[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
The thread is about whether a flat tax is desirable and/or feasible.
I am presenting an argument as to why it is not politically feasible.
It is true that no other person had already presented that same argument in this thread.
I am the one presenting the argument that it is not politically feasible, because just as the Bush tax cuts – under which high income people still paid TONS of tax – were and still are bitterly objected to by millions as “giving money to the rich.”
Or for that matter, McCain’s tax proposals which still had the oil companies paying vast amounts in tax, but less than either presently or scheduled for the future, was portrayed as being “giving money to the oil companies” and thus, intolerable.
And any time any tax proposal is made which would cut taxes for those with high incomes, out comes the objection from many politicians and media persons and much of the public that it would “give money to the rich.”
Why would this not happen with the flat tax?
Any flat tax which does not greatly increase taxes on lower income people is going to have many higher income people – those without structures that work around the tax code – while still paying tons of taxes and much more than lower income people, less money than now.
And to many people that is intolerable: it is, in their terminology, “giving money to the rich.”
Thus the flat tax, I believe, would be intolerable to these people. And thus I don’t think it will happen.
Clearer?[/quote]
I notice Bush was both elected, and managed to get his tax cuts passed, thus making this obstacle of popular psychology not insurmountable.
I think the reason people see a decrease in the top bracket income tax is that people have a short grasp of history. I actually chatted with a friend of mine about this a while back, and his argument seemed to rest on the idea of ‘thus it is, thus it has always been’.
I find this idea to be particularly prevelant in consideration of taxes. ‘The best tax is an old tax’.
Continuing on, I think people (and here, I’m not talking about people that discuss politics on a daily basis, so I’m not including anyone HERE in my grouping of ‘people’) assume that the way the taxes work right now are
a) the way they have always been and
b) they way they SHOULD always be.
… with the exception of the bush tax cuts, but only because those are still within recent memory.
The current tax structure is seen as legitimate. Now, altering that (legitimate) structure to a structure where the poor pay more and the rich pay less is seen as inappropriate, because… making the poor pay more and the rich pay less than the current LEGITIMATE structure is deemed regressive (Orion wrote on this elsewhere, about this argument rests predominantly on utilitarian philosophy, but how most people who use it don’t know that).
The main problem here is legitimacy. If you can find another way to legitimize it, you can mitigate the political damage.
Example: A flat tax (Forbes idea, not Huckabee) is good because everyone pays the same rate. This appeals to peoples inherent desire for egalitarianism.
Example2: Tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy (Everyone likes a stimulated economy, and that idea legitimizes the otherwise inappropriate-seeming tax cuts for the rich).
Now, of course, you’ll still run into opposition (this is politics, after all). But I don’t necessarily see the problems as being insurmountable, especially if you dumb the idea down to
a) a very simple idea
b) repeated over and over again.
