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When you strip away all the rhetoric that has flown by this election season, the basic question facing voters when looking at the Democrats agenda vs. the Republican’s agenda with respect to taxation is simply this: “Who should distribute your money to others: Joe the Plumber or Bill the Bureaucrat?”

Joe the Plumber clearly has a few advantages and so does Bill the Bureaucrat. Joe the Plumber will distribute his money in the form of wages and purchasing – he will choose the most productive employees and will choose to purchase products from people who give him the most value for his dollar. Joe is, by definition, very discerning because after all, it is his money and he wants to get the greatest value he can for it.

Bill the Bureaucrat has some advantages too – he can give the money to whomever the Congress says he can give it to – he can give the money as tax breaks, he can give the money as wages for doing public works projects. Bill the Bureaucrat is free to give the money based on criteria that may have nothing to do with finances or value. In cases of emergencies, he can give the money to people just because those people are destitute and in need of support (e.g. Katrina relief).

Clearly, there is a place for both kinds of “giving” – but we have to be honest about the costs and the benefits of each kind of giving. Bill the Bureaucrat often gets involved in transferring “charity” to those less fortunate. In times of disaster, this is clearly a good thing, but as we saw with the “welfare society” that developed in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s – this charity can become a “drug” that actually diminishes the humanity of large portions of our society.

Joe the Plumber provides money as employment – the most uplifting, ennobling and enabling of all ways you might choose to support someone. The employer (or purchaser) had money that he could spare but needed work done or a product purchased and the employee had time that would otherwise be wasted or the seller had a product that he wanted to sell. Employment and commerce is the most amazing transaction – the transaction was not a zero-sum game, both parties are richer after the transaction than before it.

But before we entrust our charitable giving to Bill the Bureaucrat, we need to understand one thing – that Bill the Bureaucrat consumes a good portion of all the money we give to him – whereas Joe the Plumber may spend $100 hiring a laborer, the $100 we give to Bill the Bureaucrat may only result in $40 being given to a needy person. In general, our charitable dollars are better spent with private charities who rely primarily on volunteers to distribute our money.

As alluded to earlier, we have to also be cognizant of the terrible costs of government sponsored charity as Bill the Bureaucrat would want to do – because government mandated charity is most corrosive to society in general. The people who are forced to give the money (via taxes) resents the people that are helped by the government. The people who are helped by the government can become dependent financially on the government and loose their ability to make it on their own.

As the 12^th century Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides said; employment is the highest form of charity – it lifts up the person physically as well as spiritually.

Finally, in today’s global financial marketplace we need to be conscious of yet another element in our decision as to whether or not to trust Joe the Plumber or Bill the Bureaucrat and that is simply that if we increase taxes, money will flow to areas of the globe where the work can be done with fewer taxes. Admittedly, Joe the Plumber’s job is not likely to be shipped overseas – plumbing is inherently a “local operation”… but the people Joe works for are auto manufacturers, mill workers and other manufacturers – increased taxes here at home, will by definition mean that more of Joe’s customer’s jobs are going to be shipped overseas where the government takes less of a bite out of every dollar.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are quite clear on their motivations for their tax policy – they don’t feel that the current tax burden is “fair”. Barack Obama even admitted that he doesn’t care that history has shown that with his tax policy, government revenues actually go down (and hence there is less money the government can spend for any purpose) – Obama is willing to lower the government’s revenue (by increasing taxes) just to make it “fair”.

It seems to me that “fair” is when the government has more money to spend so that it can help disaster victims in times like Hurricane Katrina or the aftermath of 9/11 or for job retraining. It is more “fair” if there is full employment and jobs are not shipped overseas where taxes are lower.

It seems to me that it is more “fair” to let Joe the Plumber decide who to pay money to – those that work hard and produce most efficiently. Remember, when Joe the Plumber distributes money – things get produced, pipes get installed – when Bill the Bureaucrat distributes money, he consumes a good chunk of it himself (in the bureaucracy) and give the remainder to others.

Whereas there is always a role for Bill the Bureaucrat, I think I’d rather rely on mainly on Joe the Plumber.

– Robert Light