The Cost of Rights
The Power to Destroy
The Greedy Hand

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The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes
BY STEPHEN HOLMES | AND CASS SUNSTEIN | W.W. NORTON & COMPANY | NONFICTION | 224 PAGES

The Power to Destroy: How the IRS Became America's Most Powerful Agency; How Congress Took Control; and What You Can Do to Protect Yourself Under the New Law
BY SEN. WILLIAM V. ROTH JR. | AND WILLIAM H. NIXON | ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS | NONFICTION | 288 PAGES

The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It
BY AMITY SHLAES | RANDOM HOUSE | NONFICTION | 240 PAGES

BY DANTE RAMOS | Out in the woods of Idaho or Montana, there are no doubt some true believers who want to abolish all taxes and survive by their guns and their fists. For nearly everybody else, from the Republican politicians who pioneered it to the Democratic president who co-opted it, anti-government rhetoric is just a melodramatic appeal for fewer regulations and lower taxes. Beyond all the posturing, the reality is obvious: People need a government; the government won't function without taxes; nobody likes to pay taxes; but when the rates are fair and the purposes reasonable, people usually fork over the money.

You wouldn't know that from the defensive tone of "The Cost of Rights," in which Stephen Holmes, a Princeton political scientist, and Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor, remind you of the virtues of taxing and spending and maintain that citizens can only enjoy a right if public officials are paid to uphold it. "As a general rule," Holmes and Sunstein argue, "unfortunate individuals who do not live under a government capable of taxing and delivering an effective remedy have no legal rights. Statelessness spells rightlessness. A legal right exists, in reality, only when and if it has budgetary costs." In other words, if squatters park a trailer in your front yard, your property rights mean nothing unless there's a sheriff with the power and the resources to evict them. If conservatives acknowledged just how dependent private wealth is upon public largess, the authors say, they'd have a much harder time objecting on principle to welfare benefits for the poor and propertyless.

Holmes and Sunstein reserve a few darts for liberals, but most of "The Cost of Rights" responds to the sort of reductive sound bites you hear when Phil Gramm gets within five feet of a microphone. Annoyed that claims of rights have "gone too far" and that irresponsible personal behavior is rampant, Holmes and Sunstein note that cigarette smoking has declined, bigoted statements have become socially unacceptable and workplaces are safer than ever. "Indeed, it would not be especially difficult," the authors declare, "to concoct a self-congratulatory report on a whole new wave of responsibility in America: whereas they used to cling pertinaciously to their selfish rights, it could be said, Americans have now learned to act with generosity, social conscience and concern for others. But why answer one half-baked narrative with another?" If Holmes and Sunstein showed any more irritation, the pages of their book would break out in a rash.

You keep expecting, though, that "The Cost of Rights" will come to powerful, astonishing conclusions about rights and taxes. It never delivers. From their initial insight, Holmes and Sunstein simply deduce the need for rights like publicly financed education, welfare benefits and entitlements for the elderly. But Americans already have these rights and will for the foreseeable future -- welfare, education and Social Security reform notwithstanding. In this respect, Holmes and Sunstein sound like soldiers fighting a battle they have already won. Moreover, "The Cost of Rights" suggests a few livelier debates that its authors decline to engage: Is the government spending too much or too little to protect Americans' liberty? Will voters tolerate the taxes necessary to pay for all the rights they desire? And at what point does the act of taxation itself begin to conflict with other rights that Americans hold dear?

The put-upon taxpayers showcased in "The Power to Destroy" probably take no comfort in knowing that their lost assets are guaranteeing somebody else's right to a per-child tax credit, and they certainly don't view the Internal Revenue Service as a force for liberty. According to William V. Roth Jr., the Republican senator from Delaware who is one of the co-authors, IRS agents commonly harass regular taxpayers with groundless penalties, illegal property seizures and intentional bureaucratic delays. When the Senate Finance Committee, of which Roth is chairman, began investigating the agency in 1996, scary stories began to surface: the New Hampshire man who kept getting nasty letters after the IRS drove him to suicide; the naive Yugoslav immigrant who was held liable for her ex-husband's $200,000 tax bill; the blind 88-year-old Idahoan who lost her home because the agency taxed her on money she didn't have. Revenge audits. Property-seizure quotas. When Roth held public hearings in September 1997, the parade of weepy taxpayers and IRS whistle-blowers created a media sensation.