If Representative Amash is in fact willing to consider “increased revenue” (red: tax increases) as a part of any fiscal deal with Democrats, then I am afraid that I am compelled to agree with Ryan McMaken:
Justin Amash’s recent comment that raising taxes or increasing government revenues is all something he could be convinced to support, is absolutely un-libertarian. Raising taxes is not “Fabianism in reverse” or libertarian incrementalism at all. It is, purely and simply, making the government larger and stronger. Giving more resources to the government, even without actually raising tax rates themselves, is making government bigger. This is not a complicated argument.
“Starve the Beast” used to a position of mainline conservatives who didn’t even pretend to be libertarian. Justin Amash can’t even live up the professed standards of 1980s Republicans. I’m not sure if Amash has ever actually claimed to be a libertarian, but he’s not even a “conservative” by the standards of that movement as used in the 1960s and 1970s.
Nevertheless, many insist on calling Amash a libertarian, and now, for this “libertarian,” tax increases are “on the table.” This is “Fabianism in reverse” in reverse.