We have choices. How we choose speaks to our priorities. But no matter how we choose, we get the down side of our choices as well as the up side, and there is no magic wand to whoosh those away. When you choose a policy, you choose ALL of the predictable results of that policy, whether you are honest enough to acknowledge the existence of them or not. (You’re also choosing the unpredictable results, but you only find them afterwards.)

What I continually see from partisans and ideologues is the minimization of or complete refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the down sides of their preferred choices, and to exaggerate the up sides, even to claim advantages that exeperience shows are simply not there in the real world.

For example, you are highly unlikely to ever hear a rabid pro-lifer acknowledge that a total legal ban on abortion would increase the maternal death rate while failing to stop abortion, yet that’s an epidemiological and historical given. Or hear a rabid pro-choicer acknowledge that if abortion is freely available up until birth, that there will be occasions where perfectly healthy third-trimester fetuses being carried by perfectly healthy women are aborted for sheer contraceptive convenience when they could easily survive outside the womb.

Yet we know these things are true. Either way you choose you get the whole package, not just your preferred “moral” goal. If you get that at all. But you OWN the whole thing, both the up and the down.

As for tax-inspired capital flight, oh yeah, it’s very very real. Just ask Phil Mickelson.

So states have to compete with one anther to attract business. Got it. Makes perfect sense. But does that mean that having the least regressive, most business friendly tax system is “right”? There are a lots of things that businesses or governments can do that make themselves more competitive that are also immoral.

That’s based on forty-one years (1963-2004) of real-world government economic data covering all fifty states.

Immoral? I tend to agree to some extent, but once again, that’s a completely subjective call utterly dependent on your own “moral” views, and does not change the real-world empirical mechanics of how economic changes affect government revenue streams under different tax structures. The flatter and broader the structure, the less variability in revenues in response to changes in the economy. That’s a simple and demonstrable fact. And we have had some real painful lessons about that revenue variability over the last few years, haven’t we? Nor does having a flatter and broader structure preclude progressivity. Even a single-rate income tax with a largish primary deduction/exclusion is by definition progressive, as are policies that exclude basic items like food and medicine from sales tax.

And yes, I’m sorry, but your dime-store economic analysis is indeed irrelevant because it’s based on emotional appeals, flawed on an empirical basis, and unsupported by any evidence you have offered. You can wish all you like, but wishing does not make it so, and I believe that’s the cognitive defect tillyosu is talking about. Reality does not care what you feel is right.

A good example is your sneering at the study referred to without being able to address it on the merits and fundamentals. That you do not like it does not make it wrong. It’s actually a pretty solid study, despite having been published by Cato, and the authors are well-respected economists with good track records of empirical studies. Your comment “they never provide any real numbers. Just theory.” is completely false. Your inability to read and process the study does not make their paper “theory.” It’s an empirical study of REAL-WORLD data collected over FORTY YEARS by government agencies. And the results are not even remotely ambiguous.

The analysis reveals that higher marginal tax rates had a negative impact on economic growth in the states. The analysis also shows that greater regressivity had a positive impact on economic growth. States that held the rate of growth in revenue below the rate of growth in income achieved higher rates of economic growth.

As far as personal income tax, regressive taxes are just immoral. That’s all there is to it. You can’t tax people at the bottom the same as people at the top. It is completely unfair and their income doesn’t trickle down.

Tillyosu, throw all the insults at me that you want. It still doesn’t make my dime store analysis any less relevant. And by the way…CATO? Yeah, like they don’t have an agenda. And they never provide any real numbers. Just theory. That’s fine, but I need some tangible examples.

What this all boils down to is that what Jindal is saying makes a decent sound bite…but does it make economic sense? On paper, no. It doesn’t. At least it doesn’t appear to make sense.

So are you saying that Jindal is wrong? Or that he just SEEMS wrong…to you.

I find this to be a common cognitive defect on the left. They tend to get stuck believing that their own gut conclusion to a proposition is true, sometimes in the face of evidence to the contrary. For example, the idea that introducing more guns into a community might reduce gun violence, or that giving a man open ended welfare might do him more harm than good is prima facie absurd.

I will admit, in light of the dime store economic analysis (which would probably require another post to take down) that Justin has provided us here, his conclusion seems perfectly reasonable. But if his conclusion is so obvious, shouldn’t it be easy for him to find some data to support it?

Thankfully, someone has bothered to take the time to look at the data. CATO published a paper conveniently titled “State Income Taxes and Economic Growth” Its conclusion?

The analysis reveals that higher marginal tax rates had a negative impact on economic growth in the states. The analysis also shows that greater regressivity had a positive impact on economic growth. States
that held the rate of growth in revenue below the rate of growth in income achieved higher rates of economic growth.

Does it make economic sense? Sorry, same answer. You bet.

Believe it or not, corporations are mobile and can pick and choose where and how they invest. And cities/counties/states/nations hoping to gain long-term investments from corporations have to compete for them. Tax structures are one of the areas in which they compete.

You don’t have to like it. But it’s true.