Posted on 02/17/2008 7:34:33 AM PST by DivaDelMar
In his December 24, 2007 Tax Notes article, “Why the Fair Tax Won’t Work,” Bruce Bartlett purports to critique the FairTax, a proposal to replace almost all federal taxes with a retail sales tax plus a rebate. In fact, Barlett’s article has little to say about the FairTax and even less to say that’s accurate. Instead, most of his article misstates research on the FairTax, criticizes unnamed proponents of the FairTax, lambasts unattributed views of the FairTax, and engages in political punditry. This paper takes a close look at Bartlett’s “analysis,” exposing his repeated use of straw men for what it is rhetoric disguised as economics. (1)
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Bartlett begins his critique by accosting unnamed messengers (referenced by “FairTax advocates”) for supposedly suggesting that consumer, producer, and factor prices would be unaffected by the FairTax, with workers simply keeping the income and payroll taxes that would otherwise have been deducted from their paychecks.
Clearly, such an outcome is inconsistent with elementary economics, and no serious student of the FairTax would assert such an outcome. Nonetheless, Bartlett’s devotes, by my count, some 31 paragraphs, including a primer on the Great Depression, to demolishing this straw man. (2)
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Bartlett’s second concern lies in the calculation of the FairTax rebate. He takes issue with the proposal’s treatment of childless households, suggesting that the size of their rebates are too large. From this Bartlett surmises that Congress would raise the rebates to households with children thereby “greatly increasing the cost of the rebate.” But if the rebates to childless households are too large, the solution is not to make everyone’s rebate too large, but rather to cut rebates to childless households and, thereby, reduce required FairTax revenue.
Bartlett’s next “critique” is even less memorable. He claims that Americans won’t perceive their monthly FairTax rebate check as progressive even though the rebates will be a much higher percentage of the resources of the poor than they will be of the rich. Instead, he says, households will view the FairTax as proportional because everyone will have to pay the same FairTax rate when they spend their money, no matter the source of their money. This is no different from claiming that people judge tax fairness based on their marginal rather than their average tax rates. Were this the case, marginal tax rates under our current tax system would presumably be set to rise monotonically with income, which is certainly not the case. (4)
Bartlett’s contention here is symptomatic of a pervasive failure to stick to economics. Bartlett’s expertise does not, to my knowledge, extend to psychology or political science. So when he asks his readers to accept his assessment of perceptions or his judgment of political reactions, I, for one, start feeling queasy.
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Bartlett’s first significant economic critique of the FairTax appears five pages into his article, where he states “… there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.” (page 1245) As proof of this proposition he reproduces a table (his table 5, p. 1245) generated by the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis entitled “Distribution of the Federal Tax Burden Under the FairTax.”
Notwithstanding its source, there are two major problems with the Treasury’s analysis of the FairTax’s progressivity. First, the Treasury produced this table in response to a request from President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The Tax Reform Panel was charged with considering reform of the personal and corporate income taxes. Its purview did not extend to reforming the payroll tax. As a consequence, although the Treasury referenced the FairTax in the table, the Treasury completely ignores one of the most progressive elements of the FairTax, namely the elimination of the highly regressive FICA tax. Bartlett mentions that the table considers replacing only the income tax. But he fails to mention that were the table to include replacing the payroll tax, the FairTax would look much more progressive....
THIS IS AN EXCERPT. The Full paper is available at: http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9321
If the government has an unbridled ability to print money, which they do, why do we need any system of taxation, be it based on income, consumption, flatulence, eye color, number of children, pets or any other stupid basis upon which taxes are inflicted? Why can’t they just print more peachy-green pieces of paper called money to pay all the bills?
Answer: They could and they do. The system of taxation serves only as a means by which to contract the money supply. Period.
For a bit of irreverent, contrarian, somewhat off-color humor on the subject, see: http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Writers/Mogambo/DREssays/MG021508.html
“Are we impotent? Did we not defeat the amnesty bill? Why do you attribute unbridled power to members of Congress? Do they not answer to us?”
They are. And in this age of the internet, even more so.
But, give them the Fair Tax and they will strangle us with it.
I greatly admire your passion. However, I rarely, if ever, bet against human nature. We are just going to have to agree to disagree.
Thanks for the intellectual give and take. The grey matter needs a little exercise like this now and then.
Then why aren't liberals feasting on the idea of the FairTax? Why is it mostly conservatives? And why didn't the legislative and executive branches put your goblins in place before the 1994 Republican sweep?
No, you never mentioned that you were a trust fund baby.
and in the family for the last 5 consecutive generations, with generation 6 working on his business degree?
