Meet the People Who Think a Tax Increase Is an “Anti-Christian Assault”

Why some folks probably shouldn’t be on Twitter, but we’re glad that they are

A public square overrun by influencers seeking clicks has drawbacks, sure, but we should also be grateful for the unique insight it provides. To know the interior monologues of our fellow Americans had always been impossible. To know what someone says only within the safety of his tribe required being part of the same tribe, leaving us all struggling to understand the mindset in bubbles other than our own. But now we have Twitter (d/b/a “X”).

Perhaps it has always been the case that people failed to recognize which of their ideas would discredit them, but whereas such miscalculation in the past led to an awkward interpersonal encounter, now it is advertised to the world. Written words reaching the public were once intermediated by editors—an indispensable service to the writer as much as the reader, as it turns out. No longer. For whatever reason, many cannot help themselves when that giant blue “POST” button beckons.

Thanks to Twitter, and the poor judgment of the high-net-worth individuals who use it, we are all able to see that the skills conducive to becoming rich are uncorrelated to other useful skills, like critical thinking and political judgment. The entertainment of Elon Musk’s real-time education in how the federal budget works is not something any prior generation could have enjoyed. Economists likewise provide valuable insight into the sorts of things economists say and do when no one is around to advise them otherwise.

For me, Twitter has helped especially in understanding the Old Right. When I use the term “market fundamentalism,” as I’ve noted previously, it’s descriptive rather than derogatory—for better or worse, a fundamentalism really has taken hold. And yesterday we were treated to an especially unvarnished example from Richard Stern, director of the Roe Institute for economic policy and the Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at the Heritage Foundation.

With the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in its final stages of make-or-break negotiation, senators are each issuing their personal demands, and Rand Paul’s were to scale back any debt-limit increase while adding to the debt by cutting the corporate tax rate and eliminating the estate tax. This, I pointed out, was rather fanciful: “Closer to Mamdani-Land than conservatism (or libertarianism, for that matter…).” Stern responded:

Only a true socialist would try to equate the cutting business taxes to expanding government - this is pure propaganda [eyeroll emoji]

This is the problem with Oren's snake oil - he offers a world run by himself and the elites he chooses.

His work demonstrates an anti-Western and anti-Christian assault on God-given rights and he advocates for stealing from hard working Americans to feed his own self-absorbed vision.

This has no place in a political system rooted in the founding ideals of America!

Unfortunately I cannot link to that tweet, or any of the others that follow, because he has deleted them all. More on that in a moment. But let’s continue with the conversation. “I think the folks @Heritage should try to debate fiscal policy without calling opposition to deficit-expanding tax cuts and ‘anti-Christian assault’ on anything,” I said.

Stern responded:

Oren, anyone who has been in a room with you knows you don't believe people have a right to the fruits of their labors or have a right to liberty.

Your policies reduce people's value to money and would expand government control and crowd out the role that churches and families serve to build a flourishing society.

Which part of my work demonstrates an “anti-Christian assault” on which “God-given rights”?

I understand that you don't understand where your views are incompatible with Western values, but it's not on me to give you a one on one lecture to walk you through all of it. … It's not my fault if you've never read the Ten Commandments or any of the theological views of the Founders.

Some of you are thinking, I’m sure, “come on, give him a break, so he got a little heated.” Perhaps you think it exculpatory that he deleted the tweets. Fair enough. To be clear, I’m not mad at Richard, I don’t want an apology—I’m sure he’s a nice guy. But what we have here is an unfiltered view of what Richard actually thinks and, more importantly, what is commonly accepted in an atmosphere like the Heritage Foundation’s economics department.

He thought these were good tweets! Two hours after starting, he was still making his case. His colleague E.J. Antoni, Ph.D., chief economist at Heritage, retweeted the initial charge of “anti-Christian assault,” broadcasting the sentiment out to an audience ten times larger than Richard’s.

Likewise, the reason for deleting the tweets remains unclear. Anyone who says “hey, you know what, I got that wrong,” whether on a question of fact or a strongly held position, deserves full credit. Erasing the evidence sub silentio and moving on to the next fight? No points. Richard hasn’t recanted or even suggested he’d want to frame his argument differently. The problem seems to be that he found the public square inhospitable to his thinking, and he has retreated back to within his tribe to continue saying the same thing in front of an audience from which he expects greater approval and no scrutiny whatsoever.

Let’s take a look at a few features of the Old-Right thinking that has helped drive conservative economic policy into a ditch and the nation’s deficits through the roof:

1. “An anti-Western and anti-Christian assault on God-given rights” / “It’s not my fault if you've never read the Ten Commandments.”

