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June 10, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:43
June 10, 2010, Thursday, Hour #2
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You know, when you're a guest host, you get the opportunity to talk about issues that you really, really care about, and you can bring them to a national audience, and there's one that I want to get to in a second here.
Before I do, this whole thing with this liberals trying to boycott Arizona, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
I honestly think Arizona should work with this.
Is there ever let's imagine they do it.
Sir ever a better time to go to Arizona, there won't be any liberals there.
They ought to advertise it.
This is the best state to come to.
You can come here and there won't be a liberal here at all.
They don't want to come to our state.
I think it's a selling point myself.
I want to get to this issue because not enough people are aware of it or talking about it.
This is kind of gloomy, I admit.
The take here from the person that I'm going to quote is negative.
But it's something that has to be put on the front burner.
And that is the fact that the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year.
The tax cuts passed by President Bush and Congress, now nearly eight years ago, had a sunset provision in them.
It was how Bush was able to get them through Congress.
They weren't permanent tax cuts.
There was a presumption at the time that the pressure would be overwhelming to make the tax cuts permanent when the day came.
And most people didn't worry about what was going to happen eight years later when they were passed.
Well, that day is here right now.
The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year.
That means there will be a massive increase in taxes.
The tax rates that were covered by the Bush cuts all revert to where they were before the tax cuts were passed in the first place.
Nobody's talking about this except Arthur Laffer.
Arthur Laffer is a name familiar to many of you.
He's the guy who's considered one of the fathers of supply-side economics.
He's the guy who famously drew out on the napkin...
His graph that showed that when you decrease tax rates, when you cut tax rates, you increase tax revenue.
And when you raise tax rates, you depress tax revenue.
His theory, and supply siders believe it deeply, his theory is that lowering tax rates produces economic activity, produces a strong economy, produces economic growth, and therefore tax revenues go up, even though the rate is lower since there's more income being generated,
tax revenues go up, and the converse, when you keep raising taxes, nobody's making any money, nobody takes risks, nobody nobody is making the effort to produce income because they realize they're giving most of it to the government that revenues decrease.
Laffer is of the opinion that because of the phase out of the Bush tax cuts, that 2011 will be an economic disaster in the United States.
He wrote a column that appeared earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal.
The headline was tax hikes in the 2011 economic collapse.
Now Laffer's not a fringe guy.
He is one of the most prominent conservative economists in the world.
He's very influential.
He's a major figure.
And he's got an opinion here, and he's stating it strongly.
He writes, people can change the volume, the location, and the composition of their income.
And they can do so in response to changes in government policies.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates.
By the way, liberals never get that.
They never understand why high income individuals and corporations that produce high income would rather go to states with no income tax and leave states that have high income taxes.
He continues.
People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.
Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buppett, hold the bulk of their wealth in the non-taxed forms of unrealized capital gains.
The composition of wealth also responds to incentives.
And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work.
Incentives matter.
People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies.
Just remember what happened to auto sales when the Cash for Clunkers program ended.
Or how about new housing sales when the $8,000 tax credit ended?
It isn't rocket surgery.
On or about January first, 2011, federal, state, and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply.
President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go to 39.6% from 35%.
The highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%.
Think about that one for a moment.
The top rate on dividends is currently 15%.
It's going to go to 39.5%.
Do you know how many senior citizens in this country get their living off of dividends?
15% to 39%.
That's what they were before the Bush tax cuts.
Laffer continues.
The capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero.
Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision and the Bush tax cuts.
Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from offshore investments.
Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013, and the alternative minimum tax will be digging deeper and deeper into middle income taxpayers.
And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans.
State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011, as they did in 2010.
Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.
Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year?
They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible.
As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be, and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.
Let me interject.
What Laffer is saying is because of the big increase in tax rates next year that you have all sorts of Americans, individuals and corporations trying to shove as much of their income into tax year 2010 as possible to avoid the higher tax rates of next year.
He continues also the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates, and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010.
In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has.
