Good post, stu. And before someone comes along and says "CO2 acts as a thermostat and blocks sunlight" I'd like to mention: Venus's atmosphere, mostly CO2, blocks a LOT of sunlight.
Physics in a two quart closed glass container on your desk does not work the same way as the entire earth.
Stu is an example of a leftist/ troll / person who refuses to to think in systems. generally it requires a higher IQ to think in systems. Many estimate it to be about 120. Leftists make the same mistakes over and over. They think that by raising taxes... govt revenues will go up. They do not understand that if they are already taxing too much or you raise taxes too too high revenues can go down and vice versa. Real scientists will tell you the same thing about greenhouse gases. Planets without them are hotter and cooler. Greenhouse gases act as a thermostat... see my quote from NASA. They regulate temperature... and their effect or response most definitely does not result in a linear change with temps. Adding co2 to the a lower atmosphere that already has plenty of co2 may not cause much if any heating... because a. the added co2 may conduct temps upward, and / or b. the added CO2 may wind up shielding more warming energy from coming in the earth. CO2 is a tiny part of the greenhouse... some agw nutter scientists speculate co2 could cause significant warming by speculating that when you add CO2, CO2 causes more clouds to form. (many of the recently failed model used that assumption.) The problem with that theory is that adding more cloud cover may have a cooling effect not a warming effect. NASA does not know if more clouds are net warming or cooling. Stu... you have to realize you are dealing with a complex system. You don't just add co2 and say more warmth. the last 16 years should prove that to you. we doubled co2 and temps did not rise. You have to look longer term... because it system with many inputs.
cute... but proves my point. as you know... the market needs time to adjust... just going back and saying we are taking more of what you made last year... would increase revenues. but you know revenues can also go down after raising taxes... the presidents own advisor Christine Romer did a study show that raising taxes destroys gdp... you destroy enough gdp or cause a enough tax payers to move or change activities and you destroy your base and your revenues. do you need to to cite you to the study?
You yourself referred to "the curve", Laffer I assume, so it's a simpler explanation than "the market needs time to adjust" to say, "we're not on the crowding out part of the curve".
we do not know if we are in the crowding out part yet of the curve.. the system is dynamic. you can't make any market judgments on a retroactive tax increase. the retroactive part shows you that the market was not adjusting to the tax. an instant tax increase will see a delay in its effect too. the market needs time to adjust its behavior. finally destroying the middle class is pretty easy because they still have to work. it takes them a long to adjust to stealing more of their income.
we use our intelligence when reviewing data. for instance... the delay we saw on revenues going up after bush tax cuts was 18 months or one full tax year. that is about when you might start it kicking in.