Right-wing idiocy

[teddywolf]

Once again, the New York Times has handed over money to a right-wing columnist who slices and dices his economic facts, then presents the hacked-up mess as a whole pie. Or a whole philosophy.

The man's a menace. He hasn't even looked at the tax policies in place during each time period where he compares growth. They were, in short, highest on the wealthy during the high-growth times and low during the low-groth times. And he says that for the economy to grow... we need to keep our tax rates on the wealthy at the same low rates that we've had for nearly a dozen years now, so they can start making the jobs they haven't been making over the last nearly dozen years.

NYTimes, pay me to write for you!

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Also, in claiming that the European-style welfare states are near collapse, he cites Greece and Spain, while ignoring the successes of Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. Even Great Britain has pulled itself out of the seemingly inescapable economic doldrums it was in in the 1970s through the early 80s.

Greece's big problems, for instance, are lack of an industrial base compared to many other European nations and rampant tax evasion at all levels of society.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if the Grecians paid their taxes they'd be in considerably better shape as a country. I would not be surprised if they picked up their modern tax evading ways from the US.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find any statistics on tax evasion in industrialized countries in a quick google search, but IIRC tax *compliance* in the U.S. is pretty darn good, on par with most other industrialized countries. Our biggest problem is the tax *laws*, which are structured to favor the wealthy, and which are sufficiently byzantine that ordinary working-stiff taxpayers have difficulty figuring out the forms and often need to retain professional help.

Tax evasion is a sport that's as old as taxes. :-/