Via NRO;
According to the Treasury department, the U.S. government took in a single-day record $61 billion in tax receipts on June 15. This surpassed the previous single-day high of $56 billion set on December 15, 2000. The recent surge in tax revenues is not just a one-day event. Fiscal year to date, total government receipts are up 15.5 percent, the fastest rate of increase on a comparable FYTD basis since 1981. The difference between the growth rate of tax revenues and the growth rate of government spending has widened to 8.4 percentage points, the largest since late 2000 when the budget was in surplus.
Damn those draconian* tax cuts! Damn them to Hell!
The best dollar a government can spend is to put it right back in my pocket. If only some of this wisdom would rub off on the red boys. I was heartened to hear Goodale say the other day that we need to pursue tax cuts and that our economic growth depends on it. Hard to believe just after he and his kind just passed a 4.6 billion dollar spending bill.
TAX CUTS? TAX CUTS!!….How dare you suggest that putting more money in the people’s pockets would actually help improve the economy.Are you some kind of whacko? /sarc. On the serious side,why would Paulie etal consider tax cuts? Then they wouldn’t have the extra bucks to buy votes with the people’s own money,instead of good fiscal policies.And don’t forget the ability to pad their own pockets. Damn those Yanks for showing how it should be done.How come the lefties aren’t furious about this? I mean,more people off welfare and other social programs would only be cutting back on their rhetorics and social engineering abilities.Free the people and,poof,who needs as much gov’t largesse.Why,their whole oligarch could be threatened.Oh well,who needs more money from the economy when the Red Chinese are buying into the economy anyways?
Good catch Kate.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Is this the Laffer curve in action?
Laugher curve? Some curve?
(Perhaps, this is in error; perhaps, not. Those with an economics background could help?)
Its been a while since I graduated so the name of the curve escapes me.
The concept though is that tax revenues curve in the same way that economies of scale do. You get economies of scale (efficiency gains) up to a point and then you get dis-economies of scale and your curve shifts downwards. The curve is hat shaped like an upside down v.
Taxes work the same way. As you increase rates from zero upward, your revenue increases but at a steadily decreasing rate until you have done so much damage to the economy that your revenue starts to fall as you continue to raise tax rates.
This is the theory that the right uses to justify tax cuts. The argument goes that taxes are so high that the gain in the economy from a tax cut would mean shifting back up the curve so that revenue actually increases.
I would hazzard a guess that in Canada that we are no doubt far down the curve. Tax rates are crushingly high, even for lower middle-income earners. Tax cuts would most definitely be stimulative.
Indeed this is the Laffer Curve in action, democtrating that tax rates, revenues and growth are not (as some socialists apparently) unconnected to each other. Think about this way: almost no one would claim the economy would behave the same way if tax rates were set at 100%. If all (legal) economic activity resulted in total confiscation of profits, there would be no incentive to engage in any (legal) work. The “official” economy would be largely non-existent, while the tax-evading black economy would be the “real” one. There would be almost no tax revenues because there would be almost no profits, and the percentage of its revenues the government spent on trying to COLLECT more taxes would be immense.
Given that premise, the Laffer curve as a concept (rather than the specific numbers) flows as practically a necessary logical result. It’s both because people have greater purchasing power and thereby stimulate the economy, and also because the lower (and simpler) the rates are the less the marginal benefit of evasion is, that lowering rates can increase overall tax revenues. However, there is also a point of diminshing returns and obviously at 0% revenues would also be zero. Growth might conceivably be ferocious, but without any goverment at all you’d probably much more likely get a Hobbesian state of nature than some libertarian utopia. So Laffer’s specific numbers are about finding the equilibrium point where the lowest rates generate the greatest revenues.
Space Ring Could Shade Earth and Stop Global Warming
Posted by nairBResal
On 06/27/2005 1:27:50 PM PDT � 30 replies � 125+ views
Life Science ^ | 27 June 2005 | Robert Roy Britt
A wild idea to combat global warming suggests creating an artificial ring of small particles or spacecrafts around Earth to shade the tropics and moderate climate extremes. There would be side effects, proponents admit. An effective sunlight-scattering particle ring would illuminate our night sky as much as the full Moon, for example. And the price tag would knock the socks off even a big-budget agency like NASA: $6 trillion to $200 trillion for the particle approach. Deploying tiny spacecraft would come at a relative bargain: a mere $500 billion tops.
freerepublic.com
The above is classic laugher curve.
As Ari, said, Aristotle that is: If humans do not have a problem, humans will invent one, or 2…3…4…
So Laffer’s specific numbers are about finding the equilibrium point where the lowest rates generate the greatest revenues.
How could it possibly be in the average person’s interest to maximize government revenues? If you’ve been being paying the slightest bit of attention lately then you have some idea of the millions of ways that the federal, provincial and municipal governments have been wasting and stealing your tax money.
It seems that first-year economics profs hypnotize people into a trance so deep that they forgot how great it was to earn 5 bucks delivering papers, and how pissed they would have been if the neighborhood bully was to steal half of their money every week and distribute it to his friends.
Throw away your econ 101 textbook, and concentrate on your paper route or lemonade stand. One of them represents the longwinded apologies and lame pseudo-mathematical fantasies of rich socialists, while the other one represents The Real World.
The Laffer curve is a joke. Any government which wants can print as much money as they want, drop it from helicopters on the populace, then tax most of it back – and claim that they are maximizing revenue and stimulating the economy. That is what most governments are doing right now, and that is why our governments are growing like cancers and the world economy is on the brink of crisis.
�The most positive case (for the U.S. economy) is that we have an irresponsible, reckless monetary policy that is keeping real interest rates artificially low and we�re fooling asset-dependent American consumers to keep on binge-buying.� Link
Of course we have our own Greenspan Mini-Me and wannabe child care commissar in Ottawa too. Our government hates the Americans, but they love the way they jam paper money up their people’s asses. It’s great for government revenue, you know.
Here’s a tip which you can’t take to any government regulated bank: given the choice between a big government who has mastered the Laffer curve, and a small government who sees its job as minimizing its tax burden and minimizing its regulatory footprint, take door ‘B’.
Hamm to cut VLT numbers, but rejects ban
Globe and Mail – 3 hours ago
By SHAWNA RICHER. HALIFAX — As five heartbroken families tearfully explained yesterday how video lottery terminals pushed loved ones to commit suicide, Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm was adamant he would not ban VLTs, but only reduce their numbers. …
Suicide victims’ families appeal for end to VLTs Edmonton Journal
Loved ones share stories of relatives they lost to addiction Halifax Herald (subscription)
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Economics of VLTs: Blame someone else for my avarice:
Immoderate desire for wealth; cupidity