Posted on 10/18/2010 2:27:21 PM PDT by curiosity
Not true. Please show me either where I or the author of the piece makes that assumption.
Why doesn’t McDonald’s or Burger King raise their price for a Big Mac or Whopper?
Because their prices are already set at the profit-maximizing level. Taxes are not currently at their revenue-maximizing level.
Both the price-revenue curve and the taxrate-revenue curve intersect the x-axis twice. Their is a maximum amount of tax revenue that can be taken out of an economy.
Agreed. However, we're nowhere near that point yet.
Yes, there's a tradeoff. If you increase tax rates, you increase the government's revenue share of GDP, you also create distortions and disincentives to work, which in turn made GDP lower than it otherwise would be. The revenue-maximizing tax rate is neither zero nor 100%
There are also different ways to collect taxes, and some have stronger incentive effects than others.
The VAT just happens to be one of the most efficient ways in collecting taxes, in that it distorts incentives a lot less than other types of taxes (i.e. an income tax).
So what you could do is implement a VAT of, say 10%, and the slash income taxes to around 15%. The overall tax burden would be higher, but because your are placing less of the tax on income, the deadweight efficiency loss would be lower. Both revenue and GDP would go up.
Depends on how you do it, and where on the Laffer curve you're at. You seem to think we're on the downward sloping part of the curve no matter what kind of new taxes are imposed. What makes you think that?
You balance this budget by expanding the economy, and by getting the government out of things it doesn't belong in.
I agree that expanding the economy and shrinking government are good things to do, but if you do the math, you will find that it will not be nearly enough to make the government solvent.
Left out of the entire discussion here is that Norquist is a closet Islamist, married to a Muslim woman. He took money from a pro Hamas organization.
His entire “conservative leader” life is a huge sham. He is a stealth economic Jihadist.
Google Norquist and Spencer, Norquist and Malkin, Norquist and Gaffney and you’ll find enough to support what I’m saying.
A VAT would have to be part of a large entitlement reform package. That is, I'd only support it if it were adopted in conjunction with some fundamental structural reforms of Social Security, Medicare and Medicade.
This will not be easy, I grant you, but it will be necessary. Otherwise, we're going bankrupt.
And BTW, I'm not insisting there has to be a VAT. There are other types of consumption taxes that might be better.
All I'm saying is that we need to be realistic about the fact that the Federal government is going to have to find some new sorces of revenue if we are to avoid becoming Greece. And yes, spending cuts should be the priority, but the reality is that we're never going to solve the problem with spending cuts alone.
This is a thread about tax policy, not Norquist's alleged Islmaist views.
Understood. However the credibility of the source should be considered.
Mr. Norquist is used here as the source of the argument.
No attempt is made here to side track the discussion, only to point out that the man’s motives are suspect, so that creates suspicion as to HIS position.
“So what you could do is implement a VAT of, say 10%, and the slash income taxes to around 15%.”
Why not come up with a 3rd and a 4th way to gather up federal taxes?
—Income tax
—VAT
—Method #3
—Method #4
You are the economist. Explain why 3 and 4 work well, too.
And then tell me the politicos can be trusted to keep the overall rates down, and the burden low.
Mr. Economist, please display the OVERALL rate of taxation on Americans since WWII.
It will show a big increase. And yet with the increase, we cannot (actually will not) balance the budget.
Clearly higher taxes does NOT balance budgets. Lower spending and growing economies does.
Enact the reforms first; then we can talk.
The sad truth is, Congress will not enact "fundamental structural reforms" of these so-called entitlement programs until they are forced to. So long as they can borrow money or raise taxes, they will continue to spend.
This will not be easy, I grant you, but it will be necessary. Otherwise, we're going bankrupt.
Then we should prepare for the bankruptcy of the United States government.
People need to know the whole story about Norquist.
Otherwise he sounds like a nice guy.
Which he is not.
I agree with you. Or, at the very least, we can dangle the possibility of VAT as a bargaining chip to get those reforms.
Then we should prepare for the bankruptcy of the United States government.
Wow. Are you seriously advocating a default on US Treasury securities? Think about it before you advocate it. If you thought the 2008 financial crisis was bad, you ain't seen nothing.
A US sovereign default would lead to complete and total global economic collapse and, most probably, the end of civilization. You'd wake up in the world of Mad Max.
The character of Mr. Norquist is not relevant to this discussion.
Merda del toro. You assume that the current ridiculous levels of government bureaucracy are something we can't live without.
Nice to hear of your ability to compartmentalize
How many trillion did i just free up?
The an argument stands or falls on its own merits, and its validity is independent of the character of the person making it. You may call that "compartmentalizing," but it's also basic logic.
An argument stands or falls on its own merits, and its validity is independent of the character of the person making it. You may call that "compartmentalizing," but it's also basic logic.
Hate to break this to you, but government bureaucracy isn't what's going to bankrupt us.
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