Obama doubles down on tax increases

We told you on Monday that eliminating the Bush tax cuts for individuals making more than $200,000 per year, as demanded by the President, would theoretically raise $82 billion in revenue per year.  (More on that point later)  Today we learned that the President wants more.

Mr. Obama is also expected to call for $1.6 trillion in tax revenue over the next decade when he meets with congressional leaders.

That’s $160 billion a year in new taxes, or twice what the President’s original demand was. 

Can anyone guess the identity of the taxpayers who will be forced to cough up this extra $80 billion per year?

But, there is another point to be made…eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the “wealthy” will never raise even the original $82 billion projected because the projection is based on erroneous assumptions. 

The Congressional Budget Office engages in what is known as a “static analysis” when making the projection.  It assumes that the same number of people making more than $200,000 per year will make the same amount of money after the tax increase as before.  This never happens…ever.

One need look no further than the state of Connecticut.  It recently passed the largest tax increase in the history of the state only to be shocked and amazed to learn that tax revenues did not increase as expected, but rather are currently running some $128 million below what was projected.

There are an assortment of reasons for this, chief among them is that people change their behavior in response to a change in tax rates.  If the “magic number” to cause an increase in tax payments is $200,000, people will shelter, or defer income so that they are only making $199,000.

Beyond that, when the government sucks, in this case, another $82 billion out of the economy, there is less money to invest in the economy.  A businessman will not expand his “widget” factory as the money to do so is now being paid to the federal government in additional taxes.  And with that, the businessman who makes “widget factories” has less income, and thus will pay less in taxes.  That is compounded by the fact that both businessmen will need to adjust other things.  The first will not look to hire new employees to run his expanded business, and the second will be forced to lay off employees to account for his shrinking business.

This is simple Economics 101.

Why is this administration incapable of understanding this? 

And why does it refuse to look at history which substantiates this?

 

Posted in , ,

SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

5 Comments

  1. sammy22 on November 14, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    Seems like Congress (and everybody else) should ignore the CBO.



    • Dimsdale on November 15, 2012 at 2:01 pm

      I doubt the congresscritters care enough to do so in any case.
      ?
      Maybe the CBO should use more accurate parameters for their measurements.? And be given accurate data….



    • yeah on November 15, 2012 at 2:06 pm

      Do you understand that the CBO is like a computer and it subscribes to the same process: GIGO!? Garbage in, Garbage out.? If your mathematical model has flaws in it, running it through a computer to “solve” the equation will merely give you a bad result.
      Just like the CBO had to run the GIGO numbers on Obamacare that didnt include everything and whittled the context down 60% just so they could display it as “coming in under a trillion dollars” for a price tag.
      If you feed them garbage parameters and a flawed context, then of course their numbers will be off.? You think it behooves a politician to give an honest assessment of numbers, when he KNOWS the numbers are crap??
      ?
      Get a brain, morans!



  2. Lynn on November 15, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    If you follow the case of Ct, with the highest tax increase, you see people do change their behavior. Revenue is not increased as expected, because women will do their own ?nails instead of getting a manicure, or cut their dog’s ?hair instead of getting him/her groomed, or drive less, or buy less groceries. They know that adding up all the taxes for services adds up, so they ?don’t pay for those services. So service providers go out of business or let employees go. Most people cut their expenses so they don’t get into debt, unlike govt that has no problem charging infinitum. Again, simple math.



featured-taxes-help

The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.