7/02/2004

How much is enough?

Bush has been giving out a tax cuts, and while most tax cuts would never see my doorstep I did get almost 1000 dollars extra back on my tax return labeled "tax cut". This is great. He is doing a great service to America. And while some might not exact consider him a genius, I believe when it comes to economics he listens to his advisers very well.
john Kerry on the other hand likes to raise taxes on the "elate high class" but the fact is the "elate high class" just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly dual income families are considered "rich". And average middleclass hard working Americans also.
I don't consider me or my family rich. But as it stands now, if Kerry were to be elected we would get to work for "free" (when taxes where taken out) for 8 months out of a year. That's 2/3rds of our income going to the government because we are so "filthy rich". Yeah right.

2 comments:

Dr. Tufte said...

I have one thought on the post. I don't think the issue is really taxes, but whether the money is spent well. Fundamentally, giving someone else your money to spend on your behalf is probably not a good idea. Parents who think twice about giving $5 to their kids to buy a birthday present for a spouse are required by law to give thousands of dollars to bureaucrats they've never met. This is a recipe for trouble, and the current way we deal with this is to encourage the cutting of taxes as a way to rein in the process. Just be glad that we live in Utah - our taxes are very high in this state, but top to bottom it is managed better than the vast majority of states.

I have two thoughts on Ned's comment. The first is that most people have the mistaken impression that the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes. Truth is, they already pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than other groups in our society. Second, it really isn't relevent how much taxes corporations pay. Since a corporation is a group of stakeholders, what matters is whether the tax on the corporation falls most heavily on the owners, the workers, or the consumers of the firm's products. I'm of the opinion that since this split varies between firms based on the market they are in (due to elasticities) that it isn't wise to tax corporations at all - the owners, workers, and consumers just shouldn't have to worry about this. Lastly, it is true that things like sales taxes are most harmful to the poor, but this doesn't mean that they pay as much sales tax as a rich person. This is the distinction between a regressive and progressive tax - the former harms the poor more and the latter less (even though in both cases the rich may end up paying more).

Anonymous said...

I ahave to admit, I am very curious about the Kerry comment about taxes. Do you have a link or other information to verify this?

I have never seen anyone else suggest that--and while I admit the Bush tax cuts would likely have been repealed, I for one would appreciate more tax dollars going to the national deficit.