Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Bartlett: Zero Growth from Tax Cuts for Wealthy

Former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett supports the Buffett tax in The Financial Times.

There is no evidence whatsoever that lower rates on the wealthy stimulated growth in the 2000s. Indeed when the Congressional Research Service examined the economic consequences of allowing all the Bush era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, it concluded that the impact was likely to be slight because their effect on growth was virtually non-existent.

Reducing the budget deficit by cutting spending alone, as Republicans insist, means that the burden of adjustment will fall almost entirely on those with low and middle incomes, since those with high incomes do not benefit much from federal programmes. Raising taxes is the only way of ensuring that the cost of deficit reduction is shared among all income groups.


--Ballard Burgher

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