Republican Tax Plan is mainly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Republicans say that these tax cuts from families and the businesses would increase spending, growth, and investment of the country. Moreover, the Act provides a reconciliation under title II and V to find a resolution to the budget for the fiscal year 2018 hence the revenue act was introduced in Congress by the Republicans. There was the amendment of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 which is involved with tax, and it was majorly advocated by the Trump Administration and the Republicans in the Congress (Gale, 2017). The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affected tax rates reduction for individuals and businesses, increase in the standard deduction on personal tax, and family tax credits, limitation in deductions of state and local income taxes (SALT), elimination of personal exemptions and repeal of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). There is a lot of criticism from this plan as the critics argue that it is a large allocation of wealth from the underprivileged to the rich and it will make the future generations pay dearly for it. The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the Republican tax plan according to Rawls's theory, the reaction of Nozick on that proposal and Mills reaction to the Trump Tax cuts and tax burden distribution.
Rawls analysis of Republican Tax plan and his ideas of liberty and difference principle.According to John Rawls, justice should not allow those sacrifices that are imposed on the small percentage people in the society are overshadowed by a large number of people who enjoy essential sum of advantages. Consequently, the rights and freedoms are not infringed or removed from the people in a just society and also those rights subject to justice but not on political bargaining. Therefore, truth and justice in a just society cannot be compromised by anyone. The primary obligation of justice is to find a solution into ideas, in a community where people relates with each other with the conduct of rules that guides them and are binding to all of them.
Moral value and moral standards are required in determining and selecting many arrangements in the society to decide how shares are to be distributed among people in a community. These moral values and standards are of the social justice whereby they give roadmap on how rights and duties in a society are to be assigned and ways of solving conflicts if they arise in a society (O'Neill, 2012). These principles, therefore, creates bonds of civic friendship. These principles of justice create a community that is just and which follows the binding rules and regulation in their relations with each other.
John Rawls put into place two principles, by "Justice as Fairness." The first principle of John Rawls is concerned with political institutions. The First Principle talks about liberty whereby everyone has the same fundamental freedoms which are inalienable, that is a government cannot amend, remove or infringe this liberty from the people (O'Neill, 2012). In this principle, he argues that some rights and freedoms are essential than others. John Rawls believes that personal belongings, personal property, and home set up the crucial liberty. He also recognized the rights of workers, private individuals to own property in a state but he left out the right to own means of production and the reason for people to inherit wealth.
According to Rawls's First principle of liberty, the Republican tax plan interferes with the fundamental freedoms of the people of the United States. For instance whereby there are lower corporate taxes, but the law requires that people to carry health insurance or a penalty is imposed to them hence resulting to less coverage of people. When it comes to individual tax rates, there is a reduction in individual tax rates whereby under the new tax plan some of the previous rates will fall, but the lower rates will expire in 2025 (Gale, 2017). Following this tax plan, it is more concerned with president Trump, the Corporations, and the high-income people will be the winners of this tax plan when it is enacted into place.
The Republican tax plan does not put into consideration those people who are least advantaged in the society as argued by Rawls on the Difference Principle. Difference principle states that the social and the economic inequalities that prevail in the community are to satisfy to those in positions and offices to open equal opportunities for people and are to serve the more significant benefit of those who are least advantaged in the society (O'Neill, 2012). This tax bill will also affect the Obamacare, which is a health care. Also, when the Republicans repeal Affordable Care Act's mandate and hence the impact of repealing individual mandate would be severe and severe mostly to the lower level earners. It will make 13 million people insured over ten years which is a serious impact on many (Sammartino, 2018).. The ideas of Difference Principle is for the economic and social inequalities to be able to benefit the least-advantaged members in the society and hence the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 is not putting into consideration this principle.
The primary beneficiary of the Act are the upper-income groups and business hence the lower income groups will witness those benefits fade away as time goes by. The Republican law, therefore, has the adverse impact regarding the high budget deficit, increase in income inequality, higher trade deficits and it will witness low coverage of healthcare but higher healthcare costs. Furthermore, the Difference principle is not followed because the Republican tax return creates inequality between the rich and the poor as opposed to its obligation to satisfy the least advantaged members in the society. Through the Republican tax cuts, it does not reach into equilibrium whereby everybody is satisfied as the existence of the classes causes a conflict in between. The lower income level group sees this policy as a policy to make the rich richer and the poor poorer in the society.
