Laff Out Loud
Posted on May 19th, 2009 by HTML Mencken
Shorter Arthur Laffer & Stephen Moore
ABOVE: Dr. Arthur Laffer (right) and his famous curve (left).
- States, you have tried your best to tax rich people and have failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.*
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
*cf.
Brother of Larry, I assume.
This is true. I’ve read the original napkin.
What the hell is it with the new threads today? Someone get their shipment of Red Bull in?
Also, I worked for a guy named Laffer once. He was a douchebag as well.
One last point: States aren’t simply competing with each other. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told us, “Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan and China for business. We’d better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs will be out-sourced.” Gov. Perry and Texas have the jobs and prosperity model exactly right. Texas created more new jobs in 2008 than all other 49 states combined. And Texas is the only state other than Georgia and North Dakota that is cutting taxes this year.
Erm, wait. Aren’t they talking about the Germany, France, and Japan where tax rates are much higher than America because of the evils of socialism?
Save the states.
Nuke a tax heaven.
Will this make Chattanooga the new Hollywood, after everybody mother-roads it back east?
Come to think of it, what the fuck does Governor Goodhair care about American jobs, anyway? He wants to secede, after all.
Arthur Laffer, you have tried your best to convince people that a marginal tax rate of 0% would result in unimaginable government revenues, and you have failed miserably. The lesson is: only dumb people still believe you.
Which is probably why you co-authored this with Stephen Moore, not only one of the world’s dumbest men, but inarguably its goofiest goober.
Say goodbye to your friends, kids; we’re moving again. You’ll love North Dakota.
This is going Galt writ small.
So you rich folks leaving high tax states? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out…
And that is why there are no rich people in New York, Taxachusetts, or California.
QED, bitches. Q-E-D.
I skimmed the article. He seems to be saying that Texas (low taxes) has a better economy than New Jersey (high taxes).
In 2007, Texas had a median household income of 47,563. New Jersey was 67,142. Amount of time it took me to google this: 5 minutes, including writing this. Amount of time the WSJ spends fact-checking: less than that, obviously.
In 2007, Texas had a median household income of 47,563. New Jersey was 67,142.
Oh, WELL, population density Texas is bigger East Coast limousine liberals welfare Northern elitists stole all that money from Middle America balh blah filbbety-floo harumph harmpuh *rustle rustle*
Also, I do question the logic in…
“– Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states. –”
Because no. No they are not. My dad worked for Exxon as they transitioned from New Jersey to Texas. It took them decades, and billions of dollars. They lost employees. They had to rebuild infrastructure. The project was massive and expensive and slow. And this was a multinational corporation with clients around the globe.
You’re telling me a $10 mil / year small business with a local clientele and a few dozen native city folks as employees is going to pull up roots and jump the Mason-Dixon line because of a 2% tax increase? Fuck that. I hear Canada has free health care. I’ll see your 2% in taxes and raise you 16% / year in health care costs.
In 2007, Texas had a median household income of 47,563. New Jersey was 67,142.
See? There you go. Illegals dragging down the household median. Don’t you watch Lou Dobbs?
Wait. He lives in NJ. The point this is central to is around here somewhere.
If Texas didn’t have oil, it would be as poor as Louisiana and just as corrupt, only five times as big.
In 2007, Texas had a median household income of 47,563. New Jersey was 67,142.
Well, that’s because of all the oil money in Jersey. Have you driven past Port Newark’s refineries lately?
Take away all that oil and give it to Texas and things will even out.
But wait — this is Reichskanzler Stalin Mao Obama; won’t he just make it illegal under penalty of death for rich people to move anywhere he doesn’t tell ’em to move?
From the nooz:
Okay, I’m sure this is bad and all, him being the sheriff, but I thought we were supposed to think of Obama-Illinois-Chicago-Comptroller-Al Capone corruption as being a little bit more, you know, threatening.
Wait til Breitbart catches wind of this. We’ll be reading Big Ottumwa any day now.
I hear Canada has free health care.
You won’t go bankrupt getting a thumb re-attached, but it ain’t free.
