By DAVE HAMRICK
Editor-at-large

Conservatives are often accused of being opposed to all taxes and all government.

It's a foolish stereotype, but there it is.

Just for the record, I am 100 percent in favor of taxes and 100 percent in favor of government.

I'm even in favor of the federal government. Without it, what is known today as the U.S.A. would have been carved up into a bunch of little countries, each competing for power and influence.

There wouldn't have been 50. Much larger sections of the continent would have rallied around one flag or another.

Who knows what sort of world we would have ended up with.

Conservatives — the vast majority of us — don't oppose the federal government. We just think it ought to operate within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, which created it. We don't believe the federal government should be as large, as powerful and as interested in every detail of our lives as it is.

We don't oppose taxes, either. We just think that governments ought to be bound by the Constitution when they impose taxes, and should use that money only for the purposes specifically authorized in the Constitution. And we think that a government that takes 40 to 50 percent of the average family's income in taxes can't by the wildest stretch of reasoning consider itself to be a champion of freedom and human rights.

That's such a basic, fundamental belief that it's hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with it. I'm trying to picture those who are not conservative reading those lines and protesting, “We agree in principle, but we don't believe the governments are doing more than they are authorized to do. We think they should do more.”

But I suppose there are some who are thinking, “I disagree. The Constitution is just a general guideline. Governments ought to be creative. No limits should be placed on the size of government, the scope of its activity or its power over individuals.”

That probably sounds more sarcastic than I mean it to be. Truthfully, I can't imagine that any other way of thinking resides in the cranium of the average American liberal.

I've been watching the presidential candidates, trying to decide who might get my vote, and I'm afraid I haven't seen or heard anything that gives me much to choose from.

My ideal candidate wouldn't be talking about cutting back a little on the rate of growth of the government and its budget. He or she would be talking about a minimum of a 20 percent reduction in the size of the government and its spending, including elimination of several agencies, even whole departments.

If the person I'm waiting for ever gets in, we won't be arguing about whether to use the “surplus” to
“save Social Security,” pay down the debt or grant a tax cut. We'll be talking about maintaining Social Security for those who have counted on it in the past, and gradually doing away with it entirely for those who have time to change horses. And with the above-mentioned 20 or 30 percent reduction in government, we'd have a much larger surplus, large enough to cut taxes back a little bit now, and then slash them back to a level that truly makes sense in a free society once we eliminated the debt.

And we'd be talking about sales taxes, not income taxes.

Our government, as it's currently organized, has become extremely adept at hiding tax increases. All the taxes should be in one place where we can see them, so we will know when our taxes have been increased and a tax hike won't be disguised as “tax reform,” obscured in a thousand lines of a thousand pages of cumbersome tax code.

Sales taxes are better than income taxes for numerous reasons, but the one that matters most to me is that it's simply wrong for a government to tax its citizens' incomes. It's just wrong, period.

I'm a little disappointed that Fayette's local government is talking about funding its jail and courthouse construction by borrowing money rather than using a sales tax and paying as it goes. I understand the reasons for it, but I still tend to favor a sales tax.

It's simple and clean, and you can't hide it. And I don't worry about letting future residents help pay for the jail. I'd rather pay for it in five years and let future residents pay for whatever construction is needed in five years. There's plenty to go around.

But a sales tax in Fayette County has a snowball's chance, and the jail has to be built, so that's that.

According to lore, taxes get equal billing with death as things in life that are inevitable. But the way our society is beginning to think, we'll have to add a government and tax system that grows faster than the overall economy as the third inevitable fact of life.

May it not be so.

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