Leslie Carbone’s book, Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform has just been released.
In Slaying Leviathan, Carbone argues that since the early twentieth century, U.S. tax policy has been designed to mitigate the natural economic results of both virtue and vice. When the government disrupts the natural order through taxation by creating incentives and disincentives that overturn these natural consequences, the government perverts its own function and becomes part of the problem-a contributor to social breakdown-rather than part of the solution or an instrument of justice.
Slaying Leviathan envisions an approach to tax policy rooted in natural justice. To achieve this goal, Carbone first traces the historical evolution of U.S. tax policy, from the 1765 Stamp Act to the 1997 tax cut. She then assesses the current American tax burden and George W. Bush’s tax cuts and explores the fundamental problems with U.S. tax policy. After providing a historical analysis of federal spending and of expanding governmental expectations, she offers a set of over-arching principles and instructions on how to apply them to tax policy proposals.
The late Jack Kemp called it “a devastating indictment of the absurdity that has masqueraded as tax policy for the last century.”
“With government foolishly trying to plunder America’s way back to prosperity, I’m hopeful that my book will make an important contribution to our national discussion over the moral hazards of wealth redistribution,” said Carbone.
Leslie Carbone served as the director of Family Tax Policy at the Family Research Council, chief of staff to the late assemblyman Gil Ferguson of California, and a speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Her writing has been published in the Weekly Standard, the American Enterprise, the San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous other magazines and journals. She has lectured on more than 100 college campuses and has been interviewed on more than 250 radio shows, including GraniteGrok’s MTNP. She lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
NOTE: Leslie will join us this Saturday during the second hour of MTNP radio.