How are tax hikes contractionary?
In the same way spending cuts are....except worse.
illogical. The government spends all the tax revenue it takes in. Tax hikes are not contractionary.
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks
By Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer*
This paper investigates the impact of tax changes on economic activity. We use the narrative record, such as presidential speeches and Congressional reports, to identify the size, timing, and principal motivation for all major postwar tax policy actions. This analysis allows us to separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions and those taken for more exogenous reasons. The behavior of output following these more exogenous changes indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. (JEL E32, E62, H20, N12)
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~dromer/papers/RomerandRomerAERJune2010.pdf
LMAO. Romer and Romer, seriously?
This analysis allows us to separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions and those taken for more exogenous reasons. The behavior of output following these more exogenous changes indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary.
Now let me translate that for you. "allows us", wtf--no, what they did is picked and chose the data that would provide them with the conclusion they were looking for. Either a tax increase, or cut for that matter, was done for what they called "prospective economic conditions" or it was for "exogenous reasons". Tell me, can you provide a time when taxes were either increased or decreased for "exogenous reasons" and NOT due to economic conditions? And lo and behold, well it was only for those tax increases due to exogenous reasons that they determined were contractionary. If you take the time to break the study down you will find no real differences between the two subsets of data they were analyzing. It was a deeply flawed study.
Now, I will admit that there are times when tax increases can be contractionary. For instance, I noticed that by 2027 those earning less than thirty thousand a year will be looking at a collective tax increase of about eleven billion dollars under the current tax reform proposal. To the extent that any of that tax revenue is used to fund defense spending as opposed to being in the pocket of those low income families, well that is contractionary. Both the multiplier and the velocity of that money would be higher in the hands of the low income families.
But, in general, as I pointed out, the government spends all the money it takes in. Intuitively, if the citizens would have saved, and notice I said "SAVE" as opposed to invest, and we know you have no clue as to the difference, any of the revenue that is collected from a tax increase, then that tax increase, by definition, would be the opposite of contractionary. I will refer you to the Paradox of Thrift again.