Faux uncertainty on taxes
December 30, 2012 3 Comments
Ramesh Ponnuru says it’s “ridiculous that we don’t know what our tax rates will be in a few days”. But that’s not true at all. We know perfectly well what our tax rates will be: they will be whatever tax rates were before the Bush Tax Cuts™ were passed. Unless something changes.
Something could always change. But let’s not pretend there’s not a default course of tax rates. There is, and that default course is that tax rates are going up. Moreover, this is evidently what President Obama and the (D)s want, given the side of the bargaining table they have decided to sit on. There’s not much uncertainty here except to the extent that Obama & (D)s appear inclined to try to pass a tax cut from those pre-’01 levels (a ‘permanent’ one, in retarded modern parlance). They do not appear so inclined. Moreover, the American public doesn’t seem to want them to either, given how they voted.
So, let ‘em have it, and make sure they understand: tax rates will go up. On everyone. Because of what Obama and the (D)s want.
Pretending there’s a huge amount of uncertainty about this only muddies the waters.
And don’t forget that the tax rates will become the “RIGHT” rates. You know because they are “Clinton era” tax rates.
Indeed, everyone knows the tax-rate schedule attained metaphysical perfection at that time.
Why were the rates correct during the Clinton years? Because the economy grew. Because banks were printing money via maturity transformation and betting it all on stocks. And at that time, everyone knew stocks (especially tech) were going nowhere but up, forever.
We want to delude ourselves in this way again somehow, so clearly we should bring back Clinton era policies of all kinds.