It is my impression that the corrupt rich types like to move to Texas and Florida, because if you go bankrupt in those states you get to keep your house. You can buy a 40 million dollar estate and it cannot be touched. Other states let you keep the value of your house or a reasonable abode, to the tune of around $250,000. So you may have to sell your $1,000,000 house and get a $250,000 house instead.
So you may have to sell your $1,000,000 house and get a $250,000 house instead.
Lord, what an unreasonable burden on the wealthy!
So you may have to sell your $1,000,000 house and get a $250,000 house instead.
Lord, what an unreasonable burden on the wealthy!
Hey now! I refuse to give up my fur-lined sinks!
the corrupt rich types like to move to Texas and Florida, because if you go bankrupt in those states you get to keep your house.
it worked for OJ.
Class warfare! Also, and such as.
Wow! I had no idea that Art Laffler was still alive (I mean physically. His ideological zombie corpse will stinking up US politics for the forseeable future.) In a just world he would be driven into the desert away from human contact forever.
Perhaps I should introduce Arthur Laffer to the idea of shiny, happy, taxed people. Bonus: anti-taxers calling for the whaaaambulance about the 1% wage earners providing 40% of taxes, and an assclown who says we saved Norway’s bacon in WWII therefore OF COURSE they are happier than we are.
Idiots.
Alternate shorter Laffer & Moore: Megadildoes, Rush!.
Texas laws go (or at least went) out of their way to protect debtors against creditors too. I personally know someone who moved back to TX specifically to protect his assets.
Business friendly! Unless your business is lending money.
an assclown who says we saved Norway’s bacon in WWII therefore OF COURSE they are happier than we are
All’s I can say to that is “FUCKING UH????”
And from the Pigman’s comment I guess the love affair the wingnuts had with New York after 9/11 is officially over. I can just see them dumping their FDNY caps into the trash, tearful at the way the Eastern elitists have once again betrayed them.
And former Texas gov John Connally
Southern Beale said,
May 19, 2009 at 20:40
I left a comment, SB, but I guess it’s in moderation.
JB’s point about “the top 1%” is a flat out lie, since he only takes into consideration the Federal income tax. Once you factor in ALL taxes, including regressive taxes and fees like sales taxes or car user fees, the burden drops to under 30% (28.7% was the figure calculated for 2007).
And that is the historically lowest rate, ever.
You know what other state is having major budget problems? Nevada! You know what Nevada’s income tax is? ZERO PERCENT!
California and New York are not facing budget problems because of their tax rates. They are facing budget problems because they were the epicenters of the economic collapse. California’s growth this decade was nearly 100% because of real estate. New York’s growth this decade was nearly 100% because of the finance industry. New Jersey’s budget problems are not because of a 2% increase in top income tax bracket five years ago, it is because a lot of those finance guys lived in New Jersey (along with the usual graft and corruption that comes with doing government and business in NJ).
I can also say that their claim at the end about NJ having some of the “worst” schools in the nation is an outright, bald-faced lie, unless they are only including inner city schools in Camden and Newark – which are poor, no doubt, but no worse than the schools in any inner city.
A better example of going from first to worst on school rankings would be California – they were first before proposition 13, and now they’re one of the worst. Of course, Prop 13 starving communities of revenue to pay for schools has nothing to do with that.
This shit is embarrasing.
an assclown who says we saved Norway’s bacon in WWII
Umm….we didn’t. Norway was occupied by Germany starting in 1940. We “saved it” kind of like we “saved” Germany.
It would be more accurate to say that the Norwegian resistance helped the Allies win the war by resisting the German occupation.
I left a comment, SB, but I guess it’s in moderation.
Shouldn’t be. I don’t moderate, I let ’em fly. Haloscan might be its usually sucky self today tho.
I know the conservitards like to say poor people don’t pay any taxes but I suspect JB has been called on it so many times that he carefully couched his words … since I had said “the rich need to pay their fair share,” he was pointing out that the rich do pay their share … whether that is FAIR or not, well …..
I’ve always suspected that these folks protesting taxes are probably not among the super wealthy with their USB Swiss accounts but idiots who would make out better if we closed some loopholes and raised the tax rate back up to where it was under Reagan.
It would be more accurate to say that the Norwegian resistance helped the Allies win the war by resisting the German occupation.
