Dogma

Could somebody tell me when “no tax decreases, ever!” became lefty dogma ?

It’s such a weird position to take. On one hand, the idea that we need to increase revenues (now!) completely synchronizes with the right’s insistence that the deficit is going to murder us all in our sleep. And it completely synchronizes with the right’s insistence that the left is nothing but a bunch of tax-and-spenders.

But sometimes, tax breaks help people - especially tax breaks on low earners during times of economic hardship* !

This is just baffling. If possible, I’d like to file a formal complaint with the Lefty Dogma Committee about this. When are they meeting next?

* [insert long discussion about the Laffer curve here]

4 thoughts on “Dogma

  1. Cris

    Who is taking this position? I’m not asking rhetorically, I’m sure you’ve seen somebody suggesting it.

    Back when the Bush Tax Cuts were being proposed, this argument was being tossed around: “If you want to provide a big tax cut, of course most of the cut has to go to the rich, because they pay the biggest share of the taxes!” The number is something along the lines of “the top 25% of earners pay 80% of all federal taxes.”

    To which my wife replied, “well that means you can completely eliminate taxes for 75% of the people.” If you focus not on the total size of the tax cut in dollars, but in number of earners affected, you could reduce the federal taxes on incomes up to $67,000 to zero with only a 15% loss of revenue. (I have some ideas of where to make up for that loss too.)

    It’s really a beautiful illustration of conservative vs liberal priorities. When conservatives want a tax cut, what they really want to reduce is revenue, so they focus on the total size of the reduction. Liberals, on the other hand, focus first on the number of people affected. Or they ought to, anyway.

    1. cleek

      Who is taking this position?
      as far as i can tell, all lefty blogs and commenters.

      i asked this question on a BJ comment thread yesterday because of all the people, there and elsewhere, who have been claiming that Obama’s recent push for cutting payroll taxes is a clear example of his “buying into right wing framing”. and i get the same vibe when people talk about the extension of parts of the Bush tax cuts, too. the consensus seems to be that Obama is showing his inner Republican by doing anything but setting tax levels back to Clinton-era levels.

      my Q on BJ got no replies, so i copied it here. maybe it’s just a dumb question ! maybe i need to start reading different blogs.

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