When we pass the tax boundary of January first, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks, and we get our worst nightmare of a severe double dip recession.
I want to repeat that.
Arthur Laffer, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks, and we get our worst nightmare of a severe double dip recession.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan with bipartisan support began the first phase in a series of tax cuts passed under the Economic Recovery Tax Act, whereby the bulk of the tax cuts didn't take effect until January first of 1983.
Reagan's delayed tax cuts were the mirror image of President Barack Obama's delayed tax rate increases.
For 1981 and 1982, people deferred so much economic activity that real GDP was basically flat and the unemployment rate rose.
But at the tax cut boundary of January first, nineteen eighty-three, the economy took off like a rocket, with average real growth reaching 7.5% in 83 and 5.5 in 84.
It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect.
Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse.
The economy will collapse in 2011.
Arthur Laffer, the economy will collapse in 2011.
He continues.
Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of the U.S. economy.
These high profits reflect the shift in income into 2010 from 2011.
These profits will tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market.
I'll interject again.
Laffer is saying that corporations are shoving as much income as possible artificially onto their books now because they know taxes on them will be higher next year.
In other words, corporate profits will sink dramatically in 2011 because they're front loading those profits now.
He's also saying that the stock market anticipating this will collapse.
He continues, in 2010, without any prepayment penalties, people can cash in their IRAs, deferred income accounts and 401ks.
After paying their taxes, these deferred income accounts can be rolled into Roth IRAs that provide after tax income to their owners in the future.
Given what's going to happen to tax rates, this conversion seems like a no-brainer.
The result of all of this will be a crash in tax receipts once the surge is passed.
If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.
That column appeared earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal.
Arthur Laffer.
He says the increase in tax rates that will kick in next year will cause an economic collapse.
He says unemployment will increase dramatically and we're still in the mid 9% range now.
And he says the def says the deficit, which is already terrifyingly high, will get far worse.
His point is this that when we raise all of these tax rates, the taxes that go to the government will actually go down because everybody's front loading their income now that they're going to do everything to avoid showing that income in 2011.
Meaning the tax increases in rates will actually produce less tax revenue, making the deficit even worse.
Nobody's talking about this issue.
We have an enormous tax increase coming in seven months.
The Bush tax cuts, which were responsible for the boom in the early part of the of the past decade, are going away and are going to be replaced with a tax increase as big as the tax cut was.
The impact on the economy may be profound, and nobody, Democrat or Republican, is talking about this.
It's frightening stuff.
If you want to jumpstart our economy, you want to get businesses to get off their butts and start investing again, you want individuals to go out and start spending their money, make those Bush tax cuts permanent, you'd see the stock market explode.
But everybody sees this hanging over, yet nobody, politically at least, is talking about it.
1-800-282-2882.
I didn't say that well.
1800, 282-2882 is the telephone number at EIB.
My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush.
I'm Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Arthur Laffer's column and his theory here makes total sense to me.
We've certainly seen an improvement in some economic number.
Bernanke even said earlier this week that there is a recovery going on.
Yet a lot of people don't seem to see it.
Some of the numbers are going up, yet we don't see businesses hiring.
You don't see real new investment going on.
This explains it all.
What they're doing is moving economic activity that can be timed into this year, so they get their profits this year, so some numbers are going up, but they're not really changing anything.
All they're doing is frontloading some spending and frontloading some investing because of the increase in taxes that is going to go on next year.
If that's the case, 2011, when compared to 2010, is going to be a disaster.
And it's because of this massive increase in taxes that is only six and a half months away.
To Rogers, is that Arkansas, it's the AR, I think Arkansas.
Mark, you're on the uh Rush Limbaugh program.
Actually, it's Mike and it's Rogers Arkansas, Mark.
Oh, it's Mike.
Yes.
Hey, thanks for bringing up this issue because I I agree that this is something nobody's talking about, but I and I'm a huge laughter fan, but I think there were several things that he doesn't mention that are even uh a bigger impact when when these tax cuts expire, and that's all the stuff for lower income people.
