The Road to Freedom (26 page)

36
Arthur C. Brooks,
Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism
(Basic Books, 2006).

37
Charitable contributions from American individuals, corporations, and foundations were an estimated $290.89 billion in 2010, up from a revised estimate of $280.30 billion for 2009. The 2010 estimate represents growth of 3.8 percent in current dollars and 2.1 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, June 20, 2011,
http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/news/2011/06/pr-GUSA.aspx
; International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook Database, April 2011 Edition,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/01/weodata/index.aspx

38
Brooks,
Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.

39
Ibid.

40
Ibid. All these results come from analysis of the National Opinion Research Center's
General Social Survey
and other publicly available, non-partisan data sources. A large difference persists even after correcting for income differences and other demographics like age and education.

41
1996 and 2002 General Social Survey, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.

42
Lawrence T. White, Raivo Valk, and Abdessamad Dialmy, “What Is the Meaning of ‘on Time'? The Sociocultural Nature of Punctuality,”
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
42, no. 3 (April 2011): 482–493.

43
Ralph Nader, speaking at the NAACP's 91st Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, July 11, 2000.

44
Video,
http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/17/patriotic-millionaires-demand-higher-taxes-but-unwilling-to-pay-up-video/

45
This conclusion is the product of a two-stage least squares regression, in which income is regressed on a vector of demographics and a fitted value of charitable donations. This fitted value comes from a regression of donations on volunteer time plus appropriate demographics.

46
Tiffany Field, Maria Hernandez-Reif, Olga Quintino, Saul Schanberg, and Cynthia Kuhn, “Elder retired volunteers benefit from giving massage therapy to infants,”
Journal of Applied Gerontology
17 (1998): 229–239.

47
James Morgan, “Too good to be true? Altruism's better for you,”
The Herald
(UK), October 26, 2006. The election of the biggest giver as group leader was repeated in other popularity contests, with the more selfish in the group routinely shunned.

48
I infer causality through the use of Granger tests.

49
Christina Romer and Jared Bernstien, “Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” January 9, 2009,
http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf
; Mark Zandi, “A Second Quick Boost From Government Could Spark Recovery,” edited excerpts of testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business, July 24, 2008,
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Small%20Business_7_24_08.pdf
; Robert J. Barro, “Government Spending Is No Free Lunch,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 22, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html
; Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig, “What Are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?” SFB 649, Discussion Paper 2005-039, 2005,
http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf/SFB649DP2005-039.pdf

50
2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, Roper Center, University of Connecticut. The same thing happens with gifts of time. Imagine two people
who are identical in terms of income, education, age, religion, politics, sex, and family situation, but one of them volunteers once more a week than the other. That person will be half again as likely to say he or she is “very happy.”

51
David Sloan Wilson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Health and the Ecology of Altruism,”
The Science of Altruism and Health
, ed. S. G. Post (Oxford University Press, 2006), 6.

52
Rodney Balko, “The Road to Hell . . .”
Reason.com
, November 29, 2006,
http://reason.com/blog/2006/11/29/the-road-to-hell
. The 2006 law has since been reversed.

53
“Euro area unemployment at 10.0%,” Eurostat, August 31, 2011,
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-31082011-BP/EN/3-31082011-BP-EN.PDF

CHAPTER FIVE

1
Frank Newport, “Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans,”
Gallup.com
, February 4, 2010,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/125645/Socialism-Viewed-Positively-Americans.aspx

2
“Entrepreneurship in the EU and Beyond,”
Flash Eurobarometer
, December 2009,
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/eurobarometer/fl283_en.pdf
; “AEI Political Report: The Entrepreneurial Spirit,”
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
, June 2011,
http://www.aei.org/docLib/PR-June-2011.pdf

3
Washington Post–ABC
News Poll, January 12–15, 2010, question 40,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_011610.html

4
NBC News/Wall
Street Journal
Survey, Study #11091, February 2011,
http://online.wsj.com//files/19/25/68/f192568/public/resources/documents/wsj-nbcpoll03022011.pdf

5
According to Gallup in 2011, 47 percent agreed with this statement, versus 49 percent who disagreed. Lydia Saad, “Americans Divided on Taxing the Rich to Redistribute Wealth,”
Gallup.com
, June 2, 2011,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147881/Americans-Divided-Taxing-Rich-Redistribute-Wealth.aspx

6
Lydia Saad, “Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government,”
Gallup.com
, September 26, 2011,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149678/Americans-Express-Historic-Negativity-Toward-Government.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication

7
Woodrow Wilson, “Socialism and Democracy,” August 22, 1887. In Arthur S. Link, ed,.
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson
, vol. 5 (Princeton University Press, 1966–1993).

8
Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,”
Political Science Quarterly
2, no. 2 (June 1887), 197–222.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2139277?origin=JSTOR-pdf&
. In his essay “The Study of Administration,” Wilson laid out definitions of administration science (“a few steady, infallible, placidly wise maxims of government into which all sound political doctrine would be ultimately resolvable”) and an administrative cadre (“A corps of civil servants prepared by special schooling and drilled, after appointment, into a perfected organization, with appropriate hierarchy and characteristic
discipline . . . serving with good behavior . . . meaning steady, hearty allegiance to the policy of government . . .”).

