Amazing and ironic how a tax cut has to be "paid for" and yet piling another trillion onto the debt by handing out cash to favored constituencies is never given similar consideration.
Republican politicians use the Laffer Curve as an excuse to ignore spending ("We'll grow the economy with tax cuts, raise revenue and balance the budget". Right). They may mumble something about "non-defense, discretionary spending", which is only a small percentage of the federal budget, but they don't want to upset constituents who work for defense contractors or collect Social Security.
Also, for what it's worth, Chat-GPT tells me that federal income tax revenue would be optimized with a top rate of 68% (currently it's 37%).
The GOP loves to talk about spending when it's not in power, but loves to spend when it is. I've no delusions about their false promises and lousy track record.
As for ChatGPT, GIGO I say, but I would be curious how, in the face of Hauser, it figured that.
I was absolutely not advocating that (I would prefer replacing all current taxes with a Land Value Tax - but that's another Substack page). However, to some extent we "get away" with high marginal tax rates because high achievers have other motives besides money. Elon Musk was already a billionaire at age 31 before he got involved with Tesla. I would have just retired.
Amazing and ironic how a tax cut has to be "paid for" and yet piling another trillion onto the debt by handing out cash to favored constituencies is never given similar consideration.
They'll say "you won't let us tax the rich some more," and consider the question answered.
Or, like AOC, you say "you just pay it."
I somehow lost the first sentence of this post in publishing it. Corrected, and apologies to the email recipients.
Should the government even be setting tax policy to encourage growth in the economy?
From a libertarian perspective, no.
But, from a utilitarian and "solve the debt problem" perspective, yes.
Republican politicians use the Laffer Curve as an excuse to ignore spending ("We'll grow the economy with tax cuts, raise revenue and balance the budget". Right). They may mumble something about "non-defense, discretionary spending", which is only a small percentage of the federal budget, but they don't want to upset constituents who work for defense contractors or collect Social Security.
Also, for what it's worth, Chat-GPT tells me that federal income tax revenue would be optimized with a top rate of 68% (currently it's 37%).
The GOP loves to talk about spending when it's not in power, but loves to spend when it is. I've no delusions about their false promises and lousy track record.
As for ChatGPT, GIGO I say, but I would be curious how, in the face of Hauser, it figured that.
A 68% top rate would kill the economy.
Unless, like the 91% Eisenhower era rate, it was easily avoidable.
I was absolutely not advocating that (I would prefer replacing all current taxes with a Land Value Tax - but that's another Substack page). However, to some extent we "get away" with high marginal tax rates because high achievers have other motives besides money. Elon Musk was already a billionaire at age 31 before he got involved with Tesla. I would have just retired.