redrum said:
I think it is clear and concise, too. It is also totally unrelated to the position you took in earlier posts which was that reducing current income taxes would increase govt revenue. As I pointed out, the prior Schiff tape didn't support that position and, if anything, contradicted it. All economic pundits including the finance guys of the Bush and Reagan administrations universally agree that lowering taxes will not increase tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts of 2001-2003 beyond their 2010 expiration would increase deficits by $1.8 trillion dollars over the following decade.
In this tape Schiff is extolling the benefit of a VAT or national sales tax in lieu of an income tax. I don't purport to have any expertise in these matters, but my initial uninformed response is that it may not be a bad idea. He makes a convincing argument. I do part with Schiff when he argues that the amount of any such tax should initially be set so as to decrease the total revenue now received via the income tax. While that may eventually come to pass, the current financial condition of the country doesn't allow for optimistic speculation on what the immediate effects of such a significant change in the US tax structure would be.
If such a national sales tax or VAT ever does come to pass, realistically it probably wouldn't be as a replacement of income tax but as a supplement that would allow for lower marginal tax rates. Ultimately, who knows. For now, we are stuck with the sytem we have and working within that system it's necessary to raise more govt revenue by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. I hope you agree.
