BoogyMan
12-13-2009, 01:42 PM
Hmmm, they are looking for ways to cut the deficit. How about STOP SPENDING MONEY!!!!!!?????? Are there any qualifications these people have to meet for common sense before they get elected?
The only reasoning used here is "well, everyone else has one, so we should too."
Source Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/business/11vat.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1260547380-+GcrqUWFrEbN0crcdSbE8Q)
Runaway federal deficits have thrust a politically unsavory savior into the spotlight: a nationwide tax on goods and services.
Members of Congress, like their constituents, are squeamish about such ideas, instead suggesting spending cuts or higher taxes on the rich. But with a lack of political will to do the former, and a practical ceiling to how much revenue can be milked from the latter, economists across the political spectrum say a consumption tax may be inevitable once the economy fully recovers.
“We have to start paying our bills eventually,” said Charles E. McLure, a tax economist who worked in the Reagan administration. “This strikes me as the best and most obvious way of doing it.”
The favored route of economists is known as a value-added tax, which is a tax on goods and services that is collected at every step along the production chain, from raw material to a consumer’s shopping bag. Similar to a sales tax, it generally results in consumers paying more for the things they buy. The revenues could be used to pay for health care or other social programs, or just to pay down existing debt.
Like universal health care, every other industrialized country in the world already has a value-added tax (as do about 100 emerging countries). And also like universal health care, this once-taboo policy option has recently been invoked, at times begrudgingly, by many prominent Washingtonians, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi; John Podesta, who was co-chairman of President Obama’s transition team; and two former Federal Reserve chairmen, Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker
.: Read the rest of this drivel :. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/business/11vat.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1260547380-+GcrqUWFrEbN0crcdSbE8Q)
The only reasoning used here is "well, everyone else has one, so we should too."
Source Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/business/11vat.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1260547380-+GcrqUWFrEbN0crcdSbE8Q)
Runaway federal deficits have thrust a politically unsavory savior into the spotlight: a nationwide tax on goods and services.
Members of Congress, like their constituents, are squeamish about such ideas, instead suggesting spending cuts or higher taxes on the rich. But with a lack of political will to do the former, and a practical ceiling to how much revenue can be milked from the latter, economists across the political spectrum say a consumption tax may be inevitable once the economy fully recovers.
“We have to start paying our bills eventually,” said Charles E. McLure, a tax economist who worked in the Reagan administration. “This strikes me as the best and most obvious way of doing it.”
The favored route of economists is known as a value-added tax, which is a tax on goods and services that is collected at every step along the production chain, from raw material to a consumer’s shopping bag. Similar to a sales tax, it generally results in consumers paying more for the things they buy. The revenues could be used to pay for health care or other social programs, or just to pay down existing debt.
Like universal health care, every other industrialized country in the world already has a value-added tax (as do about 100 emerging countries). And also like universal health care, this once-taboo policy option has recently been invoked, at times begrudgingly, by many prominent Washingtonians, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi; John Podesta, who was co-chairman of President Obama’s transition team; and two former Federal Reserve chairmen, Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker
.: Read the rest of this drivel :. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/business/11vat.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1260547380-+GcrqUWFrEbN0crcdSbE8Q)