New DFC Blog

The Democratic Freedom Caucus has moved to a new blog site, Freedom Democrats. The DFC, in case you don't know, is a libertarian caucus in the Democratic Party. Among other distinguishing features, it's sort of pseudo-, quasi-, crypto-Georgist.

(I probably shouldn't use the G-word, because it always gets me in trouble. The DFC isn't officially Georgist, and not all its members consider themselves Georgists. But a majority of DFC members probably believe that "land is different," in some sense, because "they're not making any more of it," and that economic rent on land is different from the returns on labor and capital. And most probably agree with the classical liberals that a tax on site-rent is the least burdensome and unjust form of taxation. To the average layman, "Georgist" is probably as good a shorhand term as any for that cluster of beliefs.)

A lot of DFC members like the term "Jeffersonian Democrats," alluding to a sort of nineteenth century decentralist libertarianism that's not just a poorly disguised apology for big business interests. Here's how one member put it in a press release a couple of months ago:

"We advocate tax cuts and ending welfare," says Thomas Knapp, 38, of St. Louis, a member of the new DFC affiliate. "But we tend to favor cutting taxes from the bottom up instead of from the top down, and to place a higher priority on ending corporate welfare than on ending the food stamp program for the working poor."