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To: Kellis91789
Has any university or group developed a econometric computer simulation of a cross section of the population using our current tax system and perturbed it with this massive tax change - I say the government (the people) must do this before running the experiment on the whole nation. Use the scientific approach, have several groups simulate the effects of the change, cross checking and correcting results.

Then facts about who wins and who looses, and the consequences to the economy could be presented and considered, rather than speculation and soap.

222 posted on 09/13/2005 4:50:46 AM PDT by GregoryFul
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To: GregoryFul

It would be nice if that could be done. I think the models done at Heritage, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard have done those things. I've only seen very broad summaries of how various groups are affected.

Then again, the CBO and the Joint Committe for Taxation in Congress are charged with doing this sort of analysis and historically are never even close. These are the people that projected a tax-revenue increase from the luxury tax and instead destroyed the yacht-building industry and had a net loss in revenue. They are also the ones that expected a revenue loss from the Bush tax cuts and instead we've had a revenue increase such that the deficit is $100B less than projected.

I don't have much faith in these estimates.

It also begs the question: Is a tax a "good" tax for somebody just because it mean a lower tax for that person ? This is the game that has been played with the income tax -- one group is singled out as prey for a tyranny of the majority. The next year it is a different group. Government gets bigger and bigger as long as a majority thinks they won't be paying for the increase.

Why can't we decide based on the philosophical approach ?

If you want to plug your own numbers -- or any hypothetical person's -- into a calculator, there is one available at:

http://www.salestax.org/FairTaxCalculator.htm

And this is a comparison of various tax plans including tax rates by income group:

http://www.pafairtax.org/resrcs/FlatTaxFairTaxComparison.pdf


226 posted on 09/13/2005 12:49:14 PM PDT by Kellis91789
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