Tax The Rich, Feed The Capital
Categories: FYI
Written By: Tax Rascal
So-called tax experts are gazing dumbly towards the haze of pot smoke hanging over I-5 between Washington and California. Apparently, that tract of land isn’t limited to a freeway and a few rest stops between Seattle and San Francisco. No! There’s an entire state there with its own big-boy capital and training pants tax code. And lawmakers there are pissing all over it.
Why are national tax experts interested in little ol’ Oregon? Why, because Oregon’s trying out a tax increase to deal with their bankrupting state. And the “experts” see it as a the first canary in the tax-raising mine.
Yes, Oregon is proposing a(nother) income tax increase to pay for… well, something. But give the Oregon legislature a little credit – they’re not simply pushing through a tax increase, they’re having the people vote on it.
“No problem, TaxRascal,” you say. “People don’t vote for tax increases.”
Wrong! People don’t pass tax increases on themselves. But they’ll happily tax the teeth off their neighbors. Yes, the hippie (communist) spirit is alive and well in that patchouli bog of the Willamette Valley, and when you’re voting on a tax increase on anyone making more than $125K a year, well, then, let’s spark the joints and dance around some new social welfare programs!
No one ever blamed the free-love sect of forward-thinking or common sense, so let me dance through this twisted logic. Oregon’s boasting one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at a shade over 11 percent. Rather than spur new business, the hope is to raise taxes on the folk and businesses who’re in a position to change that?
Not everyone’s taking a big bite of this tax turd with a smile. Steve Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute says “prominent economists” suggest it’ll cost Oregon 70-80,000 jobs over the next few years. Although the “Cascade Policy Institute” sounds like a thinly-veiled organization some rich folk whipped up to create press releases such as these, and “prominent economists” probably realize the value of getting a couple hundred K to do some “research” into how the tax would negatively effect businesses, it’s safe to say the tax won’t /help/ bring in new business (and the rich folk who’d be running them.)
Whatever. So long as some of that money’s spent on a wider & faster freeway with which to get past the foul paper mill-smell of the state capital, I’ll be happy.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Historically, we have actually had good growth when we’ve had higher tax rates. The view that taxes will lower growth may be completely wrong–especially like the rest of freshwater economic “theory” that has been shown to be an emperor in no clothing by this financial crisis–i.e., the “efficient market hypothesis”, the idea that market prices are automatically optimal, etc.