Debt and Taxes: Settled Science (To Democrats, Solving the debt problem always mean tax increases)

American Thinker ^ | 12/06/2011 | Randall Hoven

[SeekAndFind]

When a Democrat says he is serious about our debt problem, what he means is that he's pleased as punch to have another way to sell you on a tax increase. Democrats, being smarter than Republicans, use math and logic to make the case: if you raise tax rates, you get more revenue; if you get more revenue, you decrease the deficit; decrease deficits and you get debt under control.

It all sounds so simple and unassailable: debt is the disease and taxes are the cure. Colin Powell calls it algebra.

However, the hidden assumption behind all those syllogisms is everything else equal. Unfortunately, everything else does not stay equal. Believe it or not, humans tend to change their economic behavior when you change their economic circumstances. (Hard to believe, I know.) To understand that, one needs to go beyond the Music Man's "think method" and look at real-world data.

The first syllogism, that raising tax rates yields more revenue, can be demolished by one simple graph: the federal government's top tax rates and tax revenues over time. The top rate has varied between 28% and 92%, yet total federal revenues have been consistently about 18% of GDP since World War II.

For those who refuse to think for themselves and need a credentialed authority, I give you an academic study saying the same thing: the Laffer Curve is real. Science says.

But let's move beyond that first syllogism, and assume you actually get more revenue, however you managed to do that.

If debt is the disease and revenue is the cure, we can simply look at a bunch of countries and see if more revenue leads to less debt in the real world. If it does, Democrats, Colin Powell, and other tax-lovers might be onto something.

[OhhTee5]

Sine liberals can’t manage their money, so they want to take yours.

There’s plenty of money in the system, just not enough to pay the public servants enormous salaries & benefits.

So since they are never going to freeze their enormous salaries and they are the new royalty, the rest of us servs have to pay and pay and pay.

Why slaves want to give more money to the already overpaid is beyond me....but the slaves keep voting for it.

[OhhTee5]

Sine liberals can’t manage their money, so they want to take yours.

There’s plenty of money in the system, just not enough to pay the public servants enormous salaries & benefits.

So since they are never going to freeze their enormous salaries and they are the new royalty, the rest of us servs have to pay and pay and pay.

Why slaves want to give more money to the already overpaid is beyond me....but the slaves keep voting for it.

[OhhTee5]

Sine liberals can’t manage their money, so they want to take yours.

There’s plenty of money in the system, just not enough to pay the public servants enormous salaries & benefits.

So since they are never going to freeze their enormous salaries and they are the new royalty, the rest of us servs have to pay and pay and pay.

Why slaves want to give more money to the already overpaid is beyond me....but the slaves keep voting for it.