LttE - Laffer and Hamilton were on the same page

Submitted to the OC Register on 7/19/2005:

Editorial writer John Seiler is right on the money when he reminds us about the Laffer curve and the positive effects on total tax receipts that lower tax rates tend to have. What I just realized last week is that the underlying principle of it predated Arthur Laffer by hundreds of years. “If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.” - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #21, 12 December 1787.

Someday the tax-and-spenders and Keynesians (but I repeat myself) will figure out what our Founding Fathers already knew: that government isn’t there just to spend as much money as it can coerce from its subjects, but only to exercise just enough power to secure and safeguard the unalienable rights with which we as humans are endowed.

UPDATE: A slightly edited version (mostly just wordsmithing but also removing my jab at Keynesians - dang!) was printed here on Friday the 22nd.