What Mike Lee Can Teach The Republican Establishment And Libertarian Populists

Conn Carroll has some kind things to say about Mike Lee and I agree that Lee’s approach to policy is vastly better than that of the Republican establishment as seen in the Republican National Committee’s autopsy (basically counseling ”comprehensive immigration reform” and deemphasizing social issues while ignoring the party’s weaknesses on economics). Carroll wants to claim Lee for the libertarian populists. I’m all for the libertarian populists adopting Lee’s policy proposals, but this statement brought me up short:

There simply is no major difference between Lee’s limited government vision, and the one espoused by most libertarians, including Rand Paul.

That isn’t quite true. Mike Lee’s tax plan would cut the tax liabilities of working parents who are at or just under the earnings median. Rand Paul’s tax plan would tend to raise the tax liability of working parents who are at or just under the earnings median- and the more children the parents had, the bigger tax increase those parents would get.