Nine Reasons to Oppose Tax Referendums
Courtesy of Representative Jonathon Hill (Retired) and Foundation for Applied Conservative Leadership (FACL)
Most of these arguments apply equally to ANY type of referendum -- even ones that, if passed, would bring about good policy.
Nearly a decade after writing the original op-ed, I have updated, corrected, and clarified this piece for your benefit.
Please avoid the referendum trap!
Rep. Jonathon Hill (Ret.)
When I speak out against tax referendums, I'm sometimes met with surprised remarks like, "How can you be against 'letting the people decide' to raise taxes?"
Such responses fail to address the fallacies and hypocrisies behind the arguments for tax referendums.
Reason #1: Tax referendums are not popular issues.
By "popular," I mean initiated by and led by the citizenry. Every tax referendum campaign I have ever seen was initiated not by the citizenry, but by a few politicians or government officials and their cronies who stand to gain something from the tax increase.
After they get their issue on the ballot, do they sit idly by and wait for the voting public's decision?
Oh, no. In the months leading up to the election, they will mount a well-funded, well-executed PR campaign to convince you to vote their way on the issue -- to raise taxes.
They will almost always outspend the anti-tax hike opposition.
Reason #2: Voters won't be given all the facts.
Elected officials and their staffers are the only ones privy to all the facts.
They carefully guard their capitol secrets.
In my state of South Carolina, legislators have gone so far as to enact gag orders on anything that is said in a closed-door caucus meeting and have exempted themselves from open records (FOIA) requests.
For all the talk of government transparency, in practice, the relevant information won't be made available to the public.
And even if the information is given to the public, it comes in a form that the average voter will find confusing and devoid of all logic.
In the lead-up to the referendum vote, pro-tax forces will selectively feed you the facts they want you to know, and nothing more.
Voters are almost always left with no way to make a fully informed decision or confirm the validity of the politician's claims.
Motivated citizen activists might go digging but, for most, this will be difficult, if not impossible, to do.
More on this in a minute.
Reason #3: It's not the voters' responsibility to make these decisions.
Why should the voters bear the burden of research and the deep thinking required to make important policy decisions?
That's what elected representatives are supposed to do on our behalf. You can't enjoy freedom if all of your time is taken up with every decision that must be made in government. As one activist friend quipped, "We work for a living" (as opposed to politicians).
It's even worse if an elected official promises to oppose tax increases, only to punt the decision to your ballot!
If they don't have the courage to make a decision and own the result, they shouldn't be holding the office they were elected to fill.
Which brings me to the next reason...
Reason #4: Putting it on the ballot spares politicians from the future consequences of making a decision.
Political pain comes in many forms: Bad press, public embarrassment, angry voters, and worse.
Politicians try to avoid pain by doing as little as possible. One of their favorite ways to do this is with "democracy."
If bad policy is enacted by the voters in a public referendum, the politicians and their cronies will shift the blame to the citizens who voted for it.
They will claim: "The will of the people must be done!"
Of course, these politicians will never remind you of the part they played in putting it on the ballot to begin with.
Nor will they remind you that, had they not placed the matter on the ballot in the first place, the bad policy would have never passed.
Reason #5: Every referendum sets a bad precedent that erodes our actual form of government.
It is rather arbitrary of politicians to single-out tax issues to be decided by referendum.
Is a tax increase more important than, say, the entire budget? What other "important" policy decisions will they choose to make by public referendum?
The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic. It is not a pure "majority rules everything" democracy.
But wait, isn't "democracy" a good thing?
No! It's absolutely not!
A democracy often devolves into elite or mob rule, leading to rule by the corrupt, the stupid and/or the evil.
Our Founding Fathers understood this and gave us a Constitutional Republic.
In this Republic, you elect representatives to make the decisions.
Hopefully, their decisions will be less stupid than mob rule. If not, you get regular opportunities to replace them.
I think that almost 250 years later, America is living proof that this system works better than, say, France's failed democracy, which brought first The Terror, then Napoleon and ruinous wars.
Which brings us to another under-appreciated cornerstone of freedom which is undermined by ballot referendums...
Reason #6: Referendums lead to unequal representation.
In a Constitutional Republic, as long as your representatives show up for work (and most do, because they want to keep their seats and get paid), you WILL be represented in government, for better or for worse.
Don't confuse being represented with getting your way.
Being represented is solely about having some person, who you had some say in choosing, showing up and casting a vote on your behalf.
If that is a bad vote, you know who to take it up with, and you have the ability to replace them with someone else in an upcoming election. Sure, that may take hard work -- but it can be done, and often is (I did it!).
They know this, you know this, and they know that you know this. They have the right to vote as they like but must temper that with the possibility that they could lose that right.
In contrast, a ballot referendum punts the final decision to an undetermined group of voters who will show up and vote on a matter which will affect you. You don't know who they are, you can't know who they are, and you have NO say in who they are.
This replaces the duly-elected official, who represents an equal number of people, with a variable number of people who cannot be said to represent anyone other than themselves.
Thus, it is impossible for there to be equal representation.
