One of the main tenets of conservatism is to let the free market run free. It’s self-correcting. It goes in waves. There are highs when production improvements and massive innovation take hold and drives the economy. There are lows as we transition from one form of production to another or when some sort of product revolution is beginning.

Essentially, that’s the conservative plan – there is no plan. (That’s obviously an oversimplification, but you know what I mean, right?) There doesn’t need to be one because the economy runs best when it’s left to the natural forces of capitalism, which is why the tax rate is such a big issue to conservatives. And it’s a big issue on several levels.

Lower taxes put more money into the hands of producers – the people who make this country work. That’s doesn’t just mean wealthy white businessmen. That’s anyone with an idea or a dream. It’s also anyone who simply wants to show up to work every day and do their job to the best of their ability.

Liberal politicians feel mock sympathy for everything that the affluent can’t buy with higher taxes. What they miss is that if the rich aren’t buying themselves luxuries, then the jobs of those who create those goods and provide those services don’t exist. Who do you think work those jobs? Not other rich people.

The more money those people have in their wallets, the more they will also invest – whether by having their savings used for banks to lend to others, by investing directly into a start-up or a business of their own, or simply by spending that money back into the economy – creating more demand and more need for supply.

Thanks, in part, to tax policies and government regulations that have made it very expensive for companies to do business in the United States, responsible CEOs are doing what’s best for the business and going offshore. One can argue whether or not there is a moral imperative for CEOs to hire American workers and keep their businesses in the country. If we want them to, we should create tax and other business incentives that encourage it. But taxes are more than simply the conservative plan for a smooth-running economy. It’s also a moral issue.

Americans work hard. Compare the amount of vacation Americans take to other countries in the world, and we take far less. Culturally, workers in most countries take every minute of their vacation, while Americans often work even during their vacation. We’re a productive, work-oriented society.

It’s simply wrong that the government takes what they want out of our pockets after we’ve worked very hard to earn that money. It would be one thing if we were, in fact, funding essential services that the government provides. But more and more, the federal government is taking money from society’s achievers and using that money to create an ever-growing bureaucracy. And that bureaucracy is taking over what used to be personal decisions and state government decisions and creating new federal laws and bureaucracies.

When laws are made at the state and the city level, they better reflect the communities to which they apply. America is an aggregation of people who’ve come together into communities all over the country and have chosen to govern themselves as they see fit. The federal government’s main purpose is to provide security for the entire nation.

But as the years have gone on, the federal government has continued to pass more and more laws for the entire nation that used to occur at the state level.

Whatever the federal government takes on, they can’t do it without money. Your money. As the government continues to take over what used to be private businesses and services and nationalize what used to be state responsibilities, they continue to invent new taxes and raise old tax rates to take from private citizens.

What’s also galling about this is that way too often, they’re taking the money from society’s workers and achievers and giving it to perfectly healthy and able-bodied people who could be working, but aren’t. And as people get in the habit of accepting handouts from the government, they not only lose sight of where that money is coming from, but their sense of self-worth and esteem is destroyed in the process. All of this made possible by continuing to take money from our producers.

Taxpayers are invested in society and invested in how our government spends our money. You could argue that those who do not pay taxes should not have the ability to decide what to do with the money made by others who are working hard and paying taxes.

One of the original debates had by the founders was around the idea that only taxpayers should have the right to vote. They knew that once a large enough base of people, who were not only not paying taxes but actually receiving money back from the government, realized that they could vote themselves money from the treasury, our democracy would be in big trouble.

There’s an old saying that kids come out of college as liberals, but when they get their first job and see how much in taxes is taken out of their first check, they quickly become conservative. If you pay any attention to how much of your money the government wastes, it’s hard not to conclude that you could put your money to better use.