Stop Giving Liberals Our Tax Money
Josiah Lippincott
Josiah Lippincott is a Ph.D. student at the Van Andel School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College, and a writer for American Greatness and The Federalist. His writings can be found on Substack under the name Regime Critic.
Help your enemies and harm your friends.
That’s the kind of big-brain, third-eye-opened, decalcified-pineal-gland- (real eyes realize real lies) type thinking that made the post-war conservative movement into the political juggernaut it is today.
I mean, just check out the Conservative Inc. plan to save America: Step 1: Hand out pocket Constitutions.
Step 2: Give liberals huge sums of tax money.
Step 3: Denounce Trump for being mean.
Step 4: Save the country.
Brilliant stuff, truly. Though, as an inveterate Bad Thinker and Dangerous MindTM I do have a few quibbles. What if, and hear me out, instead of giving our opponents hundreds of billions of dollars, we didn’t do this? What if instead of harming our friends, we helped them, and instead of helping our enemies, we forced them to get real jobs?
You might say I’m a utopian dreamer for suggesting that the government not seize money from hardworking, decent people (Republicans) in order to give those funds to profligate losers and Communists (Democrats). But indulge me for a moment. Let’s zero in on just one source of leftwing slush fund money: The Department of Education.
What would happen if we slashed its budget to zero?
Start with the numbers: According to the U.S .Treasury, in FY2024 the federal Department of Education spent $268 billion. That amounts to almost 1 percent of the United States’ annual economic output.
That’s a lot of dough; it is crucial to remember that it all had to come from somewhere. Before these resources could be distributed to leftist clients they had to be produced by people with jobs, businesses, and investments.
It is likewise important to remember that the producers who created those resources by transforming raw materials into usable goods with their labor and problem-solving abilities did not do so because they wanted to fund the Department of Education. If they had, then they wouldn’t have had to be taxed in order to provide these funds to the state.
Producers produce, workers work, and creators create because they want to benefit themselves. Human beings choose to labor because they think the fruits of their labor will be good for themselves. Men sow because they want to reap.
If Americans labored because they loved the Department of Education and its spending then they would freely donate their funds to the federal government to spend on school programs. Since they have to be taxed under penalty of law to provide these funds, we can say with certainty that the vast majority of taxpayers would not fund the Department of Education with their own money if they were given a real, uncoerced choice.
So, what happens if their true preference were granted? What would happen to that money if it were never taxed in the first place?
Last year, the federal government processed 161 million income tax returns. The Department of Education’s budget was $268 billion. That works out to a $1,600 tax reduction to every single American taxpayer for the rest of their lives.
Politicians love the idea of stimulus checks, of giving voters free money. Well, here is a great way to make that dream come true — not just this year but every year going forward.
Slashing funding to the Department of Education would mean, of course, that the people who had once received those taxpayer funds, who had benefited from this wealth redistribution, would have to reduce their consumption. In many cases, they would need to find new work altogether.
Investments made by private businesses to service the recipients of tax dollars would likewise need to adjust their profit models. Some of these businesses would go bankrupt.
However, this loss of opportunity to the privileged subsidized class (Democrats) would be more than made up for by an increase in opportunities for the taxpaying class (Republicans). Working for a living would be even more profitable than before. Taxpayers would keep more of their own money, which they would inevitably pour into capital and consumer goods.
The economy, in other words, would shift away from the subsidized colleges, public sector teachers, and government bureaucrats toward business owners, workers, and taxpayers. Those bureaucrats who would lose their jobs would have to find new jobs working for their old paypigs. They would now, for the first time in their lives, become productive members of society, actively contributing to the welfare of their neighbors by working to make things that other people actually want.
The boost of keeping that $268 billion in the economy would be substantial. Over the last 10 years, the American GDP has grown at a rate of about 2-3 percent on average. That growth rate would increase by up to 50 percent by placing the funds spent on the Department of Education back into the hands of productive Americans.
Not only that, but the quality of American education would go up and the cost would go down. Teachers, students, and parents would all benefit. Student debt, in particular, would fall dramatically.
Federal Student Loans
Right now, the bulk of federal education funding — about 60 percent — is spent on student loans and financial aid for college students. Federal student loan debt today amounts to $1.6 trillion. This is greater than the amount of debt Americans hold in credit cards ($1.2 trillion) and auto loans ($1.3 trillion).
These loan programs primarily subsidize higher education costs for women and non-whites. Here are the numbers: Sixty-three percent of outstanding student debt is held by women. Black women hold the highest balances at graduation, at $41,466. Twelve years after graduation, white men on average have paid off 44 percent of their student loan debt. White women have only paid off 28 percent. Black men and women, however, actually see their student loan balances increase over that time by 13 percent and 11 percent, on average. More than a decade after graduating, the typical black borrower sees their debt go up. Instead of amortizing, their loans grow.