Well, you're right.
The Bush tax cuts had a lot of incentives on the lower end.
That was how he was able politically to get this thing passed.
Those are all going to go away as well.
Well, and I think there were increases in child tax credits, uh reductions in the lower end rates, uh, increases in in the minimum uh income that you needed to make to pay taxes.
I mean, this is a huge tax increase on everybody, not just on high earners.
I know.
If this was a proposal that was new, in other words, let's imagine the Bush tax cuts were not set to expire, that they were made permanent when they were passed by the Congress eight years ago, and Obama and the Democrats were now proposing a major increase in taxes.
In other words, if they had to vote on this, there would be incredible attention given to it.
It would be more controversial than health care.
There would be those like myself who would argue the worst thing that you can do in a struggling economy is to raise taxes.
But instead, because this is just scheduled to happen without anybody taking any governmental action, nobody's really focusing on it.
But laughers exactly right.
When you take a con an economy as fragile as ours and come in with these massive tax increases, you're you could crush what we have going on right now.
We have a major budget deficit as it is.
We've got unemployment at nine and a half percent, and what are you going to do but come in and with a major tax increase on top of that?
It's going to be terrible.
Well, and what Mr. Obama said during the campaign was that he was going to keep the parts that he liked.
But where's the proposal?
Where's the legislation?
Where they need to fix this, and nobody's talking about it.
Nobody is talking about it.
He may try to keep some of the things he likes, some of the stuff that you mentioned on the lower end, but he's certainly not going to keep all of it, even though it's exactly what the economy needs.
And not just because of the fact that you'd be able to keep all this money in the private sector economy, and it would help the country.
It would if if they came out right now and passed an extension of the Bush tax cuts, it would create such a sense of confidence and optimism.
Some of these businesses that right now are so cautious because they know what's coming with the tax increase.
They know what's coming with federalized health care that are sitting on their hands.
They might be willing to go out and take some chances and take some risks.
But instead, this is a thing that's hanging over everybody.
And while it's not being talked about politically, trust me, everybody who's of medium to high income and every business, their accountants are all telling them right now, shove every possible income that you have into 2010.
Do everything that you can now because you're going to be hammered in 2011.
Well, that explains why some of the numbers are improved this year.
It also means how bad they're going to be next year.
Let's go to Wyron Mountain, Michigan and Scott.
Scott, you're on EIB.
Oh, Mark, dear to man, I cannot believe this has not been talked about before.
I've been waiting and waiting to let people know about this because this, I think, is going to be the nail in the coffin for the Dems.
How so?
Well, if they don't understand what's going to happen with the Bush tax cuts, this is going to be the downfall.
I mean, I I've had a busiest quarter I've ever had right now in my business and probably in four years.
And you think it's because people are front loading right now.
Oh, big time.
Big time, Mark.
I mean, when a tax cuts come, I gotta, you know, I think Ben Bernanke there, I think he's all done.
Because he is coming out right now, and he's even saying there's not even going to be a double dip.
You know, and and coming up soon.
I got news from there's gonna be more than a double dip next time.
Well, and that's and that's the point that Laffer is raising.
That's the fear that he has that this is going to be a double dip and it's going to be a hard one.
Politically, that will obviously be bad for President Obama.
But we've got to live in this country.
This deficit that we're looking at is frightening.
Our unemployment is already too high.
He's taken stimulus and blown it all.
We've got scary times in front of us.
Mark Belling in for Rush.
I'm told we've crashed Sharon Engels' website's donate website donation link.
Sharon Engels, the Republican who's running against Harry Reid in Nevada.
We had her on the program last hour.
And uh she mentioned how you can go to her website, she's asking one million people to give twenty five dollars to equal the twenty five million Harry Reed's going to spend out there.
Uh a number of people have told us that since she was on the show, the website crashed, you can't work the donation link.
Keep at it.
I'm told that this happens all the time on Russia's program, that we crash websites all the time.
Uh so keep at it.
