Tax cuts + tax havens = rightwing agenda.

• Author: Graves, Lisa
• Position: COMMENT - FreedomFest - Conference notes

The banner that caught my eye on the program of FreedomFest, the largest gathering of right-wing activists in the United States this year, read: "Escape from America."

One of the actual presentations under this theme was "The Belize Advantage," as in the small country on the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico about 300 miles south of Cancun.

Its virtues--as a tax haven for Americans looking to minimize or avoid their tax obligations in the United States--were extolled.

"They speak English!"

So, there's no need to bother with learning a second language if you move there.

Belize's relatively high per capita income masks a dramatic gap between the rich and working poor--the servants--servicing Americans escaping from America.

That gulf was of little or no concern at FreedomFest. Nor is the growing chasm in America.

A number of panels featuring bankers from Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Cook Islands, and other corporate and individual tax havens were interspersed between presentations calling for cutting taxes even more and limiting government spending in America on Americans.

The billionaire oil barons David and Charles Koch weren't there. But several of their anti-tax, "limited government" advocates and allies were.

FreedomFest was more like KochFest, although there is no indication they fund it directly.

It is stocked with "experts" from operations funded by the Koch family fortune, such as the International Society for Individual Liberty, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research.

FreedomFest included presentations on F. A. Hayek's economic theories that the Kochs have helped save from obscurity.

Their most basic claim is that government spending is communist/socialist and doesn't grow an economy, but cutting taxes does. Yet, there is a mountain of evidence against this--most recently in the Kochville that Kansas has become and the Potterville that is now Wisconsin. Hayek claimed big government was the "Road to Serfdom," but it turns out unrestrained capitalism that protects the richest few is the real road to serfdom.

Other Koch-ites at FreedomFest included the Koch-funded Atlas Network and state "stink tanks," plus the Charles Koch-created Cato Institute, the Koched-up Heritage Foundation, and the Koch-fueled Reason Foundation/magazine, where David Koch is a longtime board member.

"Making Free Markets Sexy" was the title of the panel featuring the Independent Women's Forum, which is very dependent on big...