A Clash of Visions Over Taxes: New at Reason

Actual tax cuts simply don’t stir the hearts of garden-variety liberals, new spending does.

A. Barton Hinkle writes:

House Republicans unveil their tax-cut package Thursday, which means the spot price for liberal shibboleths like “giveaway to the rich” and “hypocrisy on the deficit” is about to hit the roof. Which is only fair. Conservatives don’t exactly trip over themselves to embrace Democratic policies, either.

The package will include lots of numbers. That will give critics plenty of ammunition with which to explain why this particular set of tax proposals does not deserve to pass. And maybe it doesn’t! The trouble is that such arguments raise a question: What set of tax cuts would liberals consider worthy of passing?

Judging by their usual objections, those on the left want to see tax cuts that help the poor, and maybe the middle class, but not the rich. This sounds swell, but it short-circuits just about all tax cuts of any sort. That’s because the bottom 50 percent of earners in the U.S. pay only 2.7 percent of the revenue collected through income taxes. The top 1 percent of earners, who enjoy 15 percent of all pre-tax earnings, pay 38 percent of all federal income taxes.

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