Stealth tax hikes
Sorry for all the economics-related stuff today, but that's just sort of how it worked out. From the "picture is worth a thousand words" department, here's a chart from today's Wall Street Journal that nicely illustrates the wisdom of making Bush's tax cuts permanent. Far from keeping us in an economic hole, as Bush's critics would have us believe, preserving these tax cuts are necessary simply to keep the overall tax burden within it historical limits.
Comments
You're apologizing for economics-related stuff?
What has this world come to, I ask you?
Posted by: Adam | February 7, 2006 06:42 PM
You like charts, don't you?
Did you happen to notice this chart only goes back to 2003? Some historical record you got there...
Posted by: Bob | February 7, 2006 07:58 PM
Actually it's a projection graph - projecting outward into the future, there Bob.
The argument it makes is that the Bush "tax cuts" merely keep the tax bite at slightly above the historical average through about 2016, or so.
The real complaint SHOULD be, "How do tax CUTS only maintain that bite at slightly ABOVE that average?"
The answer is that more taxes have been added to the books over the past few years and like the INCOME TAX, they're all geared at working/paycheck-earning Americans, because "THAT'S where the money is."
I'm deeply disappointed that the current administration didn't make real tax reform (replacing the Income Tax..."Ending, NOT mending it") like eradicating the Income Tax and replacing it with some sort of Consumption based tax, like the Fair Tax or NRST.
That should've been priority ONE, fixing Social Security should've taken a back seat. Hell, Social Security may not be able to be fixed at this point and may go the way of the GM pension and the Do-Do bird.
We have been walking on the thin ice of the entitlement society for the past fifty years and there's been a tremendous warming trend over that time...that ice is getting thinner. It's already faling in Europe, where that entitlement society was much more pervasive and entrenched, and it's begun to fail here too.
Posted by: JMK | February 8, 2006 09:50 AM
I know it's a projection, Barry however made a point about 'historical limits' and as far as I can see this particular chart doesn't make that case.
I agree a consumption tax, or something similar, makes a lot of sense.
As far as soical programs in Europe failing, well you're wrong there. They're being reined in a bit becuase they went a bit too far, but that's all. We'll eventually move in the same direction and have reasonable social programs here as well. I hope sooner rather than later.
Posted by: Bob | February 10, 2006 05:28 AM