Here's a first pass at a newly proposed tax plan:
There's a bit of skepticism on the right about this, and the left, of course, is going fucking nuts. I personally am not a no-tax absolutist: I think some taxes are necessary for the maintenance of infrastructure, defense, etc. At the same time, as DOGE is making abundantly clear, so much tax money gets wasted on useless projects, tied up in fraudulent projects, spent on projects and measures that go nowhere, or used to fund projects that service foreign powers for no good reason. So even if I believe taxes have their place, I think we as a nation need to be much more watchful about where the money goes. If a given state functions on threat of force, as libertarians love to contend, and as is evidenced by the armed wing of the IRS, then libertarians aren't totally wrong to see taxation as a form of theft.
As Matt Morse notes above, though, the proposed tax benefits are for the middle and lower classes ($150K salary or less), not for the rich, thus deflating the argument that Trump is lining the pockets of his rich cronies. I'm still learning about this new economic posture, i.e., using tariffs on other nations as a way to reduce taxes. I'm no historian, but this was apparently an economic stance that the United States took very early in its history, and Trump is bringing us back to it, knowing that we hold all of the cards. The cries of "Tariff wars will raise consumer prices!" don't seem to have much substance, as Vince Dao argues in a recent video. But as I said, I'm no historian, nor am I an economist, so this is all new to me. Can Trump make it succeed? I guess we'll all see.
Reinforcement:
That's the first I've heard of this, but at first glance, I like the concept. Less income = less waste. At least in theory. Make it the law to maintain a balanced budget, too. What the Feds can't afford, leave to the states. Of course, knowing how government works, I suspect they'd come up with a Federal sales tax or something similar to keep funding the grift.
ReplyDeleteI assume that, by "income," you mean "tax revenue for the government"...? Yeah, the balanced-budget thing is being tossed around, including the idea of criminalizing unbalanced budgets, thus forcing people to focus more intensely on the problem.
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