- I do not believe for even one second that revenue from new taxation will be dedicated to current spending. It will will will will will be used for new spending.
- I do not believe for even one second it's a good idea to push more and more of the income tax burden onto fewer and fewer income tax payers.
- I do believe a flatter (though still progressive), broader personal income tax with far fewer deductions, exemptions (save a large, and I do mean large, personal exemption) and treatments (e.g. wage vs. capital gains) would raise more revenue over time than our current system with less distortion.
- I do believe a tax code employing #3 will strongly discourage tax gaming.
- I do not believe for even one second either party is prepared to employ this idea because it would substantially curtail using the tax code to buy votes.
3/26/2009
My Response to E.J. Dionne
Read this E.J.Dionne article and then consider whether you agree with my views:
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5 comments:
1. We seem to be spending now without the tax dollars to support it, so I am not sure how to test the proposition.
2. Shifting the income tax burden onto fewer people is a consequence of shifting more and more income onto fewer people.
3. Yes. This is what Kemp Roth did in 1987.
4. No, winning the battle will not stop the war.
5. Yes.
Shifting the income tax burden in its entirety to fewer than one-half the population -- Obama's goal -- has nothing to do with the concentration of income and everything to do with creating a permanent parasitic class that pays not dollar one for national defense or any other governmental services, and which will reliably vote Democratic.
Hmmm, parasitic class, would that be:
1. One who works hard in a loud, dirty factory, supports their family making $28 per hour, watches management drive their company into bankruptcy and endures them trying to cut their pay to $14 per hour?
2. One who works in the financial system, makes unconscionably risky transactions that bankrupt the entire financial system, then persuades their former colleagues who have burrowed into the goverment to give them money so they can avoid bankruptcy and keep getting million dollar bonuses?
Your comment is a non sequitur; I will reply in similar fashion. There is no better example of unconscionably risky transactions that bankrupt the entire financial system, followed by the perpetrators persuading their former colleagues who have burrowed into the government to give them money than the crony capitalism perpetrated by the Democrats and evidenced by the millions absconded with by Raines, Gorelick, Emanuel et al. - portions of which lucre they obligingly shoveled back to the likes of Sens. Dodd, Schumer, Kerry, Obama et al. What were you thinking?
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