Taxation
Close readers will have noted that I did not propose to prove the accuracy of the Laffer curve; rather, my stated intention was to dispute Tom Sgouros’s argument that it can’t be accurate. To be honest, I find argumentation over Laffer to be somewhat of a distraction. Clearly, I’m ideologically predisposed to a preference for…
From TaxProfBlog, with H/T to Instapundit: Hundreds of economists (including Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith) have signed letters opposing Barack Obama’s economic and tax plans (here, here, and here): We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His…
On one level, Tom Sgouros’s attempted proof that the Laffer Curve can’t be accurate is rhetorically ludicrous: Let’s go to the numbers. The corporate tax is 9% of income and is paid by about 2,500 corporations. Not counting the companies who pay the $500 minimum (44,000 of them!), this tax raised $134 million in 2007.…
From my liveblog of last night’s Vice-Presidential debate…[9:15] I don’t believe the “no one under $250,000 will see a tax-increase” claim. Isn’t the Obama tax plan based on a child tax-credit?The exact statement by Joe Biden I was referring to was…No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama’s plan will see one single penny…
On what grounds are the first two groups included on this list: Health care workers, small-business owners and unions are especially concerned about that prospect. A new group, the Coalition for Our Communities, has raised $1.3 million, about $1 million of that from national teachers’ unions, and plans television advertisements and direct mail campaigns against…
In the last hour of his show today, WPRO’s Matt Allen discussed the shopping list [sorry, no link] of additional spending which Congressman Patrick Kennedy announced today that he wishes to attach to the seven hundred billion dollar bailout, a sentiment presumably shared by many other congresspersons. Is the congressman’s shopping list dwarfed by the…
Last night, Andrew took up the topics of economics and taxation with Matt Allen on 630AM/99.7FM WPRO. Stream by clicking here, or download it. ADDENDUM: The audio links weren’t working when I first posted this in the a.m. They’re fixed.
Tom Sgouros’s message must be mellifluous to public-sector ears. Everything’s cause and effect (no poor decisions on officials’ part), and vaguely unseemly of the citizens who initiated the latter. The story, in summary, is that all was demographically golden in the world back in the ’50s, until people started moving from Rhode Island’s cities to…