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My former White House colleague Tevi Troy suggested the following method for turning children into lifelong tax cutters.
I figure it will take maybe two years of this to turn them into lifelong tax cutters.
For most kids, this is probably the first income they have earned through their own labor. Maybe it's better they learn about taxes now, rather than 10-15 years from now when they first ask "Who the h*** is FICA?"
You might see a cheating dynamic in future years, in which your Halloween taxpayers try to hide some of their income from the taxman.
If anyone actually tries this:
Tevi promises he has not done this to his kids.
(photo credit: Halloween Candy by aus_chick)
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Great Grandma obviously did a poor job of managing the results of her younger day trick-or-treating.
But this also stretches the allegory beyond usefulness. Reply – Quote Brooks Commented on November 4, 2009 at 1:11 am | Reply
Keith,
Not to be a party-pooper or to rain on anyone's ideological parade, but…
What if the candy they pay in tax is for their grandma to have some candy to eat, and keeping all the candy themselves would mean either (1) that grandma goes without any candy, or (2) the kids have to borrow candy from some other kids to give to grandma, and then owe those kids that amount of candy plus interest?
Similarly, what if that candy is sold and the money used to pay for the that movie they want to see, and keeping all the candy means they have to either (1) forgo the movie they want to see, or (2) borrow candy from some other kids and sell that to finance the movie tickets, leaving a candy debt with interest?
Back in 1999/2000 when Dubya was moronically telling people at every campaign appearance "The surplus isn't the government's money, it's the people's money [so I'm gonna give it back in tax cuts]", I kept responding "Oh yeah, well whose national debt is it, jack*ss?"
There is no nobility in advocating tax cuts in isolation, regardless of one's ideology/philosophy. Borrow-and-spend can be even worse than "tax-and-spend". (And please folks, spare me the highly dubious strong "starve the beast" argument that economists generally consider bogus). And even critics of some level of "tax-and-spend" have to be realistic and consistent in terms of what they are willing to do to sufficiently align spending with revenues. Reply – Quote MAH Commented on November 4, 2009 at 2:06 am | Reply
Tell Grandma to go trick or treating. Reply – Quote Brooks Commented on November 4, 2009 at 2:28 am | Reply
Actually, it's great-Grandma, and she's 95 years old and physically unable to do much/any trick or treating. But hey, there are two questions here, (1) would the kids prefer she not get any candy and they keep all of it, OR (2) do they plan to give that amount of candy to her anyway and if so, would they rather given her their candy now or borrow candy from others, with interest, and eventually have to eventually sacrifice that amount of candy anyway, plus the "interest candy" — or to a significant extent, just keep borrowing candy year after year (having their candy and eating it, too, and the same for great-Grandma) and building up a candy debt that grows so large that, in a couple of decades when they are adults and parents, their kids end up having to fork over a much larger portion of their candy to pay off the candy debt? Reply – Quote Buck Commented on November 4, 2009 at 3:27 am | Reply
Great… Back to the old "Republicans want old people to starve" argument. Talk about dubious. First, elderly people are the most well off demographic. Second, they already get the most in hand outs from the government. Third, if my Grandma needs help, our family will help her. We don't need any middle man to do it while taking a chunk off of the top.
The candy tax is a great analogy. Even better would be if the parent would then flush about 1/2 of the taxed candy down the crapper to show that a lot of it is just wasted.
And just what are you trying to say about the debt? We have a debt, yes. It is huge and getting…unthinkably huge. Can we tax our way out of it? No way. The more they tax, the more they spend. It is a vicious cycle. Our "servants" cannot bring themselves to say no to anything or anyone. The only way to reduce the debt is to reduce spending. With that said, there is a level of debt that is sustainable. I would like to see some public debate on what that level is. I think we are well past that level. Reply – Quote Brooks Commented on November 4, 2009 at 4:02 am | Reply
Ironically, you are accusing me of hyperbole while you are the one engage in it (by presenting a caricature of my argument). No, I'm not saying "Republicans want old people to starve". That's just your distorted, hyperbolic, confused interpretation of my argument. I was simply making the point that advocating lower taxes only makes sense and is only arguably responsible if (1) one knows and appreciates the level and nature of spending cuts that would be necessary to avoid levels of debt that he wishes to avoid while also cutting taxes (or not raising them at all), and (2) one is willing to make those cuts. And I'll add a third and very important requirement, (3) that it be politically plausible and sufficiently politically likely to achieve and maintain for pursuit of a spending-side-only solution to the long-term fiscal imbalance we already face, and then some to offset even lower revenues and incremental debt accumulated in the meantime before spending is supposedly massively reduced. I can tell you that condition #3 doesn't exist. It's an invalid premise. And that alone means that tax cuts, at least for the most part, would be irresponsible.
