"To be the Regeneration, they’ll have to figure out how to raise some taxes to increase revenues, while cutting other taxes to stimulate growth; they’ll have to cut some services to save money, while investing in new infrastructure to grow economic capacity. We have got to use every dollar wisely now."You can read Friedman's entire column here.
There are striking parallels to the Alabama economic situation, including the anti-tax pledge that almost everyone who wants to be elected seems to be required to take in this state.
The real shame here is that the best investment Alabama has going for it is about to go away.
For every $1.00 Alabamians send to Washington, D.C., we get $1.60 back. If we could have just doubled our Federal Taxes for the past two decades, we would be in great shape!
Instead, that rate of return is going to shrink, and the New Governor will have to find a way to replace the revenue. Any suggestions?
That doesn't really compute.
ReplyDeleteDoubling what we send to the Gummint would mean, roughly, doubling jobs. That would mean we'd need a negative unemployment rate: every eligible person holding full employment, plus others wanting to get in.
And with every eligible person holding a job there would be much less need for welfare and other social service programs.
Hasn't happened yet.
Sorry. That was me, Jay Croft.
ReplyDeleteI know people get tired of hearing me say it, but legalizing marijuana (for adult use) and taxing it would bring in a minimum of $130 million (and that is a real low ball estimate). Releasing all non-violent drug prisoners would save another $132 million. Not to mention all the money that would be saved in the court system, which is over run by non-violent drug offenders who have no business being arrested and tried for a victimless 'crime'. We could also downsize the bloated police departments and their 'drug task forces' could be done away with completely.
ReplyDeleteWe only have two options when it comes to drug policy. We can take control of the market and use the lucrative billions to fund better education, infrastructure, and other worthy programs or we can keep it in the hands of the modern day Al Capone's and fund crime, violence, death, disease and destruction. The latter is what we currently have now and obviously it isn't working out so well.
Every time a person is arrested, tried and imprisoned in Alabama for one year over marijuana one teacher gets a pink slip.
And then... there's the surreptitiously obvious answer: Return corporate tax rates to the levels they were post WWII.
ReplyDeleteDuh!
Nobody seems to understand this!
Hello?!
"The culmination of this effort was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which brought the top statutory tax rate down from 50 percent to 28 percent while the corporate tax rate was reduced from 50 percent to 35 percent."
Here's the analogy:
Three people, 1.) A Body Builder Strong Man;
2.) An Average Joe; and
3.) An 80-year-old, 80-pound Granny,
MUST move an 800-pound object.
Is it good, right or just to tell the Body Builder Strong Man to "sit down and take a break," and require the other two to do the work?
No, it is not!
The Body Builder Strong Man are our LARGE CORPORATIONS, BIG BUSINESS, MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS.
Increasingly, we have been reducing their taxes, forgiving their debts, "incentivizing" their overseas profiteering via tax breaks of all kinds, all the while our revenues are shrinking, our needs are growing.
Ta-dah!
It's really rather simple.
Besides... Banks, Insurance Companies, and Stock Brokerage Houses have ALREADY PROVEN to us, and to the world, that they really can't effectively manage XtheirX OUR money anyway.