Professor Elam

Wed April 14, 2010

It is no accident that national tax day, tomorrow, is the furthest time away from election day, the first tuesday of November. Better to hope the memory is forgotten by election day. 

Now 47% of American families pay no income tax. If there are two kids under 17, Mom and Dad can make $50 K and pay no tax. This means half the voting population have no reason to be concerned what Wash DC does, and a lot of reasons to vote for keeping things this way. Pretty clever actually, if one party can relieve half the population of any tax, they should have a permanent lock on the elections, the Dems are just about there. 

But such policies as we have described, 99 weeks of unemployment, are not jump starting the economy. The fact that the stock market is up does not translate into new business creation, just rampant speculation. 

The massive time and effort spent

lobbying for tax code changes

forever tinkering with tax credits and deductions and such

preparers going to class to learn the tax updates for this year

people spending money to find out what they actually owe in tax, think about that

is one massive waste of time and money which produces nothing for the economy, 

It is my belief that the 16th Amendment allowing the income tax should be repealed

(this of course will not happen as long as the existing congress is in office, both parties, as they love to dole out favors in tax breaks to lobbyists)

Tom Sowell's suggestion that congress be constrained to spending no more than 10% of GDP

and while we are at it, Congress stays at home in their district when congress is in session, that way they could hear what the voters rather than paid lobbyists think

a sales tax replace the income tax

then Congress might have to pick and choose which programs to continue, as it is they all continue with ever higher deficits.