9
Author's calculations using Office of Management and Budget “The Budget of the United States of America” historical tables.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

10
Ibid.

11
Leverett S. Lyon, et al., “The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal,” Brookings Institution, 1935, 873.

12
Amity Shlaes,
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
, by (HarperCollins, 2007).

13
Ronald Reagan, “State of the Union Address: 1988 Ronald Reagan,”
State of the Union Address Library
, January 25, 1988,
http://stateoftheunionaddress.org/category/ronald-reagan

14
“NIPA Tables: Table 3.1 Government Current Receipts and Expenditures,”
Bureau of Economic Analysis
, data,
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1
. Also, for these facts I am grateful to Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and his staff.

15
“Economic Outlook No 88—December 2010—OLIS version,”
OECD
, Current disbursements, general government, as a percentage of GDP,
http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?r=33156
.

16
Data comes from the Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables (Federal Spending) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis NIPA tables (state and local) for the period 1930–2010. Federal spending and GDP are projected by the CBO in the June 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook alternative fiscal scenario. State spending is projected by pegging the rate of social benefits growth to federal medical entitlement growth, and pegging the rate of all other state spending growth to other federal noninterest spending growth. Spending prior to 1928 is estimated using the Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition Online by averaging the growth across years using the available data. GDP estimates are from BEA NIPA tables for the period 1929–2010. GDP estimates prior to 1929 use GNP Estimates from Christina Romer, “World War I and the Postwar Depression: A Reinterpretation Based on Alternative Estimates of GNP,”
Journal of Monetary Economics
22 (July 1988): 91–115. “NIPA Tables: Table 3.1 Government Current Receipts and Expenditures,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, data,
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1
; “Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables: Table 1.1—Summary of Outlays, Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789-2016,” OMB, February 14, 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
; “CBO's 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook.” Congressional Budget Office. June 22, 2011.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/122xx/doc12212/06-21-Long-Term_Budget_Outlook.pdf

17
NBC News/Wall
Street Journal
Survey Study #11579, Hart/McInturff, November 22, 2011. Available at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/72058015/NBC-Wall-Street-Journal-11-8-11

18
Tax Foundation. “Federal Individual Income Tax Returns with Zero or Negative Tax Liability,” October 18, 2011.
http://taxfoundation.org/files/fed_incometax_nonpayer_data_1950-2009-20111018.pdf
.

19
Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center MicroSimulation Model (version 0411–2), “Table T11-0173: Tax Units with Zero or Negative Tax Liabiilty, 2004–2011.”
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/Content/PDF/T11-0173.pdf
.

20
“Memorandum: Information on Income Tax Liability for Tax Year 2009,” Congress of the United States, Joint Committee on Taxation, April 29, 2011,
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/jct-analysis-2009-income-tax.pdf
. Of course, many Americans pay payroll taxes. But this is forced savings, not support for general government services.

21
Matt Moon, “Special Report: How Do Americans Feel About Taxes Today,”
Tax Foundation
, April 2009, no. 166,
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr166.pdf

22
Scott A.Hodge, “Accounting for What Families Pay for Taxes and What They Receive in Government Spending,”
Tax Foundation
, September 21, 2009, Fiscal Fact no. 189,
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/25195.html

23
Gerand Prante and Mark Robyn, “Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data,” Tax Foundation Fiscal Facts, October 6, 2010.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

24
Congressional Budget Office, “Average Federal Tax Rates in 2007,” June 2010.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11554/AverageFederalTaxRates2007.pdf

25
Kip Hagopian has argued convincingly that the progressive income tax is “plainly inequitable.” Such inequality becomes clear when the importance of work effort—defined as the number hours worked and the intensity of the effort applied during those hours—is considered. Hagopian argues that, when considering these data, the progressive tax punishes those who work more. In fact, the most equitable system is one based on the value of benefits received from the government. Kip Hagopian, “The Inequity of the Progressive Income Tax,”
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/5192761

26
OECD Tax Database,
www.oecd.org/ctp/taxdatabase
. Even more important, the U.S. average marginal tax rate is also well above the mean for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Aparna Mathur, “Race to the Top of the Laffer Curve,”
American.com
, February 16, 2011,
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/february/race-to-the-top-of-the-laffer-curve

27
OECD Tax Database, “2010 Top Statutory Rate Table,” table 11.1,
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/26/56/33717459.xls

28
Nicole V. Crain, and W. Mark Crain, “The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms,”
Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy
, September 2010,
http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs371tot.pdf

29
“National Economic Accounts: Gross Domestic Product,”
Bureau of Economic Analysis
, data,
http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp
; “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021,”
Congressional
Budget Office
, January 2011,
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12039/01-26_FY2011Outlook.pdf
; “Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options,” Congressional Budget Office, March 2011,
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12085/03-10-ReducingTheDeficit.pdf