Fri 16 Oct 2009
Can lawmakers who don’t have the courage or intelligence to outlaw texting while driving really be expected to create a saner tax structure? Hmmm.
Developing a fairer tax environment is much less an economics problem than it is a political dilemma and, as many of you observed, it is unlikely that anything “tax” will be improved upon until there is some serious facial (and cultural) change in Washington.
Politicians focus on one issue at a time, and pretend to have problems dealing with inter-related programs. Tenured politicians have a vested interest in resisting any change that involves their spheres of influence. Both parties are embarrassingly mired in twentieth century class warfare that stifles all forms of productive debate.
Tax cuts don’t just benefit the rich. In fact, they provide the opportunity for everyone to attain greater wealth. Demand directs resources far better than punitive taxation. Money in consumer hands will fuel social and environmentally friendly change.
“You cannot eliminate revenue from one program without replacing it from another, equally complicated, one”, career politicians will say philosophically.
They have little to gain from simplifying the tax collection system — yet it is obvious that a whole new approach would solve most of the economic woes plaguing us today, domestic and international.
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