Conservatives claim that high taxes reduce economic freedom of choice so tax cuts are necessary to increase freedom. But freedom is ambiguous. Freedom from taxation can also enable people the freedom to do things that are detrimental to society, as financial crises and corporate scandals illustrate. Moreover, cutting taxes and therefore the resources associated with social programs can limit the freedom of these programs’ recipients to pursue their dreams and aspirations and to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In that sense, freedom is unequally distributed in America. Poor people have fewer resources and less economic freedom than rich people. Cutting taxes to reduce welfare spending further limits the freedom of less affluent people and does little to increase freedom at the top. This is why cross-national data show that higher taxes are associated with more not less economic freedom. Cutting taxes also limits the government’s ability to provide the public goods that everyone needs.