Regarding “Warren, ‘Bern whisperer,’ could play a pivotal role” (Other Views, May 31):
The author highlights Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support for the idea of a “social contract” to justify (more) taxation to pay for essential “government services” which benefits business owners, for example, who use public roads to transport their goods.
In addition, the argument goes, business owners benefit from a taxpayer funded educated workforce. Sen. Warren thus concludes the federal government and other levels of government are entitled to coerce money from those who have earned it to pay for roads, schools, and other so-called essential public services.
The current beneficiaries of these services are not supposed to squawk about their tax burden, because they have an obligation to make sure that the next generation of Americans receives their share of public largess. In other words, Sen. Warren’s describes an (coercive) “intergenerational” method to fund government.
There is another term that actually describes Sen. Warren’s theory of government, a Ponzi scheme. At least in a Ponzi scheme, people are duped voluntarily, because unscrupulous individuals have promised them unrealistic returns on their investments. In government Ponzi schemes the kind Sen. Warren and her colleagues in Congress from both political parties embrace unapologetically have created a $200 trillion unfunded liability of the federal government to pay for future Social Security, Medicare and other “essential” programs.
In short, the so-called social contract is nothing more than a scam that needs to be scuttled and replaced with the principles of a free–voluntary–society.