A Republican Ruse to Make Tax Cuts Look Good
Don’t like the reality of how a trickle up tax cut looks? Change the optics! Here, have a Unicorn with your Austerity… This tax cut scoring trick is one of the most idiotic things I’ve heard from the Republicans, now they think they can predict the future, and they are probably consulting Governor Sam Brownback’s swami to come up with their rosy pictures.
During the holidays the “Laffer Curve” turned forty, and several conservative pundits flooded the zone with knee deep bullshit on how good it is. They did this mainly because the reality of Governing with rosy tinted Laffer curve predictions on tax cuts is being amply demonstrated right here in my home state of Kansas. Meanwhile some progressives are also looking at Laffer at forty.
But let’s get back to the new crop of congress critters who are going to fiddle the focus so they can feel good about cutting things that matter to most of us:
Whenever new tax legislation is proposed, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “scores” it, to estimate whether the bill would raise more or less revenue than existing law would.
In preparing estimates, scorekeepers try to predict how people will respond to a new tax law. For example, if Congress contemplates raising the excise tax on cigarettes, scorekeepers consider existing trends in cigarette consumption, the likelihood that the higher taxes will induce some smokers to quit, and the prospect that higher prices will increase incentives for cigarette smuggling. There are no truly “static” revenue estimates.
These conventional estimates do not, however, include any indirect feedback effects that tax law changes might have on overall national income. In other words, they do not incorporate macroeconomic behavioral changes.
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