In the end, how we actually pay for the bailout is just part of the issue. The larger point is that if McCain or Obama follow through with their tax plans, we’ll continue a trend that makes us look more and more like some European social welfare state, where many people have a stake in growing government entitlements, which fewer and fewer taxpayers finance. At some point along that road, change becomes impossible because too many citizens benefit from the system in place, while those who pay the freight for this system try whatever they can, including starting businesses elsewhere, or reducing their output, to avoid the disproportionate tax bite.
That’s a prescription for a static economy largely bereft of opportunity. On the other hand, we probably won’t have to worry about volatile markets in such a world.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
What I read . . .
From "The Bailout and the Vanishing Taxpayer" by Steven Malanga:
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1 comment:
I just don't buy it. The EU economy was on par with or outperformed the US economy for the past how many years? Their problem now is that they didn't look carefully enough at the consolidated debts they invested in -- debts sliced and diced because of deregulation in line with the positions of Phil Gramm and other of McCain's economic advisors. Now the EU is tanking with the rest of the world.
It seems there is a perception in the US that anything hinting of "socialism" conjures up doleful socio-economic conditions and scenes of Soviet-era proletariat listlessly milling about. But European conditions are far more like our own than many conservatives would care to admit. Indeed, the booming US post-war economy was more socialized than our current one.
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