The Profit of Reform
were at the haves. The reformers made no distinction between fortunes that were amassed by productive effort and fortunes that had their origin in the politically established special privileges; in fact, the reforms did not aim at the abolition of special privileges but at the establishment of more special privileges for more groups. Political power could make everyone rich.
A promising exercise in political science would be to follow each reform that became law to its ultimate conclusion; even a cursory examination supports the theory that all reforms end up in additions to State power, and that none of them achieves the high purpose expected by its advocates. This is certainly true of the income tax, which should be called the reform of reforms because its attainment made possible a flock of reforms.
An income tax was imposed during the Civil War and was continued for half a dozen years to clean up the costs of that affair. Its abolition was vigorously opposed by those who had gotten a taste of blood, and their overpowering passion for more of it finally culminated in the Sixteenth Amendment. It was admittedly a leveling tax, the presumption being that what was taken from the pockets of the rich would somehow trickle into the pockets of the poor. But the State, as history tells us, is not concerned with the fate of the poor or the rich, its protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, but only with its own advancement. This opportunity to pick pockets could not for long be limited to a few that obviously bulged large. It was soon learned that all these pockets collectively contained less loot than the national pay envelope, and when that fact was ascertained the itching fingers of the State could not be restrained. So that the "soak the rich" tax has become a "soak the poor" tax. Most of the income of the
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