possible by the state, each of us is deeply and forever in debt to the state. The state, dogmatically believed to be a secular creator, is therefore supposed to be owed by each of us everlasting thanks and offerings. (Oh, and owed also praise: singing the national anthem is not far removed from singing “Praise to the Lord” and other Christian hymns that I sang as a boy attending Catholic mass.)

“You didn’t build that!” was Barack Obama’s way of scolding everyone who denies that the state owns an open-ended claim on Americans’ incomes. According to this Big Myth, to complain about paying taxes – and, worse, to actively oppose tax increases – is selfishly to resist giving to the secular creator what is owed to it by each of us puny beneficiaries of the state’s beneficence, magnificence, and grace.

Big Myth #3

A third Big Myth is that government carries out the will of the people as long as its top officials are chosen by majority rule. At root, this naïve faith in majoritarian democracy is mistaken because there is, in fact, no will of the people. “The people” is not a sentient creature with a mind and preferences and fears and hopes. “The people” includes, of course, sentient individuals each with his or her own mind and preferences and fears and hopes. But this reality of each member of the group does not transform the group into a giant individual equivalent in all but size to each of the flesh-and-blood men, women, and children who comprise the group.

This ‘non-sentience’ of a group of individuals does not mean that two or more – or even millions of – individuals cannot agree upon goals to pursue collectively. Should we or should we not pool some of our resources to build a highway? Should we or should we not organize to provide community policing or national defense? And some form of democratic decision-making is the best means available for registering the preferences of each individual in a way that results in an acceptable collective decision.

But this reality does not mean that the results of the democratic decision-making process reveal that “the people” have a will that is in any way similar to the will that is possessed and exercised by each individual. All that even the best collective decision-making process does is to discover a compromise outcome that is acceptable to each member of the group.

Anthropomorphizing any group of individuals, and supposing that the results of majority rule express the will of this collective creature, creates the false and dangerous impression that if any individual objects to a majority-rule outcome, this individual is attempting to elevate his paltry self over a will not only as real as his own but also greater because it is that of many individuals. But, again, “the People” is not a being with a mind or a will. It follows that no method of collective decision-making, not even the most ideal form of democracy, reveals the People’s will. That which is unreal cannot be revealed.

Big Myths Be Gone!

If society would be rid of these three Big Myths, legitimate disagreement would still reign over the size and scope of government. Compromise for collective decisions would still be necessary, and democratic decision-making would remain the best means of achieving this compromise. But the risk of tyranny would be much reduced from what it is now because no one would anthropomorphize collections of people or deify the state.

Donald J. Boudreaux is a senior fellow with American Institute for Economic Research and with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

The Democratic Presidential Candidates Have Abandoned The Idea Of Economic Growth, The Essence Of America.

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During a recent visit to Toledo, Ohio, to speak at a local school, I saw remarkable signs of an improving economy in this Rust Belt city. My taxi driver from the airport boasted that he could leave his position tomorrow and have his pick of other jobs. The hometown law students with whom I lunched had renewed confidence that they could remain in the area because business was better than at any time in the last two decades. I stayed at a hotel that had opened just weeks earlier, and another, across the street, was scheduled to open this fall.

Toledo’s recovering prosperity is emphatically not a story of the rich getting richer. A driver for hire does not make more than the median income, and the law students were young men graduating from a regional school, not highflyers on their way to Wall Street firms. Nor were the benefits of economic growth merely economic: I could hear in the driver’s voice the sense of autonomy and self-worth that comes from knowing that you can quit today and be employed tomorrow. The law students enjoyed having the choice of staying near friends and family. To be sure, Toledo is still relatively economically distressed, but it’s striking that the dynamism of America’s economic recovery is being felt even here.

Being in Toledo reminded me of something that Robert Lucas, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, said: “Once you start thinking about economic growth, it is hard to think of anything else.” Economic growth compounds, potentially doubling or tripling incomes over a lifetime. Growth also enables nonmaterial opportunities, from changing jobs to sending one’s children to better schools.

It’s distressing, then, that Democrats have given up on economic growth as a central concern. Bill Clinton ran for president on a platform of economic renewal. “It’s the economy, stupid” was a signal that his policies would aim at promoting growth. And his mantra of rewarding people who played by the rules was a nod to the culture of personal responsibility that undergirds growth.

