[Colinsky]

Politicians have what economists call a zero-elasticity vision of the world. In other words, they're fool enough to believe that people will behave after taxes are levied just as they behaved before and that the only effect of a tax is to bring in more revenue.

Williams explained it in a previous essay:
"In 1990, when Congress imposed a luxury tax on yachts, private airplanes and expensive automobiles, Sen. Ted Kennedy and then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell crowed publicly about how the rich would finally be paying their fair share of taxes.

"But yacht retailers reported a 77 percent drop in sales, and boat builders laid off an estimated 25,000 workers.

"Kennedy and Mitchell simply assumed that the rich would behave the same way after the imposition of the luxury tax as they did before and the only difference would be more money in the government's coffers. They had a zero-elasticity vision of the world, namely that people do not respond to price changes."

[supercat]

They had a zero-elasticity vision of the world, namely that people do not respond to price changes.

To further illustrate the leftist perception of reality: if someone were to propose cutting the tax in half, not only would leftists would say that the government couldn't afford it, but if sales of the goods in question were to go up tenfold the Democrats wouldn't see that cutting the tax rate had actually increased revenue 400%, but would instead see that the tax cut had cost ten times as much as predicted.