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It's a peeve of mine when analysts refer to a tax cut "costing" the government money. This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing (not your invention, but I blame
by gfodor 9y ago
It's a peeve of mine when analysts refer to a tax cut "costing" the government money. This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing (not your invention, but I blame those who invented it as trying to mislead people.) One could equally frame is as the taxpayers "recovering" $1.5 trillion that would have normally been taken from them. A better framing is "is expected to reduce tax revenues by XXX amount."
Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. Taking that projection, and then backing out "how many HSRs will we have saved" makes even less sense than taking the projection itself as gospel, because the HSR is also a projection, and also paid out over time, and also subject to inflation, etc etc.
IOW this kind of analysis has the surface qualities of pointing out an interesting comparison but I don't feel it's conveying anything meaningful.
- wwweston 9y ago>This is a deliberate dishonest re-framing "Dishonest" is a massive overstatement at best. It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue, no matter what frame you choose. "Cost" would be one way to refer to that. I suppose I can imagine someone nitpicking that "cost" should refer to only expenditures, but that's an uphill battle against colloquial speech and even some formal usage (an opportunity cost is not an expenditure). The general argument that taxation itself is theft is stronger than the argument that reduced revenue is only referred to as a cost dishonestly. And that's not saying much. > Not to mention that projecting tax cut "losses" is a game of prediction anyway. IIRC, the $1.5 trillion figure is among other things the prediction of the legislators who created the policy when playing by the required legislative rules.
- shard972 9y ago> It's completely reasonable to state that the government has lost $1.5 trillion in revenue Unless you don't really believe the state owns that money.
- dkural 9y agoUsually when X "loses" money Y "gains" money. The verb itself is relative. A tax cut means the government collects less tax; so it has less money. That sounds like a loss to me. I think it is deliberately dishonest to re-frame this well understood verb in any other way.
- bmmayer1 9y agoIt depends on whether you think the government should have that money.
- jachee 9y agoI'd trust the government to do useful-at-large things with it long before the top 1%.
- bmmayer1 9y agoWhy?
- dkural 9y agoI don't follow. A tax cut is called a cut because the gov looses some tax income. This is simply a fact & does not at all depend on anything you/I think about who should have money. Our politics depends on that, but not the facts.
- megy 9y agoOh, I bet you are one of those guys who love the fact that the US has tax added at the til, not on the prices.