Tag Archives: political economy

Cuomo Objects

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Or maybe whines.

During a Monday press conference, Mr [Andrew, D] Cuomo said wealthy individuals living in these areas were either moving or shifting their official residence to lower-tax states….

Cuomo’s whining continued:

SALT was an economic civil war.  It literally restructured the economy to help red states at the cost of blue states. That’s exactly what it did. It was a diabolical, political maneuver.

Yeah—it’s really diabolical to let folks—even the Evil Rich—keep more of their money.  It’s especially diabolical that those folks would want to keep their money and actually take steps to take advantage of the Federal tax reform and avail themselves, also of the benefits of living in lower-tax locales. I mean, really.

The fact that New York’s and New Jersey’s tax structure is explicitly, carefully structured to relieve the especially successful of their earnings should be a hint, but it has blown right by Cuomo and New Jersey’s Progressive-Democratic governor Phil Murphy.  Picking on New York, again,

the highest-earning 1% of taxpayers accounted for $17.8 billion of personal income tax revenue, or 45.8% of the total.

On the other hand,

[t]he vast majority of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents received federal tax cuts because of the changes. Many who have state and local taxes above $10,000 are benefiting from lower federal tax rates, larger child tax credits, the larger standard deduction and the narrowing of the alternative minimum tax.

But that doesn’t count.  Except to put a premium, in Progressive-Democrat eyes, on even more heavily taxing those rich folks.

The Weakness of Government

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Here’s JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon on raising taxes on the wealthy in particular: Opens a New Window.

I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more, and I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society[.]

I’ll leave aside the illogic of Dimon’s implied obligation resultant from mere affordabity.  What are Dimon’s fundamental challenges and inequities that want government intervention?

ensur[ing] that tax dollars are being put to the “most effective” use, like expanding the earned income tax credit, alongside other programs that support the people and communities who need it the most.

Others, though, might argue that earned income tax credits are just social engineering (and disagree over whether social engineering is itself good or bad), or that credits should be applied to a different purpose; others’ views of who has the greatest need might be different; others’ definitions of need might be different; and on and on.

Even well intended men and women in government have differing goals and views of what ought to be done in the name of government, and these often are diametrically opposed.  It’s especially the case that the employers of those men and women, their constituents, have differing, even opposing, goals and imperatives.  That demands compromise in governing, and if compromise isn’t achieved, tax dollars are not used effectively at all, much less most effectively.

When compromise is achieved, the result is that not even the most correct, the most righteous, ends are achieved with anything close to efficiency.  This may actually be worse, fiscally, since the money would be misallocated and irrevocably consumed rather than held against a useful future expenditure.

In the end, Government cannot put our money to the “most effective” use, only to the uses of compromise, and this violates Dimon’s underlying criterion.

The best we can do is limit Government inefficiency by limiting Government.  The most effective way we can do that is by limiting the amount of money we allow Government to have.  And even here we can only compromise: what is the minimum amount, how much money does Government really need?  For what purposes?

Be Like Sweden

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That’s what the Progressive-Democrats say we should do, especially when it comes to taxes.  Here’s what the Swedish tax structure, that we’re supposed to emulate, looks like, pretty much straight from the horse’s mouth: Catherine Edwards, Europe Editor, for The Local, headquartered in Stockholm.

  • Property tax: virtually eliminated 10 years ago. Nationwide, property owners pay an annual tax of 0.75% of the property’s taxable value, capped at 7,412 kronor ($820).
  • Inheritance tax: abolished (not reduced to zero; this tax no longer exists) in 2005
  • Gift tax: abolished (not reduced to zero; this tax no longer exists) in 2005

Inheritance (estate) and gift taxes were eliminated by unanimous vote in Parliament

for reasons including improving conditions for running a business…, which will facilitate generational succession[.]
Taxes on inheritance and gifts…caused complications when the majority of an inherited estate’s value was tied up in a business or property, forcing many heirs to sell family homes or businesses to stump up the cash for the tax, in some cases leading to their bankruptcy.

Where have we heard that before?

On the matter of income tax, Sweden has a top national tax of 25% on income above 638,500 kronor ($70,400), with county and municipal tax rates running to and additional 11% and 21%, respectively.  A wage earner thus surrenders as much as 57% of his wages to the taxman—and he’s guaranteed to lose nearly a third of it to his local taxman.  On the table in Parliament, though, is a proposal to cut that national tax rate to 10%.

Oh, and Sweden has a corporate tax rate of 22%—which they’re also looking to lower further.

Understand, though: this is not an endorsement of the idea that we really should emulate the Swedish tax system (except for the inheritance and gift taxes part). It’s an indictment of the ignorance of the politicians of the Progressive-Democratic Party who demand high, and higher, taxes and use Sweden (among other nations) as justification (leaving aside the irrationality of the idea that one nation doing something makes it a good idea for other nations to do it, too).

All Your Prosperity Belong to Me

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT), who caucuses with the Progressive-Democrats, has joined the Progressive-Democratic Party’s race to the bottom.  The President wannabe has proposed his cynically named For the 99.8% Act, which is targeted explicitly against the 588 Americans he hates the most: the 588 most successful of us.  His bill would deny these few Americans their ability to pass on the outcome of their success to their heirs, their families; his bill would overtly punish these most successful—and their families—for their success.

It’s a bill that’s borne of personal animosity and rank envy.  It’s a bill that would

establish a 45% tax on the value of an estate between $3.5 million and $10 million; a 50% tax on the value of an estate between $10 million and $50 million; a 55% tax on the value of an estate in excess of $50 million; and a 77% tax on the value of an estate above $1 billion….

Sanders rationalized his punitively confiscatory tax by claiming that what’s really needed is

stronger investment in skills, higher paying jobs, and a more progressive tax system.

He is ignoring the fact that the more progressive our tax system, the more it and the purveyors of progressivism punish success.  He is ignoring the fact that folks like the Walton family, the Kochs, and Jeff Bezos—from whom alone he would confiscate some $304 billion—have created more jobs and more higher paying jobs and have done more investment in work skills than anything Government has done.

Sanders is ignoring the fact that that money doesn’t sit in some vault as cash or gold bullion.  It’s invested, plowed back into the economy to create innovation, businesses, jobs, philanthropy, educational opportunities—even health coverage plans—all things Government cannot do as well, if at all.

For all Sanders’ and his Progressive-Democrat cronies’ rationalizations to the contrary, this bill and its ilk are nothing but the actualization of their mindless resentment of the achievements of others.