I think she's set up to raise money from Nevada, and uh I hope she realizes how many people in this country are banking on her and hoping and praying she can beat him.
We've been talking about the contention by Arthur Laffer, who I don't think this is an exaggeration, certainly top five in terms of influential conservative economists in the world right now.
He's the guy who came to the fore in the late 70s.
He's one of, I don't say he's the inventor, but he's one of the developers of the theory of supply side economics.
Jack Kemp was one of the first Republicans to grab onto it.
Ronald Reagan, after hearing a presentation on it, bought into it entirely.
He based the economic policies of his presidency on it.
The notion that the way to increase tax revenue is to lower tax rates.
That's so counterintuitive, and the media has never grasped it, and liberal politicians totally reject it.
But it's been proven again and again and again.
When Reagan cut tax rates in the eighties, tax revenue soared.
On my own show in Milwaukee, I like to use analogies to make my point.
Let's imagine you were gambling with the government.
The gambling game is a simple coin flip.
Let's imagine that under the current setup, you flip a coin.
If you win, the government gives you a dollar.
If you lose, you give the government a dollar.
Now the government changes the rules.
If you win, you only get 70 cents.
But if they win, you have to give them a buck thirty.
They're now gonna get a buck thirty every time you do a coin flip.
The problem is you're not going to play that game.
You're not going to flip coins with the government.
So instead of getting their buck 30, they're going to get nothing.
In the past, when it was a fair game, a buck to the winner, either side, you were willing to take them on.
But when they're going to take that much, you don't take the risk.
The problem with raising tax rates is that it depresses economic activity.
The second problem with it is it's taking even more money out of individuals' discretionary income and giving it to government.
So the individuals that have income growth, despite the fact that we've raised tax revenue, don't get to keep as much of their income.
That's money they can't put into the private sector.
To do this right now is disastrous.
Raising taxes is always a bad idea.
It always stagnates the Economy.
It always is a way of feeding the welfare state.
It's always a way of crushing success.
But to do it now in the economy that we are in is an unbelievably terrible idea.
Europe is on tilt.
Credit markets have lost the people have no confidence in credit markets.
In the United States, the recovery that we've seen, artificial though it might be, still has unemployment in the mid-nines.
American businesses are terrified about what's going to happen with regard to health care.
To come in now and pass a major tax increase is the worst thing you can do.
But it's what's going to happen.
And they don't have to vote on it at all.
Because the Bush tax cuts approved eight years ago have a sunset provision that kicks in at the end of this year.
Those tax cuts were enormous.
They raised the top rates, they raised the middle rates.
The dividend tax itself is crushing what are dividends.
Most large corporations pay a dividend.
There are millions of American senior citizens, middle and high income senior citizens that buy stock in large dividend paying corporations.
Right now they get to keep 85 cents on the dollar of that dividend.
The dividend tax is 15%.
For those seniors that are middle and higher income, the dividend tax will go to whatever their other their normal income tax rate is.
You're talking about taking big chunks of money away from the people who receive dividends.
You're also talking about having a disincentive for corporations to even declare a dividend, since the dividends would be taxed at a higher rate than capital gains.
How about the estate tax?
It's been in a gradual phase out for eight years.
This would take it right back to where it was when the Bush tax cut occurred.
It's not an exaggeration to think that there may not be, that there may be some elderly people late this year, who are considering what it is going to mean to their to their heirs if they die next year as opposed to this year.
You're talking about a zero percent estate tax now going back to a top rate of fifty-five percent when the Bush tax cuts are wiped out.
Liberals don't think people ever respond to tax policy.
But we've seen with regard to all of the businesses and individuals that are moving from high tax states in the north and the industrial Midwest to low tax states or no income tax states like Florida and Texas, that money moves to places where it is taxed at the lowest level.
Likewise, if you raise taxes in this country now, what you are going to do is get everybody who can move every single dollar they can into income this year, and there's going to be nothing next year.
This is an issue that ought to be front and center.
Because the impact on the economy may be profound.
