In Democracy, Jonathan Chait “looks at the principle that most defines conservative economics today: taxophobia.” This essay is part of a series of five essays, First Principles: Arguing the Economy. Some non-contiguous excerpts:

The conservative movement’s embrace of taxophobia is probably the most important development in American political life over the last three decades. It is the one quality that most distinguishes American conservative elites from conservative elites in other countries. They’re more likely to question climate science, more sanguine about people dying for lack of health insurance, and less xenophobic (which is rather nice). But above all—far above all—they hate taxes …

In the mid-1970s, the new doctrine of supply-side economics suddenly emerged on the right. The doctrine took what had been a marginal notion within the economics profession—the idea that higher tax rates can dampen the incentive to work and innovate—and elevated it to something close to a religion. The supply-side creed held that tax rates, especially on the rich, had enormous effects on economic growth. It was even possible, the supply-siders famously promised, that tax cuts could unleash so much economic growth that the net effect would increase tax revenue …

And yet, as three decades of economic and budgetary data have repudiated supply-side belief time and again, its hold on the Republican Party has only strengthened … There is one idea that explains Republican behavior: moral disgust at income redistribution. Since it doesn’t poll well, this is not an idea that you often find expressed in talking points or in other means of public persuasion. But occasionally this sentiment pops up in the form of a kind of raw royalism, usually from conservatives who don’t have to run for office. Former Bush economist Greg Mankiw endorses the belief that free markets are a flawless arbiter of income distribution. Republicans, he writes, believe that “in a free society, people make money when they produce goods and services that others value, and that, as a result, what they earn is rightfully theirs.” Adds American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, “[I]t is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can.”

More here. In an essay next Monday, “What do we deserve?”, I’ll look at redistributive economic justice and the erosion of egalitarianism in America.