Greg Anrig - Do We Need a "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights?"

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2007/09/25/Conservatives_Have_No_Clothes

Author Greg Anrig criticizes the popular idea of a "Taxpayer Bill of Rights," arguing that such a program has had overwhelmingly negative effects for the state of Colorado.

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The Conservatives Have No Clothes with discussants Greg Anrig, Eric Alterman, and Hendrik Hertzberg.

A lunch forum for journalists and opinion leaders to discuss The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing, a new book by Greg Anrig, published by John Wiley & Sons. Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor at the New Yorker, and Eric Alterman, author and columnist, will join the panel to offer their assessments of Greg’s important book, and to discuss his ideas as they relate to the ongoing presidential campaign. Greg Anrig is the vice president for policy at The Century Foundation -The Century Foundation

Greg Anrig, vice president of policy at The Century Foundation, is the author of The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing (John Wiley & Sons, September 2007). He is also co-editor of four collections of essays: Liberty Under Attack: Reclaiming Our Freedoms in An Age of Terror (PublicAffairs, 2007); Immigration's New Frontiers: Experiences from the Emerging Gateway States (The Century Foundation Press, 2006); The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism (PublicAffairs, 2003), and Social Security Reform: Beyond the Basics, (The Century Foundation Press, 1999).

Anrig is also a regular contributor to TPMCafe and Guardian Unlimited. Since 1994, he has been responsible for overseeing The Century Foundation’s projects on public policy as well as its fellows. Previously, he was a staff writer and Washington correspondent for Money magazine.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• taxpayer
• bill
• rights
• tabor
• club
• growth
• right
• colorado
• libertarian
• taxes
• taxation
• cuts
• spending
• government
• budget
• foratv
• fora.tv
• fora
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[Raptoreyes]

Excellent point Ray

Why must everybody else tighten their belts so the least efficient government employees need never do so.

[mainestategop]

In new York, hell yes! We need it in Maine too! Here's our chance to put a bit in the mouth of big government. I am sick of them wasting my money.

[Raptoreyes]

Such actions were the exception rather then the rule.

Perhaps the most famous attack against the constitution was the national bank proposed by Alexander Hamilton, which became law and was later disbanded by less authoritarian figures. To bad that same bank returned as the "Federal Reserve" to cause a mounting danger of hyperinflation to the present day United States economy.

[Whoo69]

I mean, if spending increases automatically led to tax increases, where do deficits come from?? The government would never be in debt because we'd always pay more to fund these spending increases, wouldn't we? But deficits do exist, so that clearly is a myth. I just wish Democrats would wise up and tell their Republicans friends to stop spreading such economic myths and take another econ. class, for a change. I've been in 3. I think I know wtf I'm talking about here.

[Whoo69]

Limiting the amount gov't can spend, even if what it spends doesn't turn into a defiict, is just absurd. As long as you don't spend above your means and can balance the budget, what does it matter how much the gov't spends on certain programs? Tax rates, my conservatives friend, are what determine how much tax you spend, NOT the level of gov't spending. Any economist will tell you this. I don't get where libertarians and Republicans get this strange idea that spending increase=tax increase.

[Whoo69]

That may be, but you do know that the Founders, including even George Washington, did legislate to grant land use for public colleges and schools nationally and in many states, right?

[RaySquirrel]

So instead of looking for some other means to fix these problems or finding more efficient/less wasteful means to spend public funds he falls back on the excuse of not having enough money so we must tax more. That is the equivalent of intellectual laziness.

[Raptoreyes]

Government is not supposed to do healthcare or education. The Constitution of the United States only allow military, police and the courts. Many of our problems stem from government intervention.

Colorado will most likely be back on track soon. The destroyed fabric of voluntary civil society will fill in any void left by the curtailment of government.

This gentleman also greatly understates the role of globalization in the states woes. This authors lack of objectivity is astounding.

[culverapex]

Which programs were funded in favor of the school system and in place of prenatal care? I enjoyed listening to Anrig, and yet I feel like he's not giving the entire story. If we're to reduce the size of government without weakening it, we also need to know the benefits of Colorado's tax policies. As is, we're becomming corpratized/socialized. Fascism married to communism. SOMETHING needs to be done to rebuild middle-class capitalism, so lets discuss both the good and the bad.