Limit Government, Cut Taxes – It Works

Time to remember our history. Cutting waste, fraud, abuse, and excess spending allows leaders to cut taxes. That is what responsible leaders do: limit government, cut taxes, and leave money with those who earned it, spurring growth. It works.

Some will say, “What a conservative idea,” but the idea predates our Constitution, written by those who fought to assure limited government, knowing that less is more.

Our Founding Fathers deeply distrusted government, believing progress came from a free people, not those yoked to high spending, taxes, and government. They feared that too much control would tip the balance and lead to votes bought with taxpayer money.

Wrote Thomas Jefferson: “The course of history shows that as government grows, liberty decreases,” adding, “we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

This writer of our Declaration, a resolve to escape over-taxation and abuse, constantly hit the theme, noting a powerful government “will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay a price” as “human nature is the same on every side…The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they have gotten hold of us.”

John Adams warned the same: “Government is, by its very nature, a necessary evil…The best security for our liberty…government as little as possible.”

Adams urged limits. “Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their right of defending the limitations on Government, and of resisting every encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.”

On taxes, Adam Smith, the first real economist, author of “Wealth of Nations,” wrote: “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice…” The secret to success is a low tax burden and plentiful opportunities.

Closer to our time, Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote: “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever possible.” Why? Consumers drive growth. Taxed less, they work and spend disposable income, spurring investment, jobs, and more growth.

Ronald Reagan felt the same way. Explaining how his income tax cuts produced 18 million jobs, a roaring economy, he offered: “Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people’s tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before.”

In short, supply and demand laws work. When people keep more of what they earn, they save and spend it. When they spend it, that is a demand signal that triggers more production, investment, and jobs, creating a virtuous cycle.

For doubtful Democrats, the best example of trust in action may be President John F. Kennedy, who firmly believed in and proved the value of income tax cuts.

Said JFK, ushering in deep tax cuts – which produced high growth: “An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough jobs…The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers…is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrence to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system, and this administration has pledged itself…to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in…income taxes.”

He continued: “It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now…to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy…Our present tax system…exerts too heavy a drag on growth…It reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk taking…” JFK was right.

Bottom line: For classical liberals, constitutional, monetarist, and supply side conservatives, as well as JFK Democrats – tax cuts spur growth. Reducing waste, fraud, abuse, and excess spending allows tax cuts to boost consumption, investment, jobs, and growth. It is time – at all levels – to remember history. Tax cuts work.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!