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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (127424)	4/23/2011 5:48:39 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Bush did allow an expiration date, so it was temporary. Sure. But if you allow a temporary tax cut to expire its still an increase. For a decade people have been paying a lower rate. Now the idea is for them to pay a higher rate. That's a tax increase, and not just in some obscure theoretical way, it directly hits them in the wallet. Return rates to the days of the Clinton budget and the deficit is histoire. False. It wouldn't even seriously dent the defict, and that's with static analysis. Add in the negative economic impact of higher rates, and the fact that higher rates encourage more avoidance (legally finding ways to reduce your tax liability) and evasion (illegally doing the same), and the extra revenue would be even less. Spending is out of control. No income tax rate will be enough to give us a sustained balanced budget, without spending restraint. An 100% rate (assuming no harm to the economy, and no extra avoidence and evasion) on the top 10% wouldn't eliminate the deficit. Doubling the personal income tax rate for everyone, wouldn't eliminate the deficit. Extreme rate nearing 100 percent applied widely not just to the rich, could do it but only if you assume that revenue would go up linearly with the rate increase but that wouldn't happen, you get diminishing (and eventually negative), revenue returns as rates climb. And that's just today's deficit, with entitlement spending going forward we would still have a problem even if the budget was currently balanced. We have never, with any top rate up to 90%, gotten enough revenue as a percentage of GDP, to pay for the spending we will have if we don't reign in entitlements.