Bold tax cuts in Sweden and Estonia show how to tackle austerity â and create growth and jobs By Fraser Nelson8:06PM GMT 06 Dec 2012 Take Estonia, a tiny country at the mercy of its much larger neighbours, which has ample reason to blame âglobal forcesâ. But throughout the crash, it defiantly kept its taxes low (at a 21 per cent flat rate) and took the tough decision to cut state spending by a tenth. It is now celebrating the fastest growth in Europe. The much-larger Sweden responded to the crash with a permanent tax cut for the low-paid. This encouraged so many people back to work that the extra revenue covered the cost of the policy. When the Swedes cut tax for the low-paid, they made it amount to an extra monthâs salary a year. When they cut corporation tax, from 26p to 22p, they did it in three months â not phased in over half a decade, as Britain is doing. Tax cuts need to be sharp, noticeable and immediate. Any tax cut worth its salt will contain an element of risk. The more we learn about Americaâs recovery, the more the Keynesian analysis (demand is the problem, spending is the solution) is being disproven. A recent University of Chicago analysis suggests that most American job losses are accounted for by the change in relationship between taxes and welfare. From Tampa to Tallinn, a new thesis is being etched out: high taxes are retarding the recovery. Austerity, when combined with high taxes, will not help. But if you rebalance things in favour of job creation and work, magical things can happen. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/b...-Treasury.html But Obama is doing the complete opposite.
We have an ignorant President, Senate and electorate. That's why we are all going to die (a slow death).
The funny thing is the keynesians have deluded themselves into believing this is all a failure of austerity, when most of the countries out there first attempted a stimulus, which did nothing, now 3-4 years later after running massive budget deficits, instead of cutting spending, they are all raising taxes, in order to support higher levels of spending, and as the economy contracts, they somehow see this as a failure of austerity.
So how do we eliminate the debt, the interest on which will cost us five trillion dollars over the next decade, or 14% of all revenue.
CUT SPENDING, jesus christ, is it really all that hard to comprehend? It has already been illustrated, ad nauseam, that we cant get there through tax increases, but its not really politically expedient to tell the entire populace they need to make a sacrifice now is it? Obama and the cowardly dems would far rather stick with the "screw the 1%" meme as it only pisses off 1 percent of the population, but it does NOTHING, and thats the reality.