Allowing people to borrow money on the government dime when these individuals cannot afford the payments is wrong. Shackling young people to decades-long fetters in exchange for a credential they often don’t need is wrong.
Moreover, it is wrong for government bureaucrats to put the taxpayer on the hook for the default risk from these bad financial products. The feds own 90 percent-plus of the student loans in this country for a reason. Without that federal intervention, virtually no private lenders or investors would be willing to give 18-year-old girls with blue hair tens of thousands of dollars to get gender studies degrees.
That makes sense. The smart money doesn’t enter this market for a reason.
A lot of colleges today simply have no reason to exist. If they had to compete for students without access to government subsidies, they would go under. Good! If other people don’t want to buy what you’re selling, that is a sign you need a new job making a product they do want. That is good for them and good for you.
Federal loans inflate the cost of college, too. Because the government is the one backing the loans (and Uncle Sam has very deep pockets due to its taxing power) colleges can continually raise the price of their degrees above the rate of inflation. This is in dramatic contrast to other goods like televisions, cellphones, and computers, which decrease in price relative to inflation while increasing in quality.
Something similar should have happened with higher education. It should be easier than ever for Americans to attend high-quality colleges at low prices. That is the inevitable result of free competition. Human beings like it when things get better and do not like it when things get worse.
Getting rid of the federal student loan programs would cause costs to fall, debt loads to decrease, the number of bureaucrats to dwindle, and the number of subsidized left-wing colleges to collapse.
Academia is a hotbed of left-wing agitation. There is no reason to pour our tax dollars into these institutions. These people need to get real jobs.
Funding for the “Disadvantaged”
The rest of the Department of Education’s funding is largely spent on various programs designed to improve various outcomes for groups that, in the minds of federal bureaucrats, are particularly needy.
Here is a small selection of recipients.
In 2024, the Department of Education spent $10 billion on grants for “Education for the Disadvantaged”; $15.7 billion for special education for students with disabilities; $375 million on “Migrant Education State Grants” designed to meet the educational needs of (largely illegal) “migratory agricultural workers and fishers”; $890 million for “English Language Acquisition” programs; $110 million on special, race-based grants for Native American students; and $396 million for “Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
The emphasis on the “disadvantaged” and “special needs” raises some important questions. For instance, who are the disadvantaged? Whose “needs” are “special” and whose needs are not? Who decides?
This last question is the most important. With billions of dollars on the line, the question of who gets to decide who qualifies for funding takes on incredible relevance. For my part as a father, I believe that my children’s needs are special. I am devoted to removing their disadvantages in life in exchange for advantages.
But federal bureaucrats have a different criteria. From their perspective, I should pay and others should receive. But why should their views predominate and mine not?
At the end of the day, this is the beating heart of all political questions. In our current system, D.C. bureaucrats claim the mantle of morality. D.C. education bureaucrats Care. They are Humanitarians. They are Selfless.
Unlike business owners, taxpayers, and parents, bureaucrats never think about their own interest or happiness when making policy. They are as pure as the wind-driven snow. The fact that the four of the 10 wealthiest counties in the U.S. surround Washington, D.C. is just, uh, a coincidence, and you’re a bad person for pointing that out, okay?
The view of justice that powers America’s education bureaucracy is fundamentally left wing: From each according to his ability, to each according to his special needs.
This view is unsustainable. As time progresses, more and more Americans will see paying taxes as a game for suckers. The fights over seizing increasingly limited taxpayer resources will grow ever more vicious and intense. These fights will tear the very fabric of our civil society. You cannot have a healthy country when various factions are constantly warring to rip each other off.
We need a different model, one that doesn’t result in rampant corruption and grifting. The best thing for people with intellectual and physical disabilities is to live in a wealthy, productive, first-world economy.
The solution to scarcity and disability is production and problem-solving. The easiest way to increase economic growth is by reducing D.C. grifting and disempowering the taxpayer-funded radicals on the Left.
Americans are a charitable and decent people. Local communities, churches, and families are in a much better position to care for their disabled friends and neighbors than state-sponsored grifters. Every dollar the federal government taxes from the people is a dollar that they cannot spend on charities and productive enterprises that actually benefit the “least among us.”
It is absolutely crucial that the Right attack the Left’s claim to moral superiority. It is this claim of justice that rationalizes and ultimately defends its preeminent position in American political and cultural life. If conservatives really want to win, they need to cut the Left off at the knees; they need to pull the rug of righteousness out from under the radicals.
Slashing the Department of Education’s budget might not be politically feasible in this very moment, but it could be in the future. Everything built by human hands can be unbuilt by human hands. It took effort to build up the Left’s network of grifters and gatekeepers. It will take effort to undo it. But that effort is worth it, because it will make the U.S. a happier, more productive, more peaceful country. *
