Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Democrats and the coming Tax Bomb

From John Cogan and Glenn Hubbard in an op-ed piece in the WSJ.

Mr. Cogan, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan. Mr. Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.

Many commentators and political leaders, including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, believe that tax increases are needed to restore near-term budget balance and finance longer-term entitlement growth. These claims fail budget arithmetic and economics. Worse, they raise serious questions about the nation's broad fiscal policies and its commitment to economic growth

By historical standards, federal revenues relative to GDP, at 18.8% last year, are high. In the past 25 years, this level was only exceeded during the five years from 1996 to 2000. Still, we stand on the verge of a very large tax increase, one that will occur unless the next Congress and president agree to rescind it. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire will drive the personal income tax burden up by 25% – to its highest point relative to GDP in history. This would be the largest increase in personal income taxes since World War II.

[The Coming Tax Bomb]

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