Reply #13: Small truth into a big lie

[zipplewrath]

There are certain conditions under which it is essentially true. They are relatively rare, but none the less it can be true. We aren't anywhere near one of them right now. And in the US it is especially complicated because cutting taxes locally tends not to do anything. And yet the TOTAL tax rate is a function of taxes at several different levels, and several different types (income, property, consumption, etc.) Some will have different effects at different times than others.

As someone else said, probably the best time to cut taxes is when the economy is going to be expanding rapidly. People are going to be less tax sensitive and will tend to just keep churning money they have until it gets taxed sooner or later anyway. So the more money you have sloshing around in the economy, the more revenue you ultimately get. However, in anything like a stable economy, or a stagnant or shrinking economy, there's alot of capital/cash that is "sitting on the side lines" and relatively out of reach of taxation. Cutting taxes merely leaves more sitting.


There's little you can do to convince a closed mind of anything. About the best "retort" I can give is that Germany has historically done very well, industrially and economically. And they have taxes way higher than we do.