by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: They've crunched the numbers and the shocking truth is . . . Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden wants to raise taxes and debt.The word "shocking" needs quotation marks, of course, for sheer lack of any shock whatsoever.
Also not shocking is who pays.
You see, "80 to 90 percent of the total proposed tax increases in Biden's plan would fall on the top five percent of earners," according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That is the target taxpayer cohort, anyway. Economists know a hidden truth: the incidence of a tax's burden shifts. All taxes siphon off production, but — because production is engaged in for consumption's sake — in the end consumers pay.
In politics, of course, the idea is not to acknowledge this, instead focusing on the targets, tempting voters to get on board with spending and taxing and borrowing just so long as some other (preferably non-voting) people pay.
"While tax burdens would rise by 0.2 to 0.6 percent for most households, they would rise by 2.3 to 5.7 percent for the top 20 percent of earners and by 13.0 to 17.8 percent for those in the top 1 percent in 2021." The Democrats would have the highest earners in America pay an extra "$300,000 per year" and call that a benefit . . . to those who would pay less.
Meanwhile, the "additional revenue that would be raised through Biden's tax plan would only pay for a portion of his overall spending agenda." It would take "$6 trillion more . . . to stabilize debt-to-GDP at today's near-record levels."
According to the CRFB, because of pandemic panic spending, and before any proposed Biden add-ons, "debt will grow from 79 percent of GDP before the crisis to 101 percent by the end of 2020 and 118 percent of GDP by 2030."
Have our politicians set out to revise Ben Franklin's maxim? There is nothing more certain than death and taxes — and debt.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob. ------------------Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.
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