You Can't Soak the Rich [Regardless of tax rates, federal tax revenue is always 19.5% of GDP]

Wall St. Journal ^ | May 20, 2008 | David Ranson

[Balding_Eagle]

You forgot the SARCASM OFF tag at the end.

[Myrddin]

If the economy slows and revenue slides, then they’d have to make budget cuts, wouldn’t they?

There is the fallacy in your logic. They never cut spending. There is no care for whether spending creates a deficit. It's the same logical fallacy that haunts the "fair tax" people. They mistakenly believe that reduced revenues would result in reduced spending. Politicians have a mental disconnect on the concept with living within a budget.

[Tublecane]

“Politicians have a mental disconnect on the concept with living within a budget.”

But there must be a way to stop them, short of the impossible dream of electing people that will shrink government. How about runnaway inflation, Weimar-style?

[Myrddin]

But there must be a way to stop them

Choose well on Nov 4th.

[Tublecane]

“Choose well on Nov 4th.”

What, are you kidding? Have you listened to McCain? He’s behind the bailouts, he wants to cover people when they move from job to job, and he wants nationalized community colleges. Need I go on?

[Cruz]

ping

[reed13]

save for later

[Myrddin]

McCain isn't the only person on the ballot Nov 4th. You'll be electing a Congressional Representative, possibly a U.S. Senator, state and local officials and possibly deciding on ballot measures. The Presidency is important, but it's not the whole enchilada. Electing conservatives to the legislative branch is every bit as important. Look at the last two years with Pelosi running the House and Reid running the Senate. That needs to be turned around.

[CutePuppy]

Two minor (nitpicking) points:

1. something as large and apparently complex as the U.S. economy nevertheless has an inherent regulation, almost like homeostasis, that is basically impervious to government meddling.

IMHO, not really. The economy will shrink, expand or growth rate slow down at different rates due to government meddling (tax rates and regulation) according to Laffer Curve, the tax revenue collected by the government will stay almost constant as a percentage of the GDP / economy, according to Hauser Law.

2. I wonder if research would show that the percentage of wealthy, middle class and poor stays about the same...

I don't think research is necessary. By definition, generally the "wealthy, middle class and poor" are expressed as percentile of population, so then by definition, the percentage of each group would stay exactly the same, unless groups percentiles are defined differently / changed.