If Musk and DOGE truly cared about closing the deficit or tax fairness, they would increase the modernization investments at the IRS. But their revealed preference is for a tax system that does not trouble the wealthy unduly, and makes taxation more voluntary, a tip jar for public services.
There are two morally justifiable ways to get paid for providing "public services":
- Voluntary contracts for those services; or
- A tip jar.
Demanding the money and threatening to harm those who don't cough up isn't "tax fairness." It's just extortion.
If politicians spend more money than they've already extorted from you on the promise to extort even more from you later, that doesn't make you a criminal, it just highlights their criminality.
As for the supposed "public services," the premise Moynihan is operating from -- that nobody will pay for them except under threat of force -- reveals their true value.
