This is what we are told is the centrepiece of the plan to reform US taxes. Set aside that this isn't a reform. It's a rate change.
Instead, wonder where the deficit scolds are when Republicans have a plan to reduce taxes without a compensating cost-cutting model?
Why, they disappear.
What happens to them? They go off to talk to the magic growth fairy, who with a wave of her wand, will produce equal and opposite revenue growth. No need to check the record to see if it happens the way she says it will. That's the magic. She makes folks forget that it's been tried before and ends with deficits.
But it's all okay. Because when that happens, the magic deficit fairy will appear and wave her wand, and the deficit scolds will reappear. Abracadabra! And suddenly we will learn afresh that we must cut entitlements because we can't possibly afford to protect the vulnerable: the unhealthy, the unlucky, the young and the elderly. Or the lazy parasites, as they like to call them so sweetly.
See. The deficit scolds always return. And the very richest people will be so very happy. Because the story will have been told again just how they like to hear it. And no one will mention bad things like taxes on dividend income and whether they might rise to fill the revenue gap.
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