I'll bet he's a FairTax supporter. Does your family let him think for himself?
You have no concept whatsoever of what it means to "give back" for future generations.
One of the reasons I'm such a FT fan is the idea of what it will leave my grandchildren.
You OTOH, are simply trying to justify all that money you spent avoiding the generational tax that the rest of us would have to pay for your share.
You are just a shallow petty person with a big set of "net nuts" that in reality probably punches in as the pivot man in a large Dilbert pool.
My, my. Aren't we brave hiding in our mother's basement playing with our computer.
And go ahead and mash the BooHoo button, I could not possibly care less at this point.
I don't have to. Your posts seem to disappear all by themselves.
I give up. Pass the kool-aid.
Of course it will be taxed at 30% as soon as they spend it.
Don’t run and hide. I raised legitimate questions. Please respond.
I could go for the fair tax.
Bingo!! Right on the money!!. They won't HAVE to pay the tax because they won't HAVE to spend it. And it will all be there, not just 45% of it.
You did not raise legitimate questions. You have yet to respond to my legitimate points about how easily it could be turned into a VAT.
You are avoiding the thrust of my arguments and changing the subject.
As a true-believer, I will not change your mind. You will always have a “wait, but what about....” I’ve just grown tired of playing the game. Let me know when you wish to lay down a counter-argument worth the effort of responding to that is directly responsive as to HOW a liberal majority in congress and a liberal president in the White House will not expand the Fair tax into a VAT.
Stop with the attempts to change the subject or to side-track the subject on a tangent.
Either respond directly and legitimately, or take your self-smug attitude elsewhere by telling yourself that you “won” because I refused to run-down your red-herring.
Either way, I’m tired of Fair Tax zealots ignoring the reality I have laid out and trying to drag me down blind alleys to get me away from the reaility I point out that they fear as being fatal to their dream.
Furthermore, I have not even approached the subject of how your fantasy law will double-tax life time savers. I have yet to see a legitimate response to how you manage that little nightmare for grandma and grandpa.
Don’t run and hide now. Drink up some more kool-aid and come back at me with legitimate discussion of my direct comments on this thread, or trot off down your dead-end tangent where I refuse to amuse you anymore in an effort to keep you focused on the legitimate criticisms of a fantasy that will never become reality anyway.
My motive for opposing the scheme is selfish. We are retired and have run the numbers. We will pay significantly more tax with it.
Let’s correct the problem, rampant socialist entitlement program spending, rather than messing collection system.
So, then, what's the point?
If your estate is large enough that inheritance taxes are a worry, then perhaps you should do some estate planning. Its easier and faster than counting on the passage of a bill.
With respect to double taxing Grandma and Grandpa, I ask you to consider the following:
1. They are doubly taxed now to the extent that they bear any of the economic incidence of entity level taxation; something that is impossible to predict or quantify. Grandma and Grandpa pay it in the form of higher prices and reduced nominal return on investments.
2. The Fair Tax repeals the RMD rules for qualified plans, which are designed to trigger a taxable event whether Grandma or Grandpa needs the money.
3. The net present value of the Medicare Part D entitlement is estimated at $10 trillion. Perhaps Grandma and Grandpa should pay for that instead of our children and grandchildren? The Bush inspired expansion of the welfare state raises genuine generational equity issues. I would prefer to repeal Medicare Part D, but failng that, I’m not sure it is inappropriate to tax those who benefit from the program.
4. If Grandma and Grandpa are truly wealthy, the Fair Tax repeals the estate and gift tax; greatly simplifying their estate planning and reducing their lifetime tax burden.
“Sorry...the only ‘fair tax’ is an across the board Flat Tax.”
Which flat tax proposal do you support?
“Lower end wage makers will suffer...”
With the combination of the rebate plus the pre-tax drop in prices, those living at or below the poverty level will see an actual INCREASE in their purchasing power. That seems inconsistent with your claim that lower end wage earners will suffer.
“It will throw hundreds (if not thousands)out of work in the first year.”
The economic studies have indicated that GDP growth would be in the double digits in year 1. That would create many new jobs. Just the removal of the bias that the current system provides to foreign producers in the global economy is very significant in terms of job creation, as is the making of the US as a magnet for investment capital.
“I’m starting to think ......”
Congratulations!! It wasn’t that painful, was it?
“Stumping for the FT that doesn’t address any real problems?”
So these are not “real problems”?
1. a huge and growing trade deficit
2. enormous and growing compliance costs
3. an individual savings rate now in negative territory
4. the looming insolvency of SS and Medicare
Just to name a few off the top of my head.
Must have been “off the top” of your head because there is obviously nothing in it.
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