As for your family helping your grandma, great, but did it occur to you that not every elderly person has such support available? But since you seem to have trouble separating a conceptual example from the particulars of that example, I want to make clear that I was making a broad conceptual argument, not an argument related to the elderly per se (although obviously growth in entitlement spending on seniors is the driver of our long-term fiscal imbalance, and we need to reduce projected spending on it).
Re: "tax our way out", I wouldn't want us to try to solve our long-term fiscal imbalance entirely on the tax side, nor anything close to it, even if we assume (as you don't) that much of the incremental revenue would translate into lower deficits, ceteris paribus, rather than into an equal amount of incremental spending. Cuts in projected spending pretty much across the board, including large cuts in seniors' entitlements, should be part of the solution, along with tax increases. But you present the "strong 'Don't feed the beast'" argument — that every dollar of incremental revenues will cause a full incremental dollar (or more) of incremental spending — and relevant economists and other budget experts tend to regard that argument as invalid, believing instead that a substantial portion of incremental revenues would indeed result in lower deficits, ceteris paribus. If you're interested in researching the matter (something I've done, albeit as a layperson), the technical terms in the academic literature for this dynamic (i.e., among those PhDs who have analyzed it and written papers on it) are the "tax-spend hypothesis" and the "revenue-expenditure nexus".
And of course "there is a level of debt that is sustainable" and even desirable, given the alternative of never carrying any federal debt. At about 50% of GDP, we are nowhere near an "unsustainable" level of debt, nor are we projected to be within the next several years. But desirable level of debt is another question, and over a longer time horizon (a couple of decades), projected deficits and debt-to-GDP assuming a continuation of current fiscal policies are indeed unsustainable. Reply – Quote Peterk Commented on November 4, 2009 at 4:28 am | Reply
"great-Grandma, and she's 95 years old and physically unable to do much/any trick or treatin" so why didn't grandma save anything for her old age from earlier halloweens?, grandma could also serve as a candybank taking a little off the top for providing storage of the said candy Reply – Quote Brooks Commented on November 4, 2009 at 4:41 am | Reply
Geez, all of you guys engage in such oversimplified, ideologically-convenient thinking. Even aside from the fact that you're all largely missing the fact that I'm making a general point about spending vs. revenues, not some point about the elderly in particular or even more broadly about safety nets in particular, you guys speak of the latter as if tax revenues should never go to helping anyone because anyone who isn't fully self-sufficient at every point throughout his life has only himself to blame and that's that. Pretty crude, sloppy, immature thinking. Reply – Quote The Original K Commented on November 4, 2009 at 7:45 am | Reply
Geez, all of you guys engage in such oversimplified, ideologically-convenient thinking
Strange, that's exactly what I thought of your post, so here's some nuance for ya. Taxes are theft. They are a form of virtual slavery. That's what the candy trick is teaching your kids on a visceral level. The notion that taxes aren't necessarily a "patriotic duty" is something which too few people seem to be aware of. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many eager to volunteer other people's labor to pay for their entitlements. Naturally, you have to balance the immorality of taxation with the fact that you have to pay for government services – such as indoctrinating your kids to be good uncomplaining taxpayers, enforcement of a criminal code so complex that nearly everyone can be indicted for something under it, and finally addressing your objection, to prevent the temporarily down and outs, drug addicts and idiots from starving in the streets – which is both ugly and socially unhygienic. Reply – Quote Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.
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