-
RSS Subscribe
-
Books
Luis Palau
There You Go Again………..
In borrowing a phrase from Ronald Reagan in the second presidential debate with Jimmy Carter on 10/28/80 (corrected) I will apply it this time to the tired strategy of the Democrats proclivity to raise taxes every time they get in control. You may also recall that at least partial credit has been given for Reagan’s win during the second presidential campaign to the debate with Walter Mondale where Mondale stated that he would raise taxes on Americans if he won, he lost big time.
Now the Democratic Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, is planning broad and sweeping changes to the tax system with the centerpiece being a 4% to 4.6% surtax on earning in excess of $150,000-$200,000. You know the “rich” that they keep talking about that are not paying their “fair” share. [I am not going to debunk this here again today with that endless stream of statistics that demonstrate that this is a lie.] This tax increase will also have the impact of raising taxes on investments. Now that is a real smart move and all this is just a test for an additional slew of taxes that they will propose after they win the Presidential Election of 2008. The scariest thing is that they will probably start spending that post election money now since they are so sure they will win it.
Another thing is that this is being falsely touted as a Surtax (which would be a percentage increase to the normal tax). What this amounts to is an additional two tax brackets in the existing tax structure. It also has the negative effect of further increasing the “marriage penalty” built into our tax structure.
But let me say this. I believe that Economists and Statisticians (at least the honest ones) understand that raising taxes doesn’t always produce more income. It is a more reliable precursor for provoking a recession.
I want to shout this from the rooftops once again……….You don’t establish income tax policy in order to fund what ever projects you are desirous of. You establish tax rates to maximize federal revenue without regards to spending preferences. After you establish the rate that will optimize economic growth and consequently revenues you can turn to the budget side of the matter and debate spending priorities with the income that tax policy will produce, again understanding that not all spending is equal in terms of its simulative effect on the economy.
I really think it is time for the Democrats retreat from this age old political strategy that only serves to insure the “economic cycle” of boom and bust and cause greater deficits in the long run turn to a consistent and simulative tax philosophy. Even their constituency would be much better off if that were to happen, but the Democrats ace in the hole is that their constituency really doesn’t understand this. This is all about protecting their incumbency. Hence they again turn to divisive political rhetoric and wrong headed tax policy. For a deeper explanation of this overall tax proposal by Rangel go HERE.
Don’t Let the Left (and their politicians) Lie to you
UPDATE 8/26/2007: I wanted to add that nobody “took the bait” at least not yet. That bait was the first sentence of this post “Which readers of NSL have believed that the 2003 “Bush” tax cuts were a tax cut for the rich and have not served the “non-rich” (I won’t say poor)? Now I know that M2 has been temporarily pulled away from this blog for the most part along with his particularly acerbic comments on my posts, comments and comments of some of NSL’s readers, but common I would have thought somebody would have jumped in and said “see you are like the rest of the “fat cat” Republicans in that you don’t “see” (such as Hillary often states) the poor in America. My response is, Oh yeah, I see them, they just aren’t particularly germane to this discussion.
The reason for this is because the poor in America (and a lot of others) don’t pay income taxes at all. What I do see and see as pandering nonsense is the lefts proclivity to discuss tax policy in the United States through a prism which they see as some type of un-just treatment of the poor. Not only do the poor not pay taxes at all, the “working poor” actually get a refund (and not a small one) of taxes that they didn’t even pay to begin with through the Earned Income Tax (EIT). You would think that basic civil honesty would at least force these politicians to recognize to the population as a whole that this is basically welfare on the federal level and not tax policy.
As I have stated in other posts that the spending priorities of the country should be debated in Congress and the EIT is one that should stand on the merits of its own debate apart from the tax policy of the United States. This is just another way that the left continues to “confuse” voters with the question of good tax policy. I’ll assure you that the next time the tax code takes front and center stage in the debate on the policy of the United States that they (the left) use the Tax Code and it shaping as a campaign tool to insure their continued re-election.
The Democrats in Congress will not even mention the facts of this recent WSJ article (summarized below) as they continue to debate the question as though the evidence is not in already. They are the one’s that said in 2003 that the tax cut of Bush would not cause a recovery in the economy which was in recession, but would do further damage to it. Hmmm……… :-)
I am considering offering a reward for the first reader that will remind NSL after the next tax debate if the whole process ensues with any tacit acknowledgement by the Democrats (left leaning Democrats) that the statistical results are in and have proven their sloganeering and campaigning rhetoric wrong again. This is not a matter of conservative opinion, but of recorded fact………..read on……..
ORIGINAL POST: Which readers of NSL have believed that the 2003 “Bush” tax cuts were a tax cut for the rich and have not served the “non-rich” (I won’t say poor)? As a result of these tax cuts the burden of tax revenue has intensified on the “rich.” According to the Wall Street Journal HERE the statistics for 2004 are in and the Richest 1% paid 35.7% of all taxes based on income and without the 2003 tax cuts they would have paid only 30.5%. Read more
The Most Honest, Ethical & Open Congress (ever)
The Club for growth news is reporting that the Democratic Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee David Obey (D-Wis.) is going to keep all earmarks (pork spending) out of the spending bills so the conservatives won’t have the opportunity orchestrate a grass roots effort to squelch them (so much for Democratic government). This is to frustrate the likes of Jeff Flake’s (R-Arizona) effort last year to stand against earmarks embarrassing Democrats and even some Republicans.
But don’t worry he will be re-inserting this pork spending into the conference report that will be immune from amendment and deliver all the pork he cares to order up. I hope the President has his veto pen nearby. And just think, this all while we were promised “the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history” by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Isn’t this special……..?