I think the problem is that people are equating taxing with spending.
As I said before, lets assume that the government spent the entire tax revenue on a handjob from the queen of england. There would be no offsetting beneficial government spending to offset the drag effect of the taxes.
Lets assume a different scenario where government is spending more without increasing taxes (by borrowing), we get economic growth without any drag from taxation (the drag will come later when we have to pay back that borrowing).
TAXES ARE ALWAYS A DRAG ON THE ECONOMY. (some sin taxes might not be)
Well, that’s debatable, but unless you think that the ones going from 90% downward were also failures it’s kind of moot to the point I was making. Even if you think the later ones have done more harm than good you are conceding that they have done some good, just not balanced against what you consider to be ‘bad’.
“So you didn’t see the immediately following sentences where I say " Government spending is an accelerant. Who you tax and how you do it will affect how much of a drag taxes are on the economy. How you spend those tax dollars affects how much it accelerates the economy.”
I go on to say “A lot of liberals ignore the first sentence and a lot of conservatives ignore the second.” Its hard to tell what you are because you seem to be ignoring everything BUT the first sentence.
Because you can use that tax money to counteract and overcome that drag and because there are other things that you want to do that you need to fund.
Just FYI, we didn’t have an income tax until the 1900s it was unconstitutional and we needed a constitutional amendment to impose the income tax.
Yes I agree that there is some subjectivity to my conclusion that the tax cuts from 40 to 30 were probably bad. But there’s not a lot of ways you get to a 30% tax rate without gutting entitlements, gutting the the military, or racking up huge deficits.
I don’t understand the point of insisting over and over that, if you go by a certain set of measurements and ignore or avoid other aspects of economics, that “taxes are a drag on an economy.”
So what? So is the need for materials to be mined. So is the need for education of the workers. So is pretty much everything to do with producing profits, other than grabbing the cash out of peoples’ hands.
Why select ONLY taxes to get self-righteous about?