Free Republic

Sen. John Ensign Proves that Bush Tax Cuts Increased Federal Revenue and in fact the deficit is caused entirely due to the spending. I love his chart and it is indicative of what it takes to push back against Democratic Talking Points and I think represents the kind of communication that Conservatives have to emulate.

In the current jobs debate, one simple economic truth is often neglected: Low tax rates produce more government revenue, not less, and allow more private-sector jobs to be created. Why? Low tax rates leave more capital in private hands to be invested in the marketplace. As simple as this sounds, it's nonetheless often ignored by policy-makers. In short, capital in the hands of private entrepreneurs is invested, which is more efficient than giving it to the government to spend. Not that job creation takes place at the same pace everywhere when rates are cut. Large corporations, small businesses (including individual...

[snip] U.S. fiscal policy has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time. But this year the U.S. government declined to lay out any plan to balance its budget ever again. Based on President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a deficit that starts at 10.3% of GDP in 2010. It is projected to narrow as the economy recovers but will still be 5.6% in 2020. As a result the net national debt (debt held by the public) will more than double to 90% by 2020 from 40% in 2008. The current Greek...

The Laffer Curve is a simple idea: a government can’t raise taxes forever and expect to increase revenue along the way. Eventually you’re taking so much in taxes that people don’t have any reason to earn income. The argument is simple (and correct): if you have zero tax rate you get zero tax revenue. If you raise taxes just a bit, nobody will be discouraged from working, and you will collect some amount of revenue; therefore, the curve of revenue versus tax rate starts at zero and initially rises. But if the tax rate is 100%, nobody has any reason...

Will increasing tax rates on the rich increase revenues, or hold back the economy? Mr. Hauser uncovered the means to answer these questions definitively. On this page in 1993, he stated that "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP." What a pity that his discovery has not been more widely disseminated. The chart nearby, updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law. The federal tax "yield" (revenues divided by GDP) has remained close to 19.5%, even as the top tax bracket was brought down from 91% to...

Kurt Hauser is a San Francisco investment economist who, 15 years ago, published fresh and eye-opening data about the federal tax system. His findings imply that there are draconian constraints on the ability of tax-rate increases to generate fresh revenues. I think his discovery deserves to be called Hauser's Law Like science, economics advances as verifiable patterns are recognized and codified. On this page in 1993, he stated that "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP." The chart nearby, updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law....