@MASSAGAT,
MASSAGAT wrote:
Oh, you are so wrong, cicerone imposter! When my brother, who is a very successful entrepreneur, reached the point where he paid over 45% of his income to Federal, State and Local Taxes in New York, he retired to live on his investments. Okie is correct. You are the one whose statements go beyond logic, common sense and comedy. But, unlike Okie, you are sliding toward senility. Read your own posts! Show them to a person skilled in geriatrics>
I think the point is inescapable, massagat. I have argued this point several times on A2K on various threads, and have applied simple math to the equation to no avail, but the answer is inescapably obvious. I am willing to debate where the optimum tax rate might be, it is possible that the current tax rate is to the left of the peak on the Laffer Curve, which means that slight increases in the tax rate might increase revenues, but I would still argue that it is not even a straight line equation in that event, the economy could suffer slightly, but perhaps not so much as to reduce revenues. It all depends upon many factors at any point in time with the economy, as it is obvious that it all depends upon many many factors that are in play.
One of my best arguments that I think I have come up with is the comparison of the gdp of South Korea vs North Korea. In that comparison, you have South Korea's overall tax rate at I think 20 some percent, while North Korea's could be likened to near 100%, because all production and essentially revenue flows from the people to the government, then back to the people. Essentially, the gdp of North Korea is I think less than 5% of South Korea's, which provides indisputable proof that people just do not produce as much or work as hard if they cannot directly benefit from their work. So my conclusion is that 25% of 100% is alot more than 100% of less than 5%, in fact several times more.
Of course there are other factors in play here, we should never pretend that optimizing the amount of tax revenue is the only thing we are after. We should try to minimize what government does, so that we do not need to squeeze the maximum tax revenue out of the economy that we can possibly manage to do. We have way more government than we need, I see so much waste that it is ridiculous, and I think almost every citizen knows about alot of wasteful spending, that is just not necessary at all.
