Re: An idea on taxes

From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Thu Jan 03 2002 - 12:31:51 MST


On Thursday, January 03, 2002 12:55 PM James Rogers jamesr@best.com
wrote:
>> Aside from the fact that capital gains are already above that -- I
>> believe they are 36%
>
> In the U.S. they are currently 20%, lowered from 28% early in the
Clinton
> administration.

I stand corrected. Still, do you think an increase to 30% would somehow
be able to cover the budget loss of income taxes? (Again, I'm all for
cutting the spending -- cutting it all way to zero -- as well as cutting
taxes across the board -- again, all the way to zero.:)

I would like to recommend to this list Roger Garrison's 2001 book _Time
and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure_. (If you want to
buy a copy of it, get it from Laissez Faire Books
http://laissezfairebooks.com/ for $29.95. The Amazon price is $100!:@
Also, part of the book is online at
http://www.auburn.edu/~garriro/tam.htm -- the author's web site.) The
main focus of the book is capital-based macroeconomics, but he devotes a
chapter to "fiscal and regulatory issues," especially the impact of
government finance (taxation, inflation, and other mechanisms) and
spending (dividing this into both neutral and nonnuetral spending) on
the economy.

BTW, some would argue purely neutral government spending -- spending
that has no economic impact on the rest of the economy, aside from
removing money (e.g., through taxes) from it -- is not possible. I tend
to agree, but Garrison is only trying to cover the theoretical
possibility here.

Back into lurk mode!

Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



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