Not an Awful Deal (if you like Marxism)

[Wehrwolfen]

Not an Awful Deal (if you like Marxism)​

By Quin Hillyer
1.1.13


After about an hour of studying last night’s budget deal, I find it right on the borderline between (A) awful-tasting medicine we still need to take for our health and (B) a cure that is worse than the disease. But careful, careful attention pushes the calculation every-so-slightly toward the former. This isn’t even a 51-49 proposition, but only a 50.1-49.9 proposition. Still, here’s why the option of a “yes” vote for House Republicans — notwithstanding my warnings yesterday that “no deal” is better than a bad deal — is not an unacceptable decision. First, obviously, we already have gone over the cliff, technically speaking. The tax rates now in effect under law are those of the Clinton era, not the Bush era. As Grover Norquist argues, any vote for the Senate deal now is a vote to cut a lot of taxes, not a vote to raise any. And this bill does cut a whole lot of taxes (even including some special-interest breaks demanded by liberals that don’t actually make economic sense). By locking in tax cuts for couples making up to $450,000 a year, by locking in a full $5 million threshold before the death tax kicks in, and by re-cutting the top cap-gains rate and dividend rate down to 20% (worse than the former 15%, but far better than the possible 39.6% that would apply now that the Bush cuts have expired), conservatives provide a ton of room for small businesses to grow and hire more workers, etcetera, before higher rates kick in — and also have saved pensioners who rely on dividends a whole lot of money. Permanently. This is a very good thing.


(Excerpt)

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