Could This Be the "Boldness"?

Dummocrats.com suggests that Bush's "boldness" may come from his endorsement of the (minor) push to eliminate the IRS.

I don't know. That to me qualifies as "likely to be expensive." Furthermore, any regime which attempted to tax only consumption would require some big bureaucracy to calculate tax credits for the poor (as consumption-only taxes are very regressive without some adjustment/credit/refund) that would end up looking a lot like the current IRS.

In fact, since the plan would be revenue-neutral, I wonder how much different it would be from the standing regime for most taxpayers. If the IRS is "gone" but we install a consumption-based regime with a big bureaucracy that ends up taking in just as many tax dollars as the current system, what have we actually gained? Seems like a lot of costly bureaucratic shaking-up to come up with a system based on an alternative theory of taxation but which broadly mimics the current one.

OTOH, it would be "bold."

I don't know. It's possible, but it smells like a desperate political stunt to me.

posted by Ace at 07:55 PM

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