tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post1509650611267064555..comments2024-01-23T17:14:04.067-05:00Comments on Jaltcoh: Do many Americans pay no taxes? Do tax cuts increase government revenue?John Althouse Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11703450281424023177noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-61195329367629736842011-04-24T11:39:37.917-04:002011-04-24T11:39:37.917-04:00How to defeat a Democrat:
"If raising taxes ...How to defeat a Democrat:<br /><br />"If raising taxes raises revenue, then why don't you raise the tax rate to 100 percent?"<br /><br /><br />Oh wait ...forget it. I will leave that sort of thinking to Jason and John.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-53192807403855688642011-04-24T11:32:42.118-04:002011-04-24T11:32:42.118-04:00Nice job with the straw man ! Congratulations on t...Nice job with the straw man ! Congratulations on this beautiful Easter morning. You see most on the right do not argue that we should have no taxes ...now do they?<br /><br /> Laters. <br /><br />-Jim(the commenter)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-5349615989643735712011-04-23T19:06:14.166-04:002011-04-23T19:06:14.166-04:00LemmusLemmus: Seriously, though, it's a compli...LemmusLemmus: <i>Seriously, though, it's a complicated topic...<br /><br /></i>The Laffer Curve isn't complicated at all. The fact that neither Republicans nor Democrats can understand it says all we need to know about our government's competence.Jason (the commenter)https://www.blogger.com/profile/16045360562791361484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-45189571971840370482011-04-23T17:37:15.366-04:002011-04-23T17:37:15.366-04:00Yay! Disagreement about the correct meaning of a w...Yay! Disagreement about the correct meaning of a word, always a fruitful topic for debate! And already someone mentioned Hitler!<br /><br />Seriously, though, it's a complicated topic and you'd want to distinguish short- and long-term effects and causality is hard to establish, but <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/11/wsj-hausers-law.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>'s a post that says your general principle is wrong for the postwar U.S.A.LemmusLemmushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00917054221547240969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-43037752974821762212011-04-23T17:35:54.887-04:002011-04-23T17:35:54.887-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.LemmusLemmushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00917054221547240969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-41376288081284531192011-04-23T16:59:18.971-04:002011-04-23T16:59:18.971-04:00What kind of criticism is that? LemmusLemmus isn&#...<i>What kind of criticism is that? LemmusLemmus isn't imagining a world, but a specific situtaion? He described a WORLD that met your conditions!</i><br /><br />No he didn't. He just described one situation where a tax cut would lead to increased revenues. And it was a good point, but it didn't contradict what I wrote. You're free to use the word "world" to mean "highly specific situation," but I was using "world" to literally refer to the whole planet earth.<br /><br />The point of this post was to list 2 common misconceptions about taxes and explain why they're wrong. The 2nd of the 2 misconceptions is that, <i>as a general principle</i>, cutting taxes raises revenue. That is not true: cutting taxes <i>generally</i> decreases revenue.<br /><br />Again, LemmusLemmus has a valid <i>theoretical</i> point: if taxes were high enough (e.g. 100% or close to 100%), they would actually decrease productivity so much that you could bring in more tax dollars by reducing the taxes to semi-sensible rates. But that is very far from the American tax structure.John Althouse Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11703450281424023177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-47972417764038859332011-04-23T15:16:24.676-04:002011-04-23T15:16:24.676-04:00JAC: LemmusLemmus, I meant a world (not just a spe...JAC: <i>LemmusLemmus, I meant a world (not just a specific situation) where cutting taxes consistently increased tax revenue.<br /><br /></i>What kind of criticism is that? LemmusLemmus isn't imagining a world, but a specific situtaion? He described a WORLD that met your conditions! Did it need to be entirely populated by hairdressers, or have some complex backstory where Hitler won WW2 to qualify as "a world"? He said all that was necessary, because in either of those worlds if the tax rate was 100%, dropping it would increase revinue.Jason (the commenter)https://www.blogger.com/profile/16045360562791361484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-45777946146389266802011-04-23T14:39:21.279-04:002011-04-23T14:39:21.279-04:00LemmusLemmus, I meant a world (not just a specific...LemmusLemmus, I meant a <i>world</i> (not just a specific situation) where cutting taxes <i>consistently</i> increased tax revenue.John Althouse Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11703450281424023177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-61534774107461546252011-04-23T07:42:56.108-04:002011-04-23T07:42:56.108-04:00How to defeat a Republican:
"If cutting taxe...How to defeat a Republican:<br /><br />"If cutting taxes raises revenue, then why don't you cut the tax rate to zero percent?"Jason (the commenter)https://www.blogger.com/profile/16045360562791361484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4464222071440015933.post-79813745252300760822011-04-23T07:37:17.942-04:002011-04-23T07:37:17.942-04:00"Can you imagine a world where cutting taxes ..."Can you imagine a world where cutting taxes increased tax revenue?"<br /><br />Absolutely! In such a world, the income tax is 100%. As a consequence, hardly anybody bothers with income-generating work. If you cut the income tax to, say, 40% for everybody, this would almost certainly increase revenue from the income tax. That is, of course, the idea behind the famous Laffer Curve. As it happens, though, no government has yet been stupid enough to introduce a flat income tax of 100%, so the easy option of revoking it does not exist.<br /><br />Also: Happy Easter!LemmusLemmushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00917054221547240969noreply@blogger.com