The recent presidential debates reflect a complete reorientation of the Democratic Party—away from growth. Elizabeth Warren was the only candidate to tout a proposal for increasing economic growth—breaking up big companies, particularly tech companies. That idea certainly doesn’t enjoy consensus support from economists, and few see it as a significant spur to growth, in any case; large tech companies have been responsible for much of the increase in GDP over the last decade. They have also provided services—like the ability to search on Google—whose value cannot be captured by conventional growth measures, because they’re free. A few candidates, like Pete Buttigieg, talk about building infrastructure, which could be growth-enhancing. And a third-tier candidate, John Delaney, argued for free trade, a certain promoter of growth.

But the Democratic field’s overwhelming focus has been asset redistribution—providing free health care to all, forgiving student debt, or giving every adult an annual stipend of $12,000. It’s hard to see how these policies could promote growth. They move America toward the welfare states of continental Europe that have economically underperformed the U.S. for decades—and this difference in performance is understated because other nations ride cost-free on our innovations in technology and medicine.

Leading candidates like Warren and Kamala Harris have even suggested that they’re open to packing the Supreme Court. Buttigieg has a detailed plan to change its membership. These are attacks on the rule of law, crucial to economic growth. Confidence in settled rules affecting property and contract give people the confidence to invest and take risks. While it might seem that our modern Court is largely focused on civil rights, economic issues remain salient. Labor and administrative law are contentious matters that bear on economic production, and the takings and contract clauses remain litigated constitutional provisions. An enlarged Court, with justices dedicated to a progressive, rather than a constitutionalist, agenda could undermine the legal basis for American prosperity.

Coastal elites will fare just fine, no matter who is president. In fact, heavier regulation, like that contemplated by the Green New Deal, will help the cognitive elite by requiring companies to hire them to navigate the obstacle course of swelling government. But the loss of focus on economic growth will be disastrous for the American middle, like my new acquaintances in Toledo.

John O. McGinnis is a contributing editor of City Journal and the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University. 

The Internet Sales Tax Spells Danger for Small Business Owners

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The American entrepreneur is overburdened more so than at any other point in our history. Before even one cent can be earned, an individual with a great idea has to jump through an obstacle course of hoops and regulatory red tape. And while some may think that these standards are surely reasonable and perhaps even essential to protecting the consumer, most of these burdens have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with control. Any doubt of this can be cured by the mere fact that in many states, casket makers cannot sell, or even construct, a coffin until they have first obtained a license.

And yet, many advocates of these types of business restrictions assert that things could be worse, after all the United States is the freest country in the entire world. But when looked at in terms of economic freedom, this is simply not the case. In fact, according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2018 Index of Economic Freedom, America is not number one. The U.S. isn’t even in the top ten. Instead, the country founded on entrepreneurial freedom sits at number 18, right in between the Netherlands and Lithuania.

In addition to other qualifiers, the rankings are partially based on the size of the government in each of these countries, this includes the tax burdens each places on small business owners. Considering this, it is a good thing this economic freedom index came out prior to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. just a few weeks ago. Had the new ruling been considered on the 2018 Index of Economic Freedom, the U.S. may have found itself further down on the list.

Internet Sales Tax and Small Business Owners

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to small business owners all around the country just a few weeks ago. Prior to the South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. ruling, states were prohibited from collecting taxes from companies that did not have a physical location therein. This new ruling overturns the 1992 case of Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which, in the earlier days of the internet, had protected online retailers without physical brick and mortar establishments. But all this has changed now.

The new ruling states that even if a business has no physical location, inventory, or employees in a given state, that state can still collect taxes if a company does over $100,000 in sales, or at least 200 transactions. So what does this mean for smaller business owners? In reality, this means having to understand and comply with the sales tax laws in more than 10,000 different jurisdictions. While this number seems daunting on its own, this doesn’t even account for the fact that each of these jurisdictions has their own unique tax rates, different legal definitions dictating product specifications, and different laws specifying tax exemptions.

Highlighting how truly daunting it is to keep up with all the different jurisdictions’ laws, a local Kansas City outlet reports:

“▪ New Jersey knitters pay sales tax on yarn purchased for art projects, but not on yarn earmarked for sweaters.

▪ Texas taxes sales of plain deodorant at 6.25 percent, but imposes no tax on deodorant with antiperspirant.

▪ Illinois categorizes Twix as food but Snickers as candy, because Twix has flour and Snickers does not.”

This places a large burden on businesses because complying with all the different laws of various jurisdictions means having to understand each one. This means having to spend a large portion of their budgets hiring accountants and attorneys just to understand the new requirements— a costly burden to place on companies that are already having to pay to maintain their businesses licenses and other arbitrary state requirements.

Even before the ruling was made, small business owners were concerned.

