‘Tis the season to beware of fragrant fertilizer falling from the mouths of politicians.
Go to one of my recent rants on the economy and click on the comments section. There you’ll find a Huckabee supporter filling cyberspace with a rich infusion of methane in defense of the so-called Huckabee “fair tax: plan.
For example, he says: “The FairTax has the broadest base and the lowest rate of any single-rate tax reform plan. [THBP]”
That’s quite possibly so, but he fails to mention the essential un-fairness of clobbering a marginal wage earner (or an out-of-work and hungry job-seeker) with the same tax rate on a pair of socks or infant formula for his baby that a multi-billionaire would pay for his yacht.
Then my Huckabee-supporting correspondent relies on a bunch of obscure economists at a less-than-first-rate university who used an unproven and unprovable computer model, to confidently declare:“Real wages are 10.3 percent, 9.5 percent, and 9.2 percent higher in years 1, 10, and 25, respectively than would otherwise be the case. [THBNP].”
Yeah, and pigs can fly.
However, you don’t have to be on the far right to master the art of doubletalk. I recently stumbled across a “mission statement” from an artist with a magnificently unintelligble plan to bring us all world peace.
I reproduce it below in full for your brain-busting entertainment and as a warning to pay attention to what politicians – mostly especially Republican politicians – are saying. You may discover they’re only making impressive-sounding noises that, on close analysis, tell you nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
The World Community in time can evolve and create through a new biomolecular multicultural engineering logic linguistic and symbolic spanning six thousand years of global cultural written history on all orders of biological magnitude a new microscopic and macroscopic grid coordinate structure whose biological neuronal molecular dynamics link and entrain correlation relationships that encodes, compress new biological neuronal pattern configurations that are embedded in the biological neuronal tapestry fabric of the Charter of United Nations and the universal Declaration of Human Rights. All nations are multicultural. This new linking global universal fabric logic will synchronize entrain and evolve a new molecular fabric of a new tapestry linking energy matter in a new global logic probability distribution output spatial and temporal spanning all orders of biological neuronal magnitude. This new distribution probability output will influencinfluence within the evolving evolutionary adaptive biological mechanisms of neuro social cooperation. The amplification of these new biological signals will build new grid coordinates and linking correlation that will be embedded in the global and local visualization formational communication system for all ages. The illumination of these new aesthetic biological pattern configurations, linguistic and symbolic signals, in a new aesthetic visual band with node will allow us to focus, target and map, these new energy matter biological coordinate throughout the entire brain. In conclusion, we can now introduce and evolve these new biological neuronal unified field grid coordination in local and global level that will entrain, and synchronize evolving evolutionary structures of thought linking, weaving a new linguistic and symbolic grid coordinates that will strengthen our evolving evolutionary multicultural civilization.
3 comments:
Because you failed to moderate my previously submitted comments (that you're critiquing in this piece), I'm resubmitting them below as, I'm sure, your inadvertent lack of posting them under your previously aforementioned and referenced Comments was an oversight. Now, your readers will be able to verify for themselves the wisdom of your critique.
Gov. Huckabee's advocacy of the FairTax is the single most important policy position in this election. Research findings explain why:
The FairTax rate of 23 percent on a total taxable consumption base of $11.244 trillion will generate $2.586 trillion dollars – $358 billion more than the taxes it replaces. [BHKPT]
The FairTax has the broadest base and the lowest rate of any single-rate tax reform plan. [THBP]
Real wages are 10.3 percent, 9.5 percent, and 9.2 percent higher in years 1, 10, and 25, respectively than would otherwise be the case. [THBNP]
The economy as measured by GDP is 2.4 percent higher in the first year and 11.3 percent higher by the 10th year than it would otherwise be. [ALM]
Consumption benefits [ALM]:
• Disposable personal income is higher than if the current tax system remains in place: 1.7 percent in year 1, 8.7 percent in year 5, and 11.8 percent in year 10.
• Consumption increases by 2.4 percent more in the first year, which grows to 11.7 percent more by the tenth year than it would be if the current system were to remain in place.
• The increase in consumption is fueled by the 1.7 percent increase in disposable (after-tax) personal income that accompanies the rise in incomes from capital and labor once the FairTax is enacted.
• By the 10th year, consumption increases by 11.7 percent over what it would be if the current tax system remained in place, and disposable income is up by 11.8 percent.
Over time, the FairTax benefits all income groups. Of 42 household types (classified by income, marital status, age), all have lower average remaining lifetime tax rates under the FairTax than they would experience under the current tax system. [KR]
Implementing the FairTax at a 23 percent rate gives the poorest members of the generation born in 1990 a 13.5 percent improvement in economic well-being; their middle class and rich contemporaries experience a 5 percent and 2 percent improvement, respectively. [JK]
Based on standard measures of tax burden, the FairTax is more progressive than the individual income tax, payroll tax, and the corporate income tax. [THBPN]
Charitable giving increases by $2.1 billion (about 1 percent) in the first year over what it would be if the current system remained in place, by 2.4 percent in year 10, and by 5 percent in year 20. [THPDB]
On average, states could cut their sales tax rates by more than half, or 3.2 percentage points from 5.4 to 2.2 percent, if they conformed their state sales tax bases to the FairTax base. [TBJ]
The FairTax provides the equivalent of a supercharged mortgage interest deduction, reducing the true cost of buying a home by 19 percent. [WM]
ALERT: Kotlikoff refutes Bruce Bartlett's shabby critiques of the FairTax.
No, Ian, I did so "moderate" your last comment – if what you mean is, I allowed it to get posted.
You can scroll down and find it youself, or simply go here and click on comments:
http://thenewyorkcrank.blogspot.com/2008/01/at-last-real-market-intelligence-bush.html
Your complaint somehow reinforces my notion that most conservative thinkers are at heart lazy thinkers.
"Ready....fire!...aim,: eh Ian? Does Mike Huckabee subscribe to this system of thought, too?
Yours crankily,
This is link you posted above which referred to my comment:
http://thenewyorkcrank.blogspot.com/2008/01/if-bush-republican-economy-has-been-so_17.html
No matter, I'm sure the error was inadvertent. And, it is present for all to explore.
Thanks for the get back.
- Ian
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