To: greatplains_guy who wrote (60186 ) 12/15/2012 6:52:15 PM From: TimF 2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) | Respond to The Tax Increases We 'Need'? What About the Spending We Don't? Peter Suderman |Nov. 27, 2012 3:34 pmPolitico notes , there are limits to how much money closing loopholes can raise: The biggest loopholes in the U.S. Tax Code — generally referred to as tax expenditures — aren’t just the tricks of the trade for millionaires with offshore bank accounts. For the vast majority of Americans, they’re just how things work: You don’t pay taxes on your health insurance or Medicare benefits; you contribute tax-free to your 401(k); and your mortgage interest pushes down your tax bill each year. Officials in the Obama administration have relied on these sorts of figures to argue that, well, tax rates are just going to have to go up. There's not other possible alternative! “I don’t see how you do this without higher rates. I don’t think there’s any feasible, realistic way to do it,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said earlier this month, according to The Washington Post . “When you take a cold, hard look at the amount of resources you can raise from that top 2 percent of Americans through limiting deductions, you will find yourself disappointed relative to the magnitude of the revenue increases that we need.”Obama administration can't conceive of any alternative, like, say, limiting the amount of resources the federal government consumes, and looking for ways to actually cut spending . reason.com