Nozick ideas on the tax proposal
According to Nozick justice is achieved when there is respect for people's natural rights, which includes rights to self-ownership of property and rights to the property. He argues that people should be given freedom to decide on what to own and what to do with what they hold and the respect for people's autonomy must be respected. Nozick ideas are against the proposed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which takes away property from the people by redistributing it to others through taxation. Nozick suggests that property rights are essential due to its origin from self-ownership (Nozick, 2013). Every individual has the right to produce what he or she want to create, due to his or her ownership of the labor. Hence, justice is all about justice in transfer, and thus it should be voluntarily not forced.
The Blue states are incredibly underprivileged by the proposed tax cuts in which it has significant defections as it counterbalances the rate of immense tax break corporations in the country. Additionally, the law will have an impact on the lenders, construction companies, and real estate firms because of the deductions that are made on the mortgage interest and lowering of the loans that were recently issued. The government regulation will have an enormous impact on the lenders and real estate owners for loans they had given out on the mortgage. It also impacts the price s of homes in California, New Jersey and New York which the prices are high. Also, those Americans who are in states that are leaning towards Democrat are adversely affected due having high income and property taxes. This is against to the Nozick ideas against taxation because the people should voluntarily transfer their property.
On the other hand, the bill on laws of inheritance tax does not concern the ideas of Nozick. Even under the current law where the inheritance that is worth more than about $5.5m for individuals are subject to 40% tax which is very high. According to Nozick this a way of taking away property from people through taxation and distributing it to others (Nozick, 2013). The new plan of doubling the amount of inheritance exempt from tax is fair, and it tries to buy into ideas of Nozick. According to Nozick the reduction of tax should reach a point where it is just voluntarily done not a penalty to be given if you do not comply with the rules or the bill. The corporate rate cuts will have a negative impact on the Americans because they will have to pay through the tax increase spending cuts. Therefore, the corporate rate cuts indirectly give workers a raise in their taxes.
Mills' harm principle on the Trump's tax cuts and Tax burden distribution
The harm principle by Mills states that individual's actions should merely interfere with other people freedom to prevent harm to other people. Stuart Mills states that the main purpose in which power is to be excised is rightful to the members of the civilized society against their will to prevent harm to others (Purdy, J., & Siegel, N. S. (2012). Therefore, any individual's action should not cause brig harm to others and hence it is the sole end of human beings ad warranted to them. Therefore, collectively or individually interfering with the rights of others is self-protection. According to Mills is in support of Trump tax cuts and Tax burden distribution policy. Consequently, the tax cuts and tax burden distribution is to mean that there is to bring about an equal allocation of resources among the rich and the poor. Republicans say that these tax cuts from families and the businesses would increase spending, growth, and investment of the country.The big winner of this policy President Donald Trump in all dimension ranging political aspect ad the personal aspect. It is also useful to president Trump and even his family in general. The Republicans also have made a milestone in its implementation. President Donald Trump would benefit in many ways. Firstly, is whereby the tax cuts those individuals at the top or the high-level income earners from 39.6 percent to 37 percent which is a relief and hence harm regarding taxation will be reduced (Sammartino, 2018). Additionally, the tax cuts would benefit Trump from the tax bill's "pass-through" whereby the Republicans argue that the primary aim of the policy is to help small business owners but I other words it also gives the wealthy investors, like the likes of Trump a vital windfall. This is in regards to Millis ideas according to the principle of harm.
Mills opinion is that people are justified to judge and hence they are not prohibited from deciding due to their possession of the imperfect knowledge. That is why he states that there is no more significant hypothesis of soundness in being hostile to the propagation of error. Thus, the people are justified to question the Trump's tax cuts and try to analyze if it will be beneficial in 10 years from now or not. As from now, the Americans perceive that it is hurt to them most the lower level income group. The policy, therefore, will the future generations reject it or will they pay dearly for these policies and hence if rejected now by the present Americans it will be rejected in future.
Also, according to republicans opinion is that these tax cuts from families and the businesses would increase spending, growth, and investment of the country. Therefore, the policies according to Mills provide no harm to the people whereby they do not interfere with the freedom of the people. According to this principle, the government's policies are to the benefit of the American people, and hence their interests are safeguarded by those policies. Therefore, Trumps administration on claims of reducing corporate tax rates by 15% from 35 perc...
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