Yeah, I don’t think “accuracy” is a motivating factor here. And you know, Norway, France, England, whatever — Yurp, it’s all the same!!!!
Eat the rich, poop the rich!
since I had said “the rich need to pay their fair share,” he was pointing out that the rich do pay their share … whether that is FAIR or not, well …..
Analogous to a group going to a diner, ordering a meal then discussing how to split up the check… rich assclown throws a single dollar bill into the pot (even though he had the surf ‘n’ turf) and says “WELL? I CONTRIBUTED, didn’t I?”
The late John Connally, a former Texas governor, showed how forgiving the state’s laws are when he filed for personal bankruptcy in 1988. While claiming $93 million of debt from the collapse of oil and real estate interests, he retained a ranch house on 200 acres and a multimillion- dollar annuity.
That almost makes me wish I believed in Hell.
A better example of going from first to worst on school rankings would be California – they were first before proposition 13, and now they’re one of the worst. Of course, Prop 13 starving communities of revenue to pay for schools has nothing to do with that.
No, nothing at all…nor does it have anything to do with the fact that every couple of years there’s a new ballot proposition before the voters that asks for a new bond issue or tax increase so that school programs won’t be cut, or to restore programs that have already been cut. There’s a special election today for one where I live.
Proposition 13 destroyed California. Fucking Howard Jarvis – if I believed in hell I’d be enjoying the thought of him roasting slowly down there for eternity.
New York could raise taxes to a million percent and there’s still no way a rich Manhattanite would move to Mississippi.
I’ve always suspected that these folks protesting taxes are probably not among the super wealthy with their USB Swiss accounts but idiots who would make out better if we closed some loopholes and raised the tax rate back up to where it was under Reagan.
I, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing the AMT closed, if only so I don’t have to go thru the exercise of calculating it every year (I owe it mostly because my state taxes are so high they trigger the deduction ceiling). I’d be more than happy if the Feds simply said no more state tax deductions.
The superwealthy don’t pay all that much in taxes anyway. People like JB *think*, however, that they’ll one day make that much money and they see their taxes currently scrape away more and more of their earnings.
Trouble is a) 19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of income earners and b) the odds of anyone in even the next 20% becoming a one percenter is ludicrously small, on the order of the chances of any random high school varsity ball player becoming an NBA player.
Millions to one, literally.
So all guys like JB are doing is codifying the entrenched wealth of the tiny minority for the lottery-small chance they too might one day earn that much money.
But what they don’t know is, when you get to that level, you stop paying taxes. You hire accountants who can squirrel away money faster than you can earn it.
commie atheist:
He also inspired Washington’s own Tim Eyman, who started us on the same slide. We’re circling the same toilet as California, just a year or two behind. These Orange County anarchists who inflicted him and Saint Ronnie of Alzheimer’s on us have a lot to answer for.
So all guys like JB are doing is codifying the entrenched wealth of the tiny minority for the lottery-small chance they too might one day earn that much money.
Yes. Thanks for articulating that, as my brain wasn’t up to the task.
And yes, I used to live in CA and Prop. 13 has ruined the state. How much further down the drain the state has to go before the thing gets repealed is another story, however.
These Orange County anarchists who inflicted him and Saint Ronnie of Alzheimer’s on us have a lot to answer for.
Verily. Of course, OC got a little taste of their own free-market medicine a while back:
On December 6th, 1994, Orange County California became the largest municipality in U.S. history ever to file for bankruptcy. The financial difficulties leading to the bankruptcy were the direct result of an enormous gamble with public funds taken by a county treasurer who was seriously under-qualified to deal in the kinds of investments he chose. Because of his shortcomings, because of Orange County’s national reputation as a land of rich, spoiled, archconservatives, and because the bankruptcy did not play out as other municipal financial crises have, many observers have dismissed it as an anomaly. It may have been a nasty surprise for Wall Street, they argue, but it is not something that is likely to happen again, even in Orange County.
