From the FT today: "Barack Obama made an aggressive pitch to Ohio's blue-collar workers yesterday with a 'patriot employers' plan that would lower taxes for companies that did not ship jobs overseas. ... The plan met with skepticism from otherwise sympathetic Democratic economists, who said it would require a large regulatory and bureaucratic apparatus. 'I would say that this plan is borderline unimplementable,' said a Democratic economist in Washington DC. 'It is also puzzling. Normally presidential candidates only come up with plans that are unrealistic when they are losing.'"
Doubtless Obama will fully embrace the logic of his plan by today announcing a "patriot consumers" plan that would enact a federal sales tax, waived for those consumers whose purchases contain a certain percentage of goods made in the USA.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
What passes for hope these days
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2 comments:
Feh... What does an economist know about implementing tax incentives? There is already a perfectly suitable regulatory body called the IRS and there are already all manner of exotic tax incentives for corporations.
Actually, here's an idea. I just thought of this and you don't even need to fool with incentives: Just jack with the rules for employement tax trust fund. Let's abolish the rule that says that employers do not need to deposit the trush money, it even if the tax liability is greater than $100K. Then's let's add the rule that any interest in excess of X is a tax credit to the business for their "patriotism." There you go. A Corporate tax break for big business that is basically revenue neutral, requires no additonal beaucracy and encourages bigger domestic payrolls. Everbody wins. Now the only thing missing is a really snazzy name. Oh wait, Obama has already thought of that.
By the way, I don't endorse the above idea as good tax policy as I believe it will encourage bad things that I haven't quite worked out because its late and I'm tired.
Ooh, an even better idea? Get rid of the IRS and bring on the Fair Tax or Flat Tax. Either sound better than the IRS's implemented chaos.
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