AS CERTAIN AS THE MORNING SUNRISE
PLEASE HELP KEEP IT THAT WAY
Click the Pic
Support Free Republic
Posted on 01/16/2012 6:05:56 AM PST by Kaslin
In the past 20-plus years, I’ve seen all sorts of arguments for class-warfare taxation. These include:
I suppose leftists deserve credit for being adaptable. Just about anything is an excuse for soak-the-rich tax hikes. The sun is shining, raise taxes! The sky is cloudy, increase tax rates!
But if there was an award for the strangest argument in favor of higher taxes, it would probably belong to a group of academics who have concluded that “progressive” tax systems make people happier.
I’m not kidding. There’s a new study making that assertion. Here are some passages from an announcement by the Association for Psychological Science.
…a new study comparing 54 nations found that flattening the tax risks flattening social wellbeing as well. “The more progressive the tax policy is, the happier the citizens are,” says University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi, summarizing the findings, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. …Well-being was expressed in people’s assessments of their overall life quality, from “worst” to “best possible life,” on a scale of 1 to 10; and in whether they enjoyed positive daily experiences (such as smiling, being treated with respect, and eating good food) or suffered negative ones, including sadness, worry, and shame. …The degree of progressivity was measured by the difference between the highest and lowest tax rates, corrected for such confounding factors as family size, social security taxes paid, and tax benefits received by individuals. The results: On average, residents of the nations with the most progressive taxation evaluated their own lives as closer to “the best possible.”
The actual study isn’t available yet, but the release from APS screams junk science – especially since a study of American states found that high taxes lead to unhappiness.
But we should be skeptical of all this research. There are myriad pitfalls, including cultural differences.
But the most obvious problem is causality. Even if we assume it’s possible to make accurate cross-border comparisons of happiness, is there any reason to think that progressive tax rates are a causal factor, one way or the other? Heck, we may as well assume that crowing roosters cause the sun to appear.
Here’s one very obvious guess about what may cause the APS results. I’m guessing that people in Sweden and Denmark say they are happy. That’s not too surprising. They live in rich countries. But those countries became rich before the welfare state began and before high tax rates became the norm. So does it make sense to say they are happy because of high tax rates?
People in Mongolia and Bulgaria, by contrast, probably aren’t as happy as people in the Scandinavian nations. They live in relatively poor nations that suffered from decades of communist enslavement. In recent years, though, both nations implemented flat taxes in hopes of spurring growth and catching up to the rest of the world. But progress doesn’t happen overnight. So does it make sense to say that they are unhappy because the tax system isn’t “progressive”?
Ironically, the APS release does include the following results.
Higher government spending per se did not yield greater happiness, in spite of the well-being that was associated with satisfaction with state-funded services. In fact, there was a slight negative correlation between government spending and average happiness.
Since we do have good evidence that economic growth suffers as government expands, this conclusion makes a lot more sense.
But I’m still skeptical about happiness studies. Seems like they might suffer from the credibility issues associated with global warming research.
Actually, I retract that statement. Happiness research may be imprecise and susceptible to bias, but I doubt people in that field would ever make a claim as absurd as global warming causes AIDS. And I doubt they would try to do something as stupid as rationing toilet paper or create something as silly as a hand-cranked vibrator.
When people make claims like this I make my best moral outrage face and scream “That’s racist!”
Usually shuts’em up.
(those “progressive” European societies are 99% white, blond, and blue-eyed, aren’t they?)
Ping
>>On average, residents of the nations with the most progressive taxation evaluated their own lives as closer to “the best possible.”
I believe it and its not that hard to understand either, which is why the battle may in fact be lost already.
A ‘more progressive’ tax code, by definition means richer people pay more, and since the rich, however you want to define it, are a very small percentage of the population, if the vast majority of the low and middle income folks, can get more/better government services, and someone else pay for most or all of it, why wouldn’t the ‘average person’ be happier?
I am not saying its good for the long-term outlook of the economy, but its not very hard to understand why its a desirable goal for many.
Seems good for those people on it's face, but each generation has to have their 'Jimmy Carter moment' to realize in practice it doesn't end up working well for anyone."
PLEASE HELP KEEP IT THAT WAY
I’d Love To Change The World
(Alvin Lee)
Band - Ten Years After (Nottingham England)
Sept 25, 1971
Album: A Space In Time
Spoken ‘Now, turn on’
Everywhere is freaks and hairys
Dykes and fairies
Tell me where is sanity?
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till we run out, rich no more
I’d love to change the world
(Dee-dee-dee-dee)
But I don’t know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I’ll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo
(Be in my prayer)
Population, keeps on breedin’
Nation bleedin’, still more feedin’
Economy
Life is funny, skies are sunny
Bees made honey, who needs money?
Monopoly
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
So I’ll leave it up to you-you-ooo
(We-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
Oh, yeah! <guitar break)
(Rich or poor)
(It’s your fault)
(Screw you)
More pollutions, there’s no solutions
Restitution, mass confusions
Spread the word
Rich or poor
Save the earth
Stop the war
Spoken:
(And we’ve got nothin’ to do)
(Just turn on)
I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you-ooo-ooo, woo-ooo
Woo-ooo-ooo-ooo
(Dee-eee-dee-dee-dee-dee)
Just turn me on.
~
“but each generation has to have their ‘Jimmy Carter moment’ to realize in practice it doesn’t end up working well for anyone”
Or worse. Just ask the people of Greece and their increasing suicide rate.
And yet, even if we had “soak the rich” taxes it wouldn’t be enough to pay for our current entitlements and spending. What Obama doesn’t want to tell anyone is that in order to pay for our current Social Welfare State, there will have to be a huge tax increase on the Middle Class. For way too long, America has wanted to have its cake and eat it too — spending more on entitlements and other programs while keeping taxes low, or only taxing “the rich.” That is why spending keeps increasing under Democrat and Republican presidents, while the top 10% pay 71% of all income taxes.
We’ve maxed out our credit card so the next play will be a huge tax hike on “the rich.” That will result in small businesses going under and a loss of jobs. It also will result in the rich not taking income as income anymore (see Sweden circa 1975 if you want to know where we are headed). Then the beast will need more revenue so the upper middle class and then them middle class will get hit. It won’t be a pretty sight.
>>Seems good for those people on it’s face, but each generation has to have their ‘Jimmy Carter moment’ to realize in practice it doesn’t end up working well for anyone.”
I agree completely, but there are darn few people left in this country that think about anything more than 3 months in the future - it’s all about instant gratification and what works now - worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Which is why I have very little hope for anything but slowing down the decline of the country - no matter who is elected.
A much better approach uses simple logic.
1) Any amount of cash over $100,000 should be invested, or the person who has it is not using it wisely. So almost all who do have this amount or more, do invest it.
2) Amounts of money of $10m or more become increasingly hard to invest, in traditional investments. So those who have this much or more hire experts to invest it for them. However, the larger these investments going, the less they are like investing, becoming increasingly hedge-oriented wealth *preservation*, and then more like gambling. And this is where the real problem lies.
3) Both hedging and gambling are poor uses of wealth, as far as the economy is concerned. But taxing away this wealth is even *less* beneficial to the economy.
4) Therefore, the *better* alternative is to create investment schemes that the rich will want to use, *and* will benefit the economy as a whole.
Things such as starting new businesses, research and development, and resource development would be very good for our country and could be more profitable for the wealthy.
This means that by changing tax policy to disfavor both hedge and gambling, and encourage these other investments would be beneficial for everyone, as well as being fair.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