And that's not just media talk show host claiming this.
You're talking about Arthur Laffer, a respected eminent economist saying the econom he didn't say go down.
He didn't say there will be a downturn.
He says the economy will collapse.
It's his words.
Collapse in 2011.
Springfield, Illinois, and Tom, Tom, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Thank you for taking my call.
Thank you.
You're on, Tom.
Go ahead.
Yes, I just wanted to say that uh, in my opinion, uh usually a tax change or even uh maintaining taxes at the same rate.
Taxes in general, uh federal taxes, really will only have a great impact on the overall economy when you're growing a economic bubble or or on the decline of a bubble.
Um let's let's say that the the bubble for tech stocks back when the dot coms were were popular, that would that tax break at that time would cause that that growth to Okay, Tom, you got me all mixed up here.
You're saying that The tax increase that's going to occur at the end of the year is going to be good or bad.
I'm saying that there's no there's no real bubble that we're riding right now.
There's no there's no bubble growing right now.
Uh we just got done with a huge bubble in the real estate market that that popped, and then we spent terribly, terribly large amounts of resources and effort trying to repair that bubble.
And once a bubble has grown and popped and it's gone, you leave it.
It's done.
You you look for the new bubble.
You do you don't try to repair a pop bubble because it just doesn't work.
You're throwing it to the city.
I've got a problem here.
I don't know what bubble you're talking about.
The point that I what is he referring to?
What are you referring to with the bubble?
I'm going to give this one last chance here.
I'm trying to be a patient guy.
What bubble are you referring to?
Do you think that if we raise taxes at the end of the year as is currently planned to occur, that that's a good thing or a bad thing?
I think it wouldn't hurt because we're not riding any kind of bubble right now.
Okay, the the bubble.
I I can't work with that bubble concept.
What I can do is tell you this.
When we have lowered tax rates in this country, we have produced economic growth.
Liberals keep rejecting this, but it's proven again and again and again.
And it was proved with the Bush tax cuts that we're talking about here.
Do you remember how the economy was jumpstarted early in the decade?
Farmers were going out and buying new tractors and buying new equipment.
Why?
Because we passed accelerated depreciation.
They were given favorable tax treatment if they went out and made new equipment purchases.
When the capital gains tax was lowered both in the eighties and in the past decade, there was an increase in capital gains revenue because people who were sitting on long-term gains decided to sell, creating economic activity.
If you take tax rates now and it drive them higher, you are taking money out of the private economy and giving it to government at a time that it most needs to be in this economy.
Secondly, it's been shown again and again and again that higher income individuals, anywhere from the middle income on up and corporations are not willing to take risks when they have to give the majority of their profits right back to the government.
While this is counterintuitive, raising tax rates lowers tax revenue, it's been proved again and again and again, and it's going to be proved this time if we do it.
There needs to be a discussion in this country about the fact that 2011 is bringing us an enormous tax increase.
And maybe that discussion can start in the families of individuals who have somebody who's not in very good health and whose death in 2011 will be far more costly to their estate than 2010.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
Uh I've been spending a fair amount of time this hour, in fact, the whole hour, on a column written by Arthur Laffer, one of the deans of the supply side economists who is predicting an economic collapse next year because of the expiration at the end of this year of the Bush tax cuts.
I want to read his concluding paragraph again because he's not saying just a downturn, he's saying collapse.
The result will be a crash in tax receipts once the surge is passed.
If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.
One of the ramifications of President Bush's last tax reduction is that he raised the bar whereby people don't have to pay any income taxes at all.
That they get they get it refunded back entirely at the end of the year because of the creation of tax credits and so on.
So you have a country right now where 47% of households don't pay any federal income taxes.
So they tune out discussion on this.
For the rest of us who pay these taxes, they realize what an incredible part of your own personal budget this is.
For businesses that are successful, the increase in these rates is going to be devastating to them.
So if you've got some companies and some individuals that despite the crappy economy that we're in, are doing well now, you're going to be taking money from them.
