NYT: Deficits schmeficits, forget about all that poppycock and embrace the coming inflation

Long live inflation. Inflation is our friend. Inflation is good. All hail our savior inflation.

...Before the United States gets serious about raising taxes, I suspect that inflation will start to seem much more attractive, even if few are willing to say so publicly. In the past, inflation has enabled the United States to reduce the burden of repaying existing debt, and China, for one, has voiced fears we will do it again. Widespread inflation could also make depreciated assets — like homes — worth more dollars than the owner now owes...

...that bill did nothing about the alternative minimum tax, which was supposed to catch wealthy citizens with big deductions and force them to pay something. By not lowering the A.M.T. rates when ordinary tax rates were cut, the law negated the cuts for millions of middle-class people. Now Congress passes a temporary fix every year to keep that from happening. President Obama wants to make that fix permanent, something Mr. Bush was hesitant to do because it would have made deficit forecasts look worse...

See how this works? Congress and Obama can claim they didn't pass "new taxes", sit back and allow our friend inflation and the already-on-the-books AMT do all the dirty work and they can claim they're blameless as the middle class all start to swirl around the AMT black hole's event horizon.

posted by Purp at 10:16 PM

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