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Opening Arguments

Tax and spin

Sigh:

The current back and forth between presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Obama over changes to the tax code does a pretty good job of illustrating the choice voters will face in November: On the one hand you have President Obama, who is stumping for a pointless, ineffective, almost entirely symbolic tax hike that's more about casting blame than actually fixing the country’s considerable fiscal problems. On the other hand, you have Mitt Romney who definitely wants to not do whatever it is that President Obama is doing, and prefers do something vague and sort of Reaganesque instead, precise details TBD.

Yeah, Romney is for those Reaganesque tax cuts, but he has promised to make them "revenue neutral," so what's the point? Guess any talk of a flat tax or the Fair Tax is completely out of the question.

Comments

Harl Delos
Fri, 04/13/2012 - 10:17am

A Reaganesque tax cut is one whereyou start out with a rax rate considerably higher than we currently pay, and raise the rate higher?  Or are you talking about a different Reagan than the one who occupied the White House from 1981-1989?

I'm in favor of a fair tax.  No deduction, no exemptions, no credits. no joint returns, everybody on the same tax schedule (hey, corporations are people, right?) and you pay taxes on income, not profits.  The AMT is a mess to administer, and the Buffet/Romney Rule sounds like a really bad way to solve what is admittedly a bad situation.

Rebecca
Fri, 04/13/2012 - 10:52am

Reganesque tax cuts were illusory. Gov't revenue average 18.2% of GDP during his administration compared to 18.1% for the 40 year average. Spending under President Reagan averaged 22.4% of GDP compared to 20.7% of GDP for the 40 year average.

Included in his administration were about a dozen measures whose effect was to raise taxes.  They were advertised as "base broadening."

We need a non-partisan re-write of the entire code that includes a minimum tax for all who earn income, and a code that promotes wealth creation. If you want a "fair tax' then everybody pays something...that's fair.

One of my clients told me that the only "Fair Tax" is one that taxes the other guy.  I think that is the attitude of far too many people.

Harl Delos
Fri, 04/13/2012 - 10:11pm

Rebecca: We need a non-partisan re-write of the entire code that includes a minimum tax for all who earn income, and a code that promotes wealth creation. If you want a "fair tax' then everybody pays something...that's fair.

A least squares analysis shows the economy grew fastest when the top nominal rate was about 56%.  People generally invest out of fear, not out of greed; the strategy is capital preservation, and if they can leave their money in an FDIC-insured account and not have taxes and inflationn erode it away, that's a smart move.

This week, I'm  thinking that if Ann Romney raising a bunch of kids is work, she should've been paying taxes all along, to be fair.  I always figured raising a family was a hobby....

 

 

gadfly
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 9:40pm

The Reagan Tax cuts substantially reduced marginal tax rates compared to those in place when Carter left office.  Key to the plan, as JFK figured out before Dutch, was the reduction of taxes on investment income to an all-time low (at the time) of 20%.  This act permitted private investment to put the economy back on its feet.  Reagan (and later Bush 41) was unable to control the spending of the Democrat controlled House, so national debt increased.  

Interestingly, it took that  unworthy GOP Presidential Candidate , Speaker Newt Gingrich to wrest control of the House from the Dems in '94 with the Contract with America and it was Newt who pushed through welfare reform and limited spending to the point that Clinton was a hero for executing the only balanced federal budget in our lifetimes in the late '90s. 

To properly recognize the last GOP hero for  his  accomplishments, Republicans will nominate a liberal presidential candidate and a sponsor of mandatory healthcare to represent American conservatives in this election. Somehow in the end, the race became Anybody But Newt. Sad!

 

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