From the Center
I am all ready for someone to govern from the center. Just as soon as the clowns who keep this banter up admit that American government is about as far from the center as Pluto is from the sun. In any sort of centrist government, the idea of progressive income tax would not be contested as some sort of bizarre left wing plot, it would be the norm from which we would never stray with extraordinarily regressive payroll and sales taxes. In any sort of centrist government, there would be no contest over the public provision of health financing, if not the outright delivery of health care. A centrist government would focus on the social consequences of market failure when fashioning any sort of economic recovery package, not merely the desires of the already wealthy.
I am all for a centrist government. Time to dump the extremist government we have had for the last 30 years. If Pelosi and Reid aren't with the program, we can dump them too.
I am all for a centrist government. Time to dump the extremist government we have had for the last 30 years. If Pelosi and Reid aren't with the program, we can dump them too.
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Not sure if you'd call this bizarre left wing or right wing. But many of the progressives I know don't consider "income tax" to be a progressive idea in a world of limited resources.
A consumption tax is a better idea and a better debate. Make exceptions where you will - such as perhaps no tax on medical services. Or no tax on public transportation. Or no tax on locally grown organic vegetables, fruits, etc. And high taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, SUVs, etc. Medium taxes on entertainment, art, sports, and leisure.
Would people work as hard as they wanted, yet consume less and save more?
Could it ever be implemented?
November 7, 2008 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hear, hear.
November 7, 2008 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting solution. We need to think outside the box if we are to find solutions that fit the gigantic true center of the country, both left and right.
November 7, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Consumption taxes are generally very regressive because they confound policy objectives with raising funds. I am in favor of a small consumption tax to discourage excessive consumption and encourage savings, but it would have to be very well structured. (For example, do we set a higher tax on "bad" goods like fats or bullets, while waiving the tax on "good" goods like condoms?)
More importantly, however, the government should not confuse a policy instrument like consumption tax with a revenue instrument like income tax. If a consumption tax is large enough to raise all the revenue that the income tax raises, it creates massive dislocation in the economy. Property values, already in deep trouble, could fall as the tax discount provided through interest deduction is lost and, potentially, the transaction becomes taxable. The already massive disparity in income could become more extreme as the very wealthy (who, by default, "save" a large part of their income) become even less exposed to taxation, while the middle class and poor become more exposed to taxation.
The income tax should not be abolished. Perhaps the best arrangement would be to abolish income tax on income below $200,000, raise it above that level and implement a very small consumption tax. This would have the policy effect with far less negative impact (although the impact on property values is still a concern).
November 7, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marquis - you make some very good points - that's why the so called "fair tax" earned so much criticism. I like your hybrid idea as I'm not a policy purist. What I'm pondering here is we can benefit more people by moving away from our current system, and ease some of the wealth gap in this country.
November 7, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
You nailed it!
November 7, 2008 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
They say Obama plans to break Africa into separate countries, which is not what most people call governing from the center.
November 7, 2008 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Almost everybody is a centrist in that they see themselves as the average, the focal point from which all other things are judged.
Flat earth models are centrist. Geocentric models are centrist. America first models are centrist. The notion that I shouldn't have to pay for stuff other people need, but I don't, is a centrist model.
I'd like to believe that Mr. Obama is capable of moving away from centrist models, to inclusive models. Models where we actually consider the impact of others; where ask not what the country can do for us, but what we can do for the country.
But I'm old fashion.
November 7, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think a new baseline has been established of where the Center is.
A democratic president may govern just to the left of that mark and a true republican may govern just to the right of it, but either way the extremist bases of both parties are limited in their influence over the conversation.
The bar has been raised by a truly non-partisan president. Do all American voters take the challenge, regardless of party affiliation? That will be key to our success, no matter which definition of center one uses.
November 7, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that you have missed the hard yanks that the Republicans have been putting on where the center is. I think it is perceived by the majority of the public as now correctly being shifted significantly to the left, and this is happening because the Republicans took some sensible policies to useless extremes and took several extreme policies to purely suicidal extremes.
The "center" is moving left, because that is where it is supposed to be in the first place. If Sarkozy lived in this country he would be considered far left, not moderate to significantly right, as he is considered in Europe.
When the Republicans win they get more extreme, when they lose, they have the supreme arrogance to tell the winners that they must "govern from the center", trying to win with bloviation what they can't win in elections. The Democrats must avoid both Republican tactics, and their nomenclature and framing.
January 6, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
This still frames the conversation in a paradigm worn-thin by inaction by politicians on the left and right with regards to preparing our country for the 21st century. You aren't even trying to think outside the "liberal" box you have built for yourself, though I find very little liberalism in the notion that "they" must be crushed, whoever "they" happens to be.
I think you may have missed the many moderate democrats (each with their clones serving in Congress today) who maintained a more conservative mindset while nevertheless managing to promote liberal ideas, if not exactly always supporting liberal idealism. There is no one-size-fits-all political identity in this country, despite the comfort that such limited thinking might give you.
When "democrats" win they get even more shrill and less willing to negotiate long-term solutions that are both workable and sustainable. The Raging Left, like the Raging Right you seem to hate so much, are only happy when it is their demagoguery that is in fashion. They then have the supreme arrogance to call what they advocate "progressive" when what they really want is a left-leaning dictatorship instead of the right-leaning one we just got rid of.
Extremism on both sides of the aisle has destined this country to four decades of mostly ineffective governance by the left and right.
January 6, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
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November 7, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink