Taxes and Spending
Lower Taxes, Lower Spending
The Libertarian Party supports a more prosperous Nevada, a stronger middle class, and a higher standard of living. We believe that everyone should have more discretionary income and purchasing power. Every dollar the government spends comes out of the productive sector of the economy, raising prices, lowering standards of living, and contributing to joblessness and general poverty.
Democrats often believe that taxation and spending is a productive way to redistribute wealth that benefits the poor at the expense of the wealthy (or at no expense at all). But that is a demonstrably false, short sighted, and wildly irresponsible position. There is a direct causal relationship between relatively free markets and prosperity--especially for the lower classes. From Athens to Zurich, the freer the economy, the more material wealth, economic mobility, discretionary income, and general prosperity the people enjoy.
Republicans believe that you can have all of the “benefits” of government without paying for them. They support tax cuts, but not spending cuts, and they refuse to acknowledge that there is no free lunch. Cutting taxes without cutting spending can only result in two possible alternatives: general inflation, or a debt crisis. Tax cuts without spending cuts (or in true GOP tradition, tax cuts along with spending hikes) have all of the short term drawbacks of increased government spending--misdirected resources, crowding out, and overpriced or ineffective services--and adds the additional long term burden of servicing the debt, or promoting inflation.
The simple fact is that spending is taxation. Government spending requires actual resources--the people doing makework nonsense on the dole can’t contribute to productive enterprise. There is only one way to stem the tide of the dying middle class and reverse the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, while generally raising living standards for everyone. We can increase the purchasing power of everyday Nevadans, create more opportunities for entrepreneurship and job creation, and meet more of people’s wants and needs. All we need is to get the government out of the way--not with lower taxes alone, but with lower spending.