To one unfamiliar with the Old Right’s rhetoric, the intertwining of tax policy and religion must seem jarring. But it is a natural outgrowth of the Reagan-era coalition that brought together libertarians and social conservatives and assigned the former responsibility for economic policy. How to maintain coalitional support for anti-tax zealotry and bizarre deficit-exploding constructs like “starve the beast” that have no place in a coherent conservatism? Sell them as necessary to the protection of God-given rights. Tar dissent as “anti-Christian.”

You’ll be unsurprised to learn, dear reader, that Richard could not in fact explain which of the Ten Commandments requires cutting the corporate tax rate. But no matter. This is, quite literally, market fundamentalism.

The result is a radicalism that precisely mirrors the quasi-religious fervor of the Left’s worst instincts, finding comfort in absolutist mantras that are neither true nor political popular but exert a strong gravitational pull on people looking for a certain sort of meaning.

As I wrote in the New York Times back in February:

No question, groups like these are effective on both sides, applying pressure that constrains what elected leaders think they can say and warping the agendas they pursue. But the common denominator for their style of politics, and what makes it so harmful, is a reliance on bullying rather than argument to enforce ideological orthodoxy. The groups have no prospect or intention of winning on the merits, opting instead to call names and sic the social media horde on anyone who steps out of line. They make claims at odds with reality and use eagerness to repeat them as a test of loyalty. The result is politicians acting in seemingly irrational ways, to the detriment of their own standing with voters and against the interests of the country.

Not by coincidence does the most rigid fundamentalism come to the fore at a moment its high priests are straining to carry a deficit-busting tax cut over the finish line.

2. “He advocates for stealing from hard working Americans” / “You don't believe people have a right to the fruits of their labors.”

The idea that “Taxation Is Theft” is a running joke in policy circles—the sort of thing a 16-year-old boy might wear on a t-shirt, but a sentiment most well-adjusted citizens outgrow as they mature to adulthood. Richard reminds us that not everyone outgrows it. The libertarian Right still features people who consider a move from the tax rate in effect during 2018-2025 to the one in effect during 2012-2017 to be “stealing” and assume you can advocate such a thing only if “you don’t believe people have a right to the fruits of their labor.” A lot of politicians don’t recognize that when they listen to the policy recommendations from an institution like the Heritage Foundation, they may be getting analysis premised on so absurd an ideology. They should think about it!

Is that really fair, though, calling the ideology “absurd”? Yes. Because its quite straightforward implication is that if you do believe people have a right to the fruits of their labor then you should advocate a tax rate of 0%. That’s why Richard couldn’t answer the question, “What is an appropriate tax rate that protects people’s right to the fruit of their labors, in your view?”

“Taxes should only be high enough,” he said, “to fund core government functions and the tax system should be designed to minimize harm while raising those revenues.” That might sound thoughtful and prudential, but by his own definition he no longer believes people have a right to the fruits of their labors. They can… be taxed. And if tax revenues are not sufficient to fund core government functions, taxes can… be raised. Is that the situation we find ourselves in, when we have a $2 trillion deficit and Republicans are balking at even modest spending cuts smaller than the tax cuts they want to advance? I don’t want to launch an anti-Christian assault on anything, so I’ll just say maybe.

3. “This has no place in a political system rooted in the founding ideals of America!”

Appeals to not only religion, but also “the founding,” are a classic of the Old Right. Of course, appeals to “the founding” are a classic of the New Right too, the difference being that the New Right has some awareness of what the founding actually was. The founders, after all, came together to form a more perfect union, ordaining and establishing a Constitution and granting Congress the power of taxation. Presumably they also believed people had a right to the fruits of their labor. Both can be true.

The New Right also tends to have a better understanding of the ensuing 250 years of American history, in which our political system countenanced and conservatives advanced a great many arrangements of which the fundamentalists seem unaware. Ronald Reagan raised taxes five times. The Cato Institute called him “the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover.” The press conference at which he said, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help,” was called to announce “record amounts of assistance” for farmers, “spending more in this year alone than any previous administration spent during its entire tenure.” A political system rooted in the founding ideals of America has room for a wide range of ideas; a fundamentalism accommodates only one.

If any of this is unfair, I of course welcome Richard’s clarification. I’ll send it out to all of you via Substack. We’ll have him on the American Compass podcast for a conversation. But don’t hold your breath. Richard tweeted it because it’s what he thought, and because it’s what he hears all around him, and because he assumed it holds up well. His colleague retweeted it for the same reason. Yes, it was mean-spirited, but that’s OK, the tone is a common if not especially civil one. What’s not OK is that it was wrong, and an economic agenda built atop it is wrong too. If Twitter helps conservatives to see that, we should be grateful.

- Oren