In “When Government Fails: The Orange County Bankruptcy,” Mark Baldassare presents compelling evidence to the contrary. Orange County may have provided sufficiently dramatic warning of the dangers of County Treasurer Bob Citron’s kind of investment strategy to prevent others from going down that particular slope. However, the conditions and resulting imperatives that drove the county to gamble persist. Moreover, as Baldassare argues, the conditions exist in cities and counties across California and the nation. As the fervor for smaller government, tax limits, and local autonomy grows and spreads, many more municipalities may find the specter of bankruptcy looming— especially when the economy takes the next downturn.
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/op/OP_398OP.pdf
I don’t think it can be. Taxes can’t be raised, only lowered. It’s a ratchet, and it’s ratcheting us straight into societal collapse.
Thanks for the link, ca. We have seen the future and it is Orange County.
Half the anti-taxers are total douchebag ‘free riders’ who got lucky through birth, want to pull of the ladder on EVERYONE ELSE to maintain their ‘luck’ and don’t give a shit if they drag the country to Brazil levels of inequality or foment another Russian Revolution because they think they’ll be in the armored black cars in Rio or on the first plane out when the shit hits the fan (to where? they don’t know but their $$$ will get them there…just like it did 100% of the Czarists).
The other half are dumbass rich people who pay douchebags to find every method possible to lower their tax burden. That it makes them looks like the above group is immaterial. They know, just as the Germans who lived near Dachau knew, how their ‘sausage was made’, they pretend to not know to assuage their guilt and pretend they really aren’t in group 1.
Lastly, it’s not neatly quantifiable, but FUCK those who don’t think the rich PARTAKE in more Gummint than I do. I don’t get to call in the Marines when my business deals go sour. I don’t get no-bid contracts in my biz. I don’t own fleets of trucks tearing up the roads, yet subsidized by tax policy. I don’t get eminent domain to steal property for my baseball team/shopping mall.
henry lewis is right — Canadian healthcare isn’t free, but it is paid for up front. Shit, I’d rather pay the 32% or so taxes I pay on my undersized income and get no-hassle, no-denial healthcare into the bargain than have to deal with your healthcare system, if you can call it a system. I used to be engaged to this guy from Lawn Guyland, and seeing the healthcare problems even people with good insurance go through gives just about any Canadian a ten-thousand-year perfect storm headache. Fuck that noise. I probably used more in medical attention before the age of four than I’ve ever paid in taxes. The federal government’ll get their own back from me eventually…
Those of you no-doubt honorable people who think that the *revenue* loss allegedly caused by Prop 13 has sent us down the toilet should take a look at school revenues. California is 25th among states – the median. Yes, more of it comes from the state than the local government, but part of Prop 13 was a reallocation of funds, not just the tax limitation, so the combined total is more significant than it seems. Is 25th good enough? Complicated question. I don’t want to start a debate, but merely wish to point out that blaming California’s economic and educational problems on a single source is the easy way out.
When it all falls apart I want to be the real life Snake Plissken, but I am sure that Ace of Spades or the Confederate Wankee will beat me to it.
Didn’t Orange County offer to take in other municipalities’ garbage a while back because they’d gone broke and needed a new source of revenue? How’d that turn out?
Re: Norway.
Norway wasn’t liberated by anyone, really. The Germans still occupied Norway when the Third Reich fell in May 1945, and when Karl Doenitz surrendered, Norway was ‘liberated’ by operation of law.
people, investment capital and businesses are mobile:
Which is why the Scandiwegian* cellphone / communications companies relocated to Somalia.
*For values of ‘Scandiwegian’ that include Finland.
No values of “Scandiwegian” include Finland. (Pet peeve of mine.)
I do not think that peeves should be domesticated. It is kinder to leave them to roam the tundra in majestic isolation.
Very Reverend: Scandinavia is an acceptable translation of the Danish or Norwegian term Norden (I don’t know Finnish and I presume the Swedish version has some unnecessary umlauts,) which loosely means Iceland and the nations in Fenno-Scandia. So yeah, if you want to get nerdy enough, they do.
Man, is Arthur Laffer a lazy motherfucker. Florida, Texas and Nevada’s low taxes make them competitive and create jobs? Yeah, or it could just be that most of the jobs and the movement there was created by a rapidly rising population, sun-belt retirees and a tide of immigration from Mexico. But it’s probably because of a couple of percent tax differential. God knows it’s easy to commute to Manhattan from Elko.
