Posted on 03/21/2010 6:07:42 AM PDT by reaganaut1
LAST year’s stimulus spending is running out, yet unemployment stays stubbornly near 10 percent. And as state and local governments keep cutting their budgets, the economy desperately needs an additional spending boost. Concerned about growing federal deficits, however, many in Congress appear reluctant to act.
Their worries are misguided. Yes, deficits are bad, but protracted unemployment is far worse. Still, it seems unlikely that additional stimulus legislation can attract the supermajority now required to clear the Senate. And even without such legislation, huge budget deficits loom for years. In the long run, these deficits will impoverish our grandchildren, just as the deficit hawks assert.
But an effective remedy is at hand. A simple revision to current tax policy could spur an immediate burst of nongovernment spending that would help restore full employment without adding to the deficit. And this same revision would simultaneously create a relatively painless new revenue stream that would help balance future budgets.
What I have in mind is a surtax on extremely high levels of consumption. It would be enacted right away, but not take effect until unemployment again fell below 6 percent.
More than 99 percent of households would be exempt from this tax, which would be levied only on families earning more than $1 million who consume more than $500,000 annually.
These families would continue to report their incomes to the I.R.S., but also their annual savings, much as they now document contributions to tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Consumption would then be calculated as the difference between reported income and savings.
Once consumption topped $500,000, the families would be subject to the surtax. Rates would start low but rise as consumption grew.
(Here are a few more details: Loan repayments would be added to the savings total, thereby reducing potential tax liability.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The marxists are never-ceasing in their creative thinking to find ways to steal people’s money in order to bribe parasites for votes. They just don’t stop.
Only problem is this whole notion is based on a fraudulent assumption. Government Stimulus spending does NOT create sustained employment and economic growth.
The Japaneses, faced with a similar economic contraction tried this Demand side theory all during the 1990s. It failed...utterly
Someone needs to tie every member of the US Junk Media down and read to them this book. They all push this fraudulent notion that Government Stimulus spending will create jobs. No it will not
Japan's Lost Decade: Origins, Consequences and Prospects for Recovery by Gary Saxonhouse and Robert Stern (Paperback - Mar. 12, 2004)
That is all the left can think to do. One tax after another, endless tax increases on anything and everything - all in a desperate attempt to keep the government spending spree going.
Hopefully one day we get an actual conservative administration that spends each and every day finding programs to cut. I would just love to have a President who came out every day and announced what programs were slated for elimination, how much money that would save, how much tax payers could expect back, etc.
Great idea, from the viewpoint of an Obama-Commie. You get this passed, then extend it downward each year as more “emergencies” arise. After a while, you won’t have to do anything, because inflation will automatically get more and more of the productive middle-class into the grasp of this new tax.
So, in other words, if I make over $1,000,000 per year and have expenses over $500,000 - including domestic staff - I would have to pay higher taxes. I guess it’s time to fire some of the domestic staff, thereby increasing the unemployment rate.
You want to tax job sustaining economic activity and kill THOSE JOBS TOO?!?
How stupid are these people?
Get government out of the way! If they had, the crisis would be ending already!
Frank’s proposal is a good start. He could improve upon it by rescinding the tax for anyone who had a government appointment, because of their special status in helping society.
A big “/s” goes here.
They are smart....they are collapsing the economy and creating the ultimate crisis........
The welfare-weasels will crawl up a thousand Mayan temple steps to get they "free cup-O-rice" and be surprised when their beating hearts are cut out before their bulging eyes while their family awaits their turn at the alter.....
Promoted as applying only on the things that rich people consume, it, too, turned out to be a colossal failure.
“Hopefully one day we get an actual conservative administration that spends each and every day finding programs to cut. I would just love to have a President who came out every day and announced what programs were slated for elimination, how much money that would save, how much tax payers could expect back, etc.”
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I expect to see that in my lifetime...of course I expect to live to be ten thousand years old too.
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