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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (210828)	12/7/2012 12:02:54 PM
From: cosmicforce	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543184

During that same period, the budget similarly deviated from reality. I do not dispute the inequality and I find this disturbing. Similarly, from a fiscal POV, most of the time under both Dems and Repubs we have been burning more than we take in. Part of this is due to the loss of wages of the middle class but also because the wealthiest pay lower parts of their total wealth toward taxes. The US is unique amongst the first world nations in not trying to tax the accumulation of extreme wealth . My brother once put it succinctly (I think he was quoting a business school professor) - "What you tax you get less of, and what you subsidize you get more of..". This has broad implications in policy. If we simply tax wealth we will have less wealth. If we subsidize extreme wealth we will get more of that. If we subsidize full employment, we get more of that. If we tax income, and subsidize idleness, then we get less income and more idleness. Government needs to be very careful that their policies do the right thing. Unintended consequences can make it so that it is easy and profitable to move jobs away from the US. Currently our tax structures do JUST THAT. If I make a widget abroad, I deduct 100% of the labor. If made in the US, I can only deduct about 60% of it.