Word: taxingly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Senator Long has devised a method to furtively reach into the pockets of American consumers. The wily Southerner has thus found a solution to Edmund Burke's perennial problem: "To tax and to please, no more than to love and be wise, is not given to man." Long seems to reply to Burke by suggesting that if politicians disguise their taxes, they can please the public, take its money and still get re-elected. With unfounded audacity, Senator Long claims that the VAT is the "least painful way of collecting money," over-looking the regressive nature of this tax. Long...
...boost productivity. Americans save a smaller portion of their incomes than citizens of any other western nation. With savings, so low, banks and business have limited funds to invest in expanding capital to spur productivity. The solution to this problem--for Senator Long and Representative Ullman--lies in a tax on consumption. They even propose that this consumption tax--the VAT--partially replaces the corporate profits tax to free still more money for investment. Evidently, Long and Ullman have overlooked the startling expansion of corporate profits in the past two years. In the name of productivity, they have opted...
LONG AND ULLMAN correctly calculate that an attack on our falling rate of productivity strikes at the core of America's economic woes. Yet the VAT leads this attack in a painfully misdirected way. There's no reason why the incentives for savings must come from a regressive consumption tax. As long as federal regulations limit banks' interest rates on savings accounts to 5.75% while inflation runs well over double that rate, it will make no sense for consumers to save large parts of their incomes. If the government wants Americans to save money, it must eliminate these interest ceilings...
...more equitable strategy for stimulating productivity lies in adjusting the progressive income tax to create incentives for savings. Instead of simply taxing income, the Federal government could tax income minus savings in a way that equalizes the tax burdens upon the rich and poor. With these incentives, Americans would certainly save more, banks and business would invest more, and ensuing gains in productivity would steadily combat inflation...
Unfortunately, Russell Long cannot see beyond regressive taxation as a means to solve America's economic problems. The Louisiana Senator makes no attempt to hide his disdain for equitable taxes. Asked what he thought of the American income tax system, Long replied: "I think it is progressive to the point of being counter-productive." He prefers emulation Louis XIV by extracting onerous "taillies" from lower and middle income people. The VAT's hidden character may seem appealing to politicians, but its regressive nature will certainly prove costly to most Americans...