Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Real Tax Cuts Have Curves -- George Bush proves Art Laffer right -- again.

STEPHEN MOORE

As legend has it the famous Laffer Curve was first drawn by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974 on a cocktail napkin during a small dinner meeting... attended by the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and such high-powered policy makers as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The Laffer Curve helped launch the Reaganomics Revolution here at home and a frenzy of tax rate cutting around the globe....

The theory is really one of the simplest concepts in economics. Yet its logic continues to elude the class-warfare lobby whose disbelief is unburdened by the multiple real-life examples which validate its conclusions. The idea is that lowering the tax rate on production, work, investment, and risk-taking will spur more of these activities and thereby will often lead to more tax revenue collections for the government rather than less....

Last week the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on tax revenue collections. The numbers are an eye-popping vindication of the Laffer Curve and the Bush tax cut's real economic value. Federal tax revenues have surged in the first eight months of this fiscal year by $187 billion. This represents a 15.4% rise in federal tax receipts over 2004. Individual and corporate income tax receipts have exploded like a cap let off a geyser, up 30% in the two years since the tax cut. Once again, tax rate cuts have created a virtuous chain reaction of higher economic growth, more jobs, higher corporate profits, and finally more tax receipts.

This Laffer Curve effect has also created a revenue windfall for states and cities. As the economic expansion has plowed forward, and in some regions of the country accelerated, state tax receipts have climbed 7.5% this year already.... New York City... finds itself more than $3 billion IN SURPLUS....




To: OESY
I think if people would "sell" this concept in the below terms, more folks might understand it.

Let's say a company is selling sodas for $1.50 and making $1.25 profit per can. Then I come in as the new CEO and order prices lowered to $1.00 per can. Now, our profit margin will go down, but what happens to our sales volume? It goes up, and once it goes up enough our total profit will exceed the total profit the company would have achieved by keeping prices the same.

Just consider taxes "prices."

No comments: