POLITICAL CAPITAL OP/ED

Fiscal Justice Trumps Fiscal Sanity, Progressivism Marches On

In his first New Year’s Eve address since taking office, French President François Hollande—progressive poster boy and role model for class warriors the world over—defended his efforts to increase the top marginal income tax rate paid by France’s millionaires to 75 percent by appealing to a concept he termed Fiscal Justice. I had never heard that catchy phrase, which Hollande succinctly defined as, “Those who have the most, will always be asked for more.”

Get it? The rich will always be asked for more. You see, in politics it’s the asking that matters, not the getting. Immaterial to the concept of Fiscal Justice is whether those whom politicians ask to pay society’s mounting bills actually end up forking over their money or instead flee the country, as numerous French millionaires seem to be doing. As in all things progressive, policies are evaluated based on intentions, not results. So if raising marginal tax rates causes a decrease in tax revenue thanks to a combination of legal tax avoidance, illegal tax evasion, and voluntary emigration, so be it. Fiscal Justice has been done!

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