Very Reverend: Scandinavia translates ‘Norden’, which in Norwegian and Danish (I don’t speak Finnish and the Swedish equivalent will have too many umlauts) means roughly Iceland and the nations with Fenno-Scandia. So yeah, certain very nerdy cultural-linguistic definitions of Scandinavia include Finland.
Arthur Laffer is one lazy motherfucker. Florida, Texas and Nevada have seen many new jobs because of their low tax rates? Yeah, it could be that, or it could be because the north is moving there because they’re tired of the cold and the rain, the population is breeding like rabbits and there’s a not inconsiderable immigrant population. Probably the stockbrokers fleeing tax though. Sure is easy to commute from Elko to Manhattan these days.
No values of “Scandiwegian” include Finland. (Pet peeve of mine.)
Where’s actor212 when you need him. He’s a guy who can actually tell Finno from Ugric.
‘Nordic’ would have satisfied certain pedants, but ‘Scandiwegian’ is an inherently funnier word.
He certainly does bear a striking resemblance to Leisure Suit Larry. Bet he’s just as much a hit with the ladies, too.
I’m just sayin’ that Scandiwegian sounds like sammidge. That’s if I’m herring it properly.
Indeed, Jarvis roasts in hell.
Taxless Nevada leads the nation in foreclosures, which–considering the lack of state tax–ought not to be happening.
If Texas didn’t have oil, it would be as poor as Louisiana and just as corrupt, only five times as big.
Correction.
If all of Texas’ oil was off-shore like Louisiana’s is…
No values of “Scandiwegian” include Finland. (Pet peeve of mine.)
Trust me. We Finns don’t like being lumped in with you rabble either…
Where’s actor212 when you need him. He’s a guy who can actually tell Finno from Ugric.
Urang?
Alternative shorter:
Oh no!! MY LEGACY!!!!1
Finland: Depends on your definitions.
Linguistically? Nope. (Unless you count the 10% of the pop. who still speak Swedish.)
Historically? Was under the Swedish crown 1249–1809, and Swedish was the official court language (see 10% of pop. above). 560 years ain’t exactly a historical blip. Road signs still give both “Helsinki” and “Helsingfors.”
Sociopolitically? Absolutely Scandinavian.
But Actor212’s “We don’t like being lumped in with you rabble either” is also absolutely true. I’ve seen some hockey games I could tell stories about…
Sadly No droolz:
Neddie,
You neglected to mention the several years of Russian rule, as well as the Polish (Vasa, by way of Sweden) rule.
Emabarassingly, Swedish is one of three official languages in Finland (with Finnish, and English is the third, altho English has waned in influence over the past eight years if the documents I get from Helsinki are any indication).
Native Finns with long ancestral heritage…carry grudges, let’s just say. As a mutt of both factions, I tend to keep a low profile, particularly with the heritage I have from the Swedish side.
Actor212, the thought occurred to me: For “Scandinavia,” substitute “British Isles,” and for “Finland” substitute “Ireland,” and you’ll have a pretty good indicator of the emotional complexity of the area’s history. Not to mention the “grudge” thing.
Now hang on just a minute!
There are plenty of things I’ll allow myself to be compared to, but when you call me “Irish”, well, we’ll have to step outside, sir!
Actually, that’s a pretty good comparison. Hadn’t thought of it before.
Historically? Was under the Swedish crown 1249–1809, and Swedish was the official court language (see 10% of pop. above). 560 years ain’t exactly a historical blip.
Why don’t we invoke historical precedent and call the whole area “Greater Denmark”? That would simplify matters no end.
Why don’t we invoke historical precedent and call the whole area “Greater Denmark”?
Great Danes. Yea. That will go over well.
Great Danes. Yea. That will go over well.
Hyvää on!
Well, OK. “Pretty Good Danes.” How’s that?
Whatever. Just so long as you wear helmets with horns on them.
I see what you do there.
Somewhere around the Urals, the Suomi and the Magyars split up. The Finns took all the vowels and left the Hungarians with the consonants.
Puhu Suomi, Neddie?
Well, OK. “Pretty Good Danes.” How’s that?
I’d prefer “Claire Danes”.
No. Really!