Not a Question of Ought

When it comes to the economic policies of the government, the way we tend to treat governmental policies are that the government can or cannot do certain things based on some sort of moral authority.

While the state is certainly bound to moral restrictions, it seems quite possible to me that many governmental economic policies need to be evaluated on the basis of effectiveness rather than the basis of morality.

Most governmental policies are ultimately amoral in nature. The government is morally allowed to redistribute money around. The entire function and legitimacy of government is involved with taking money from the citizenry and using it to perform its God-given functions.

Within those God-given functions, there is a good amount of amoral space where the government can look to determine how they should operate. It becomes difficult to say that many actions are simply wrong when viewed within these frameworks.

Thus, when evaluating economic policies, it is probably better to answer the question, what would the consequences of this action be, not what is the moral questions. Ultimately, there are few governmental actions that actually fall outside the realm of morals.