re: "Taxes are armed robberty" quote from a caller

This is an Objectivist Ayn Rand theory. It is a slanted theory that taxes are forced payments from the citizenry to redistribute wealth from the capable few who are productive to the masses which are unproductive.
No proof was ever presented in her works that the unproductive masses are, as she put it, "parasites." In fact, when the masses have a good opportunity for education, etc., they prove to be equally or more productive than the rich taxpayers.

It ignores the fact that the U.S. is a democracy where taxes are proposed and passed by elected representatives of the voters. If a majority of Americans do not want to pay taxes, they can vote out the government representatives who create them. This is partly what has happened in the Bush Administration.

However, removing taxes does some bad things to the country that have long-lasting effects: It undermines the infrastructure.

This country's infrastructure, via taxation, paid for universal education and reduced cost of college education in state universities. This created a huge population of educated people and raised the standard of living of Americans to a level never seen before on earth.

Other applications of taxes to infrastructure were public libraries, public roads, public transportation, PBS and NPR, unemployment benefits, Social Security, support for children, the poor, aged, and sick, and many, many other programs.

Most of the middle and upper classes in the U.S. today arrived there via these programs, plus the right to unionize.

A balance needs to be maintained between individualism and socialism - the middle ground, the mixed economy, works very well.

Ayn Rand was reacting to her childhood experience of expropriation of her family's business in Stalinist Russia and the ensuing poverty they experienced, as well as the atmosphere of persecution and fear.

The Republicans do not talk about Objectivist-Randian economics because she was also an atheist - but the organized philosophy for so-called "pure capitalism" is her philosophy of Objectivism.

Insofar as any recent Republican administration has had an organized political-economic philosophy, it has been Randian. This includes Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove.