Number19
03-28-2010, 09:26 PM
Charles Krauthammer has a pretty good analysis on what to expect in the near future. Here's a few select quotes :
As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh...People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion) It's the ultimate cash cow...Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent....as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation...Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it. Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Spend first -- which then forces taxation. With the institution of universal health care, the beast will have to be fed. And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.
Read all the op-ed here : http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/89302067.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ
What jumps out at me though, the Republicans are going to retake Congress in 2010 and may well take back the White House in 2012. So will it be the Republicans who will push for this?
As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh...People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion) It's the ultimate cash cow...Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent....as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation...Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it. Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Spend first -- which then forces taxation. With the institution of universal health care, the beast will have to be fed. And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.
Read all the op-ed here : http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/89302067.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ
What jumps out at me though, the Republicans are going to retake Congress in 2010 and may well take back the White House in 2012. So will it be the Republicans who will push for this?