Replies

The two have very little to do with each other.

No, they have a lot to do with each other, and that discussion doesn't refute what I said at all. . .

You continue to ignore subtleties such as static vs dynamic scoring and the importance of a border adjustment mechanism in affecting the balance of trade and insist that the structure of the tax system is irrelevant. In your mind, the only variable affecting the tax system’s effect on the economy is the level of taxation, and not the structure of the system.

Ultimately that is correct.

Yes structure and some other factors contribute but they are ultimately in the noise relative to the absolute level of government involvement in the economy.

Lower taxes and raise GDP, raise taxes and lower GDP.

That is absolute.

The rest is, at best, tweaking. I think that you would find that most economists would agree that even if we could reduce the overall tax burden by 25% (which would be enormous in today’s environment), the structural problems with the current tax system would still contribute to a number of adverse economic trends.

True, but we'd still increase economic productivity dramatically in spite of those trends.

While I respect your view that tax rates are everything, I do not agree with it.

They are not everything but they are far and away the most important thing.

If someone is diagnosed with cancer and also has a zit treating the zit while ignoring the cancer is a fairly stupid course, wouldn't you say?

And yet Fair Taxers want to adress the blemish first.

I disagree.

“If someone is diagnosed with cancer and also has a zit treating the zit while ignoring the cancer is a fairly stupid course, wouldn’t you say?

And yet Fair Taxers want to address the blemish first.”

I listed the adverse economic trends in an earlier post which we would like to see addressed with the FairTax - and for which no FT opponent that I am aware of has an alternative approach to. Those included the largest trade deficit in human history and the steady erosion of our manufacturing base.

As Dr Oded Shenkar, Professor of International Business at Ohio State University has said, there is no precedent in history for any economy maintaining its viability without a robust manufacturing sector.

The Trustees of Medicare warn that we are less than 10 years away from the day in which that program will not have the revenues to pay for the benefits promised.

These are just two examples of the types of challenges which this country faces which you compare to a case of zits.

I will let the other readers of this thread decide for themselves if the economic trends that I and other FairTax supporters are concerned about are serious or not.