Reply #63: Oh, you could be

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ultimatums. Traffic congestion and pollution. Strikes, stress and outsourcing. The latest estimate is that Boeing will take advantage of 3.2Billion in tax breaks by giving us 1000 jobs to assemble a portion of the tail. Not manufacture or machine or even engineer, just assemble. For 3.2 billion dollars in tax breaks as well as new roads and higher taxes for all Washington citizens. So they pay nothing and I pay more....sounds like I got the short end of the deal on that one.

It could be that you are getting the raw end of the deal, but I think it would take much more information than what we have available to us to determine that.

But I will say that tax breaks aren't necessarily always the evil some people make them out to be. It's important to look at all the consequences of such a tax break.

Going back to payroll taxes, for example. How many people don't have jobs because the payroll tax is too high? Are we getting LESS in tax dollars because those jobs that might be paying those taxes don't exist? Or maybe they exist only in India? What about the other negative consequences of unemployment such as social unrest? If we lower payroll taxes to increase employment, do we also have less violence or crime or theft?

Payroll taxes trade the away the welfare of one group (low skilled workers) for the welfare of another (seniors). We have to look at the whole picture.

I think when we do, we see that there really are serious downsides to having such high payroll taxes.