The Moral Case _For_ Taking Federal Matching Funds

by Michael Emerling

As a "matter of principle", Libertarian Presidential candidates have refused to seek federal matching campaign funds. Taxation is theft and accepting tax funds makes us party to the crime. By taking the loot, by welcoming stolen goods, the Libertarian Party betrays the non-aggression principle. We surrender our morality, integrity and principles.

So we've been told.

This position is not merely wrong. It is the exact opposite of the truth.

As Frank Chodorov observed, "Taxation is robbery." Government is funded by legalized looting. Government has no right to the proceeds of plunder. Nor does it have the right to "assign" or "transfer" the booty to others.

Who has the right to this loot? The rightful owners. The victims of the tax crime: those who earned and owned it. The tax payers.

Let's look at Libertarian taxpayers. How many Libertarians are there in America today? No one knows. Libertarians don't like being counted or registered by the State.

Individuals who believe that they have a right to their life, liberty, and property; Individuals who know that their life is their own and intend to run it by their own judgement; Individuals who value voluntary relations and oppose force and fraud; these individuals mind their own business and live their lives as they see fit. Their privacy is their protection, so they jealously guard it. They live by the code of liberty. They are libertarians, whether they know it or not. But their way of life makes them invisible, uncounted and forgotten.

A few Libertarians organized to reclaim their rights to life, liberty and property. They did so as a matter of self-defense. They called their organization the Libertarian Party.

Today there are 9000 dues paying National Libertarian Party members in America. And perhaps another 6000 local Libertarian Party members. There are over 50,000 voters registered as Libertarians, even though many states do not allow us to register Libertarian.

For the sake of discussion, assume that there are only 10,000 Libertarians in America. Assume that the average Libertarian earns $30,000 a year. (Probably a low figure, with all the professionals and computer programmers in the Libertarian Party.) A person earning $30,000 a year is paying a minimum of $3,000 a year in federal income taxes. Using these deliberately low figures, we can see that Libertarians are paying a minimum of $30,000,000 each year in income taxes. That's $2,500,000 each month.

Libertarians have a right to recover this money. Or authorize another to recover it.

In light of this, let's reframe the matching funds issue:

1. "Do taxpaying libertarians have the right to authorize the Libertarian Presidential Candidate to use the matching funds process to recover taxes taken from them?"

2. "Do they have the right to authorize their candidate to use the recovered taxes to fight the looters?"

An example from history might highlight the issue. During the Revolutionary War, Francis Marion ("the Swamp Fox") organized a guerilla army in South Carolina. Marion staged midnight raids, hit and run attacks and sabotage. This frustrated the British officers and tied up troops that might have been used to defeat Washington or Lee.

Marion and his men ran out of ammunition. So they raided British armories, taking all the weapons and ammunition they could carry. They did return the bullets to the British ... one at a time.

These British weapons were paid for by past taxation and the source of future taxation.

Did the Swamp Fox have the right to seize and use the weapons against the British? Or should Francis Marion have left them in the hands of the enemy?

***Libertarians not only have the right to recover their taxes through matching funds, they have the moral obligation to do so.*** The taxes we do not recover will fund the State... or be turned over to Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates who will seek to make Big Government bigger. Your taxes either fund the State or Statist Campaigns. Every tax dollar we do not reclaim will be used to sustain or expand the State. As State Power grows, individual liberty and self-responsibility dies.

Can you afford to have the money you've earned used against you? You've been disarmed and your own weapons have been turned against you. Take them back.

After all, whose money is it? Yours.

Do you live off the State or does the State live off you? Are you a tax producer or a tax consumer? Are you a tax victim or a tax beneficiary?

When you fill out your 1040, if you have a refund due from the IRS, do you take back your money? Why? Because it's yours. It's not welfare. It's recovering a part of what is rightfully yours.

Matching funds are tax refunds. By contributing to the Marrou Libertarian Presidential Campaign, you are allowing us to recover money looted from you through federal income taxes and use it to fight the government for liberty.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ This text appeared in a brochure distributed by the Marrou for President campaign in November 1990.