If we expect that the State distributes abundance everywhere, it is necessary to allow it to collect taxes everywhere.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 218 to 221 (in French)
La République française, February 29th, 1848

In this article, Frédéric Bastiat clarifies the problem facing the upcoming Second Republic – either following the socialists who wish to grant to the government the power to do good everywhere, or following the liberals who, being convinced that it is impossible, wish to restrict the powers of government to its sovereign attributions.

Today’s quote is a warning to those who listen to the promises of the former – these promises need to be financed and the logical consequence is the situation in which we find ourselves today in 2024, when the weight of mandatory levies is such that the French economy is on its knees (when I am writing these lines, the borrowing rates of the French government have increased in six months above the rates of Portuguese, Spanish and Greek governments). The tragedy is that this is a spiral out of which it is impossible to escape without pain. We are observing today that the proposals made in order to vote the budget all consist in increasing further the taxes that have led to this situation, thus ensuring that the economy will deteriorate further in the near future.