Given that local elections have historically low turnout anyway, how can referendum proponents make the "democracy" claim when, in fact, referendums result in less overall representation?
A 67% property tax hike happened in my county after it was put on the ballot, and only 4.5% of the registered voters in the county voted!
That leads to Reason #7: By punting the decision, elected officials are failing to do the job for which they were elected.
Reason #7: It violates the oath of office.
The last Democrat Governor of my state defeated the incumbent Republican, David Beasley, with this clever TV ad: "Governor Beasley won't let you decide if video poker should be allowed in South Carolina!"
This line of reasoning can play especially well in the still-rebellious South.
But what this question really asks is this: Shouldn't I have the right to usurp the decision-making powers of our government at will?
No, you most certainly should not.
The citizens of our great Republic ratified our federal and state Constitutions and, by doing so, delegated specific enumerated powers to representatives whom the citizens elect.
If you want to direct power, you must either get elected to office or go through the process of amending and ratifying amendments to the Constitution.
Politicians who aid and abet those who would do so directly undermine the very Constitution they swore to protect.
Don't misunderstand me here: Usurping the decision-making authority of your elected representatives is NOT the same thing as refusing to recognize the unlawful decisions the elected representatives make.
Reason #8: Tax referendums are based on lies.
"We have to raise the gas tax to fix the roads."
If there was ever a popular tax increase in my state, it was the gas tax hike.
Our roads were bad, and plenty of voters who have to drive around potholes to avoid damage to their vehicles or risk injury to their loved ones would gladly pay a few pennies more per gallon.
At the time, gas was under $2 per gallon.
Lo and behold, hundreds of millions of dollars later, our roads are just as bad, and in some places, they're even worse.
The lie is that the tax increase will fund its stated purpose.
Don't think, "Yes, but this situation is different."
Citizens normally do not know what games are being played with their money behind the scenes.
Giving politicians even more money will enable them to keep playing their games and will not accomplish the sometimes-legitimate goals they claimed the added revenue would help achieve.
In other words, politicians ran out of your money because they wasted it. If you give them more, they will waste it too.
Reason #9: Referendum advocates ignore conflicts of interest.
Occasionally, there are situations where there is a decision to be made that unavoidably and directly benefits those casting the decision.
For instance, consider the matter of legislative pay raises. There's an argument made (although it's one I strongly disagree with) that we should pay legislators more so that regular working people with families to feed can afford to serve in office.
Obviously, there's a conflict of interest with legislators proposing and voting to increase their pay, one that is not mitigated by postponing the raise until after the election.
One could argue that this should be decided by a public referendum.
Strangely, though, lawmakers who would like a pay raise aren't clamoring to put this issue on the ballot. It's almost like they're afraid to find out what the voters think about their job performance!
Conclusion
Remember, when a politician tells you something, always ask, "If I believe what he says, how will it benefit him?"
Referendums are traps which are framed by politicians as issues "for the people" to decide. But, in reality, they are attempts for politicians to hide bad policy behind a wall of misinformation and insider-controlled spending.
You can't become politically powerful unless you are willing and able to connect the votes the politicians cast in the Legislative Season to the Election Season.
If a politician in your area includes a ballot referendum in their bad bill, you must still hold them accountable for their bad bill!
Tax hike referendums, in particular, are great opportunities for you to fight a defensive fight and build your list, whether you ultimately defeat it or not. But whether you defeat it or not, never let the politicians who put the tax hike on the ballot off the hook, because it's still their fault!
And a final word of caution: Don't fall for the trap of putting a referendum in your good bill!
If you do, the bad guys who oppose your good bill can vote for it if they think the people will vote it down -- and they might, because they know they have a lot more resources than you do to confuse and cloud the issue.
So why give them the opportunity to stop your good bill?
Never show your belly to the enemy.
Don't fall for the referendum trap!
In Liberty,
Representative Jonathon Hill (Retired)
P.S. Referendums are traps which are framed by politicians as issues "for the people" to decide but, in reality, are attempts for politicians to hide their bad votes and bad policy behind a wall of misinformation and insider-controlled spending.
Tax hike referendums, in particular, are great opportunities for you to fight a defensive fight and build your list, whether you ultimately defeat it or not. But whether you defeat it or not, never let the politicians who put the tax hike on the ballot to start with off the hook, because it's still their fault!
Most of the above-listed arguments apply equally to ANY type of referendum -- even ones that, if passed, would bring about good policy.
Thank you to Representative Jonathon Hill (Retired) and Foundation for Applied Conservative Leadership (FACL).
Until next time…
Please share your thoughts in the comments. Or email me, and let’s have a problem-solving conversation. I welcome ‘letters to the editor’ type emails and may publish yours. I hope we can create a caucus with positive, back-to-the-founders’-dream-for-America results. Have a topic you want to know more about?
You can always see everything on the website, ellenleyrer.substack.com.
Thanks again for reading! I’m glad you’re here!
Some housekeeping…
Going forward, you may need to check your spam folder. And please mark this address as ‘not spam.’ If the newsletter isn’t in your spam folder either, you should look in the Promotions tab.