Seven Reasons to Oppose Higher Taxes

Posted By Daniel J. Mitchell On May 4, 2011 @ 9:58 am 

As I have explained elsewhere ^[1], tax increases are a bad idea – unless you favor bigger government.

And I’ve already added my two cents ^[2] to the tax debate between Senator Coburn and Grover Norquist regarding the desirability of higher taxes.

So it won’t surprise anyone to know that I fully agree with this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, which offers seven reasons why higher taxes are a bad idea.

The video is narrated by Piyali Bhattacharya of Young Americans for Liberty, and here are her seven reasons.

1. Tax increases are not needed
2. Tax increases encourage more spending
3. Tax increases harm economic performance
4. Tax increases foment social discord
5. Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected
6. Tax increases encourage more loopholes
7. Tax increases undermine competitiveness

I think reasons #1, #2, #3, and #5 are the most powerful.

To a considerable degree, my video on balancing the budget ^[3] makes the same point as reason #1 about why higher taxes are unnecessary. Simply stated, balancing the budget merely requires a modest degree of fiscal discipline ^[4], such as capping spending so it only grows 2 percent per year.

And if tax increases are not needed to balance the budget, then the only purpose they serve is to facilitate a bigger burden of government spending, which is why I like reason #2.

And reason #3 is standard economic analysis, making the common-sense point that if you punish something, you get less of it. This is why it is so misguided to impose higher tax rates on work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship ^[5].

Last but not least, reason #5 is just another way of saying that the Laffer Curve is real, as I explain in this tutorial ^[6].

Article printed from Cato @ Liberty: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org

URL to article: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/seven-reasons-to-oppose-higher-taxes/

URLs in this post:

[1] I have explained elsewhere: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/tax-increases-are-p...

[2] I’ve already added my two cents: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/norquist-is-right-a...

[3] video on balancing the budget: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/heres-how-to-balanc...

[4] balancing the budget merely requires a modest degree of fiscal discipline: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/its-simple-to-balan...

[5] misguided to impose higher tax rates on work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-destructive-eco...

[6] I explain in this tutorial: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/a-laffer-curve-tuto...