Laying the Groundwork for Raising Middle Class Taxes
Posted at 8 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2012
Caroline Baum argues that lifting the Bush tax cuts on top income brackets will not be enough to fund government entitlements, ultimately requiring higher taxes on the middle class as well.
“Raising top tax rates will produce about $800 billion of revenue over the next 10 years, compared with a $3.7 trillion revenue loss from all the Bush tax cuts… The dirty little secret, which everyone seems to know but no one is willing to utter, is that middle-class taxes will have to go up. Not this year, or even next year, but eventually.”
“If the supply of labor is slow to respond to tax-rate changes, and the rich are good at avoiding taxes, who gets hurt?… a tax increase on the rich is really a tax increase on the poor and the middle class, the wannabe rich.”