As for those That are considering a new venture or considering taking risk in the economy, meaning spending or investing money, getting some economic activity going, are they willing to take that if they know that 39.6% at the top end is going to go to the federal government, and that's before every other tax is out that's out there.
That's before the health care taxes kick in.
That's before the increase in the payroll tax.
Then, on top of that, look at what's going on around the United States.
Almost every state that has a democratic governor is dealing with a budget crisis by raising taxes.
Most of those taxes kick in next year.
What I'm attempting to do is draw people's awareness to it.
And also tell you that if you think these tax rate increases will help deal with our deficit problems, and the deficit problem is getting close to a crisis, you're wrong.
Raising tax rates doesn't increase tax revenue.
Raising tax rates slows down an economy.
And when an economy slows down, there's less income and less profit, meaning there's less to tax.
Twenty-five percent of a lot is more than forty percent of almost nothing.
And that's been proven again and again to Radcliffe, Kentucky, Gary Gary on EIB with Mark Belling.
Yes, sir.
I'm uh thank you very much for uh taking my call.
I got a prediction.
Uh in the 2010 elections, um Republicans should do really well, I believe.
But I think that the Democrats are gonna try to turn the tables or or shift the blame on the downturn in the economy and the unemployment.
They just say the GOP is the new GOP coming in taking over, they're the ones gonna be end up responsible for that.
In other words, if the economy does go down in 2011, they'll blame it on all the Republicans who got themselves elected.
I you know, I don't know that that I don't know if that's going to work if the Republicans stand up and start talking about cutting taxes and present an alternative here.
If you make this case, the public buys into it.
First of all, the public always has a vested interest in siding with the side that says that you can keep more of your money.
Reagan proved that you can go to the American people and say the way to get out of the morass that we are in is to lower taxes.
The people bought into it.
People called Democratic Congressmen.
The Reagan tax cuts were passed by a Democratic Congress.
This is a message that can work.
I believe Republican candidates for Congress this year need to be starting that message now because, first of all, nobody knows this tax hike is coming.
Nobody knows about the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.
Nobody knows that the estate tax is going up.
Most senior citizens are not aware that the dividend tax is going to go from 15% to 39% on the top end.
This is something that's going on without people being aware of it.
If you present an alternative to tax and tax and taxing, the public is likelier to credit you than if you simply stand by and say that we don't know what we can do, which is the Obama approach.
My name is Mark Belling, and I'm sitting in for Rush.
Sean in Charlotte, North Carolina, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Hey, Mark, thanks for having me.
Um, Mark, you're doing a great job illustrating this.
Um, but I wanted to point out there's a couple of things that are deeper in in the rollback of the Bush tax uh laws, and the number one thing is the marriage penalty comes back.
That's right.
And then in and then inside of that mark, it's the brackets.
So your brackets shrink when you go back to ninety-nine.
And the best way to illustrate that I can say is if you earned a hundred thousand dollars in nineteen ninety-nine, you as a married couple, you were in the twenty-eight percent bracket.
Today, because of the elimination of the marriage penalty, we are you're nowhere near your average tax rate is probably about eleven percent.
You're way you're right, you're way under right now because of what happened with those Bush tax cuts.
See, when Obama ran for president, he made that vow that he wouldn't raise taxes on anybody who made less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, he's claiming that this isn't a tax increase that he's imposing, that this is merely the expiration of the old tax cuts.
But the re the real impact on the couple that you describe is a massive increase in the amount of money they're going to be giving to the federal government.
The marriage penalty is back in place and they're shoved back into a bracket where they're being taxed, as you mentioned, at twenty eight percent.
You're talking about, in their case, them being out thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
And we're going to go back to the same decisions that were made in the past, where one spouse is wondering, does it make any sense for me to work if it's shoving us into the higher bracket?
Thus you end up with less income out there and less revenue for the federal government.
Arthur Laffer put this column in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
It's out there on the internet if you'd like to find it.
What he's saying is this: our economy will fall apart if we allow this to happen.
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