“It’s just not fair for the heavy burdens that it places on small businesses like us to have to reach out to 9,600 different jurisdictions to file tax. It would really be devastating,” Michael Swoape, the owner of One4Silver told CNSNews.com.

To make matters worse, this gives an unfair advantage to bigger companies. Businesses like Amazon can afford to pay to comply with all these new tax requirements, giving them an unfair advantage. And while we all love Amazon, if it were truly as great a company as we all assume it is, its quality would speak for itself. Yet, even Amazon, who has been targeted by other government policies, has supported this expansion of the internet sales tax because they know it will benefit them. Its competitors simply cannot afford to comply.

How did we get here? Small businesses are the backbone of our American economy. But instead of rewarding these companies, or even helping to ease their financial burdens, the Supreme Court has sought to make it even harder to earn a living and create value.

But this doesn’t just hurt businesses owners; consumers will also be impacted. These companies are going to have to either choose to close up shop or find a way to meet the new financial requirements being asked of them. For many, this will mean passing some of this cost to the consumer, which means prices on online goods are bound to go up.

But not all is lost, Congress could help pass laws that ease some of these regulatory burdens.

Jonathan Johnson, who sits on the board of Overstock.com said:

“To lessen the potential impact of today’s ruling on internet innovation Congress can, and should, pass sound legislation allowing states to accomplish their aims while still permitting small internet business to thrive.”

That being said, Justice Kennedy disagreed with the sentiment expressed by Johnson. As CNN reports:

“Justice Kennedy said it was ‘inconsistent’ for the Supreme Court to ask Congress to ‘address a false constitutional premise of this Court’s own creation.’

It is a sad state of affairs when our government has developed a habit of finding every possible way to take money from profitable individuals. To truly honor the individual’s contributions to the economy, our government should be making it easier to conduct business instead of placing more burdens on entrepreneurs. If we want to get a higher ranking on next year’s Economic Freedom Index, those in power would be wise to remember the role the entrepreneur plays in society.

The Real Reason Tax Day Was April 17th This Year

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This past Wednesday was the last day for Americans to file and pay their taxes without being penalized by the IRS. Of course, the original deadline was supposed to be Tuesday, April 17th, but the department’s website crashed early that morning, forcing the IRS to move the deadline to Wednesday. However, the true bureaucratic nature of a large government agency like IRS was put on display, as those attempting to use the site were shown this error message.

Not only does the “planned outage” promise to be back in time for New Year’s Eve 10000, but the additional text below contradicts that date, telling users the site will be available on Thursday, September 22, 2016. And while we are currently in the year 2018, making both of those dates completely unhelpful, the site also warned taxpayers that their taxes are still due, even if there is no way to pay on the site.

But blunder aside, April 17th, the original deadline planned for this year, is also not the date typically associated with tax day. Historically, April 15th has been the day that Americans dread all year long.  And while most of us were relieved at the prospect of having a few extra days to worry about getting our taxes filed, few of us bothered to ask why Tax Day had been moved.

Switching Tax Day from its typical April 15th date is not completely without precedent. When April 15thfalls on a weekend, the federal government will typically move it to the following business day. This year, tax day fell on a Sunday. But you will notice that that would have pushed this year’s deadline to Monday, April 16th, not the following day.

However, if you work for the Internal Revenue Service, which just happens to be located in our nation’s capital, the 16th of April is a holiday. During Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, April 16th was instituted as Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia. Recognized only within the geographical limits of Washington, D.C., government employees working in the district are given a paid day off.

Not wanting to miss out on this holiday that literally no one else in the country celebrates, IRS employees took the day off. Thus, when looked at objectively, the federal government extended the tax submission deadline specifically so it could take a paid day off.

Recently, it was reported that the IRS has only been able to answer a very small portion of the calls it receives from taxpayers with tax-related questions. That means that many Americans have been unable to get the information they need from the IRS in order to file their tax returns. It would be nice to think that the federal government had decided to extend the tax deadline as a favor to the American people, or even as a way of apologizing for the bureaucratic hurdles the taxpayers had to climb over just to reach an IRS representative, but that is not the case.

In fact, both Maine and Massachusetts celebrate, “Patriots’ Day” every April 18th. Though you might think that residents of either of these states would also have an additional day to submit their taxes, you would be mistaken. Since both states have residents who are paying taxes to other states, who do not recognize Patriots’ Day, Maine and Massachusetts residents are still required to meet the new April 18th deadline.

Not that anyone should really be shocked by the government’s hypocrisy in regards to Patriots Day, nor should Americans be shocked that the federal government jumped at the chance of taking a paid day off.

As Henry David Thoreau once said, “That government is best which governs least.”

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