Let us just say at the outset that we neither have nor desire any truck the idea of giving up American citizenship. Those who do it are making a choice that we can’t ever imagine making ourselves, even for the amount of money — $67 million — that Eduardo Saverin is reportedly in line to save by abandoning his American citizenship and moving to Singapore in advance of the payout from Facebook’s public offering. Mr. Saverin himself is being quoted in the papers as denying he had tax motives for abandoning his citizenship, but he seems from a distance to be the kind of sad figure he was portrayed as being in the movie “The Social Network.”

In any event, neither do we have any truck the idea that the way to deal with the Eduardo Saverins of the world is to pass Soviet-style exit taxes to force them to pay for the privilege of leaving America. This is what Senator Schumer and his fellow Democrats announced today. One would think that as leaders in the party that once boasted the membership of Henry “Scoop” Jackson they’d have known better. Jackson was the senator from the Washington who sprang into action when the Soviet Union unveiled a scheme to use exit taxes to block Jews from fleeing the communist tyranny. That was back in September 1972. Jackson proposed legislation that would link access to benefits of trade with America to communist countries liberalizing their emigration rules.

Jackson made his proposal at a national assembly that had been convened at the headquarters at Washington of B’nai Brith. Jackson’s proposal was the beginning of what became known as the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, named after the senator and also Congressman Charles Vanik, who was from Ohio and another Democrat. The amendment became law and stands as one of the most remarkable and potent pieces of legislation from the years of the Cold War. It forced a retreat by the Soviet party boss, Leonid Brezhnev, and the communist camarilla. Their “ransom taxes” made people only more desperate to get out, and Jackson-Vanik threw into sharp relief the fact that people were staying in the communist country not because they wanted to but because they had to or because they couldn’t afford to leave.

This is the way Senator Schumer’s exit-tax scheme would backfire on America. So far the number of expatriates, that is, people actually giving up citizenship so as to escape American taxation, is relatively modest. ABC news puts the number who gave up American citizenship last year at 1,700. That may be low but it’s higher than it was, no doubt a reflection of the fact that Americans are currently facing not only a high tax burden growing government mandates and regulations. The way to deal with that is not to raise taxes still further or seal more loopholes or add new taxes, which is what Senator Schumer wants to do. It is to lower and flatten the tax burden and to restore a sound currency. That will create an environment where the entrepreneurial geniuses and risk takers will want not to flee America but to stay here.