Posted on 01/17/2017 4:34:53 AM PST by expat_panama
With their Party having won control of all three branches of the federal government in the recent election, Republican tax experts are seemingly desperate to help the GOP give back its gains. Evidence supporting this claim is the growing support among Republican tax scholars (and apparently legislators too) in favor of what they describe as a “border adjustable tax system.” They don’t call the Republican Party the “stupid party” for nothing.
The new revenue stream popular among certain members of the Republican commentariat calls for reducing the corporate tax in favor of a value-added tax (VAT) placed on goods made outside the United States, but that are exported to the U.S. The argument is rooted in numerous falsehoods, fallacies, and plain bad economics.
Advocates lament the fact that almost all countries tax U.S. produced goods that are exported to foreign countries with a VAT. The argument, if readers can stop laughing (or crying), is that since other countries injure their citizens by virtue of taxing imports, so should the U.S. injure its own.
“Not so fast” say Republican cheerleaders of this most mindless of tax ideas...
...One comical argument offered to explain what is absurd is that “we have to make things in America to make America great again.” The Republicans who still understand Say’s Law will hopefully explain to their misguided comrades that the U.S. is the world’s biggest importer precisely because its people produce more goods and services than anyone else in the world. At the same time, the Republicans who choose to understand basic economics no matter the inhabitant of the White House might also explain to the Party’s errant tax strategists that it's not the job of the American people to fund an ever bigger government in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
More free traitor bull.
Eventually, after trying everything else, the USA will once again establish a fairly high and simple import tariff.
Regardless of the subject of this article if the GOP finds it absurd that we have to make things again in the USA then the Republican Party needs to die.
Usual Forbes crap
No VAT tax without repealing the income tax.
They can’t have both.
“One comical argument offered to explain what is absurd is that “we have to make things in America to make America great again.”
That explains the whole article so you don’t have to read all the tripe contained within.
The statement was that that statement as an argument for a terrible tax is absurd. And he is correct. Pay attention!
Tell that to the person who just lost his job to the "Chinese, Japanese, Mexican that get up and go to work each day".
What a fool. Been spoon-feeding us this same crap for 30 years now.
Agreed!
Wait, what?
Are you in favor, or opposed to the BAT? Border Adjustment Tax is anti-free trade. Strangely Trump opposes it as of last night, meaning that Trump now prefers free trade, as long as that preference undermines the Republican congress.
Trump agrees that the Border Tax is bad. Keep up!
This article is nothing but blather
More free traitor bull.
Yep. I find the free traitors just as much of a cult as the global warming alarmists. Deviate 1% and you are, as we see here, “a Democrat.” Total garbage of course.
And if there is no difference, then why is Trump opposed to the border adjustment tax?
Those who mistakenly think the issue is errant “free trade”, and not global economics that is the driver of that trade (in which the U.S. HAS the economic advantage that supports our high imports) need to take their “populist” blinders off and understand the enemy is not “them”, meaning foreign producers, but us, in terms of our own high general corporate taxes and over regulation.
No tariffs or de facto tariffs are needed to correct our own tax and regulatory environment. 1. The rest - trade - will remain always driven by global economics. 2. We are always in “balance” no matter the “import/export” balance. When imports of goods are higher than exports of goods, we are importing more capital to a level equal or greater than the “deficit” in goods. If that was not the case, we could not pay for the imports. Other countries fail because they can’t pay for their imports, because their internal tax and regulatory structure does not make it favorable to......................CAPITAL.
“Populists” have by “populist” arguments taken their eye off the doughnut - capital - and are looking at the hole - trade.
Is this from the Onion or NRO?
The problem with your analysis of imports and capital flows is that you overlook an important point. Yes, it's true that all U.S. dollars that flow out of the country to purchase foreign-made things eventually come back in the form of capital investments. But one of the most profitable "capital investments" these foreign interests make is the wholesale purchase and ownership of our own government in Washington. I don't see how that works to anyone's advantage here in the U.S.
It’s all Free Traitor™ BS. Let’s get on with re industrializing the USA and that requires a tariff. Let’s argue over how much.
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