You need to understand the implications of your arguments:
Over the past 150 years, taxes on labour have helped increase its productivity 20 fold;
Now this is indeed true (to an extent, it’s the increasing technology that has really raised productivity but taxation of labour will have helped) but let’s recast it the other way around. The taxation of labour increases the substitution of labour for capital, thus creating unemployment. Which is also true, it’s just that people don’t like to see it put that way. Especially those arguing that taxes must rise to pay for their pet schemes.
The rest of it about the GFC and green taxation is correct except:
It starts with the most essential point of all, that green tax reform should be revenue-neutral.
Yes, that’s agreed, but the GFC says that a few times and then adds all sorts of caveats. That it should be revenue neutral except for this, except for that. In other words, revenue neutral it won’t be.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Newmania // Oct 31, 2009 at 9:45 am
The productivity of Labour was increasing fast prior to taxing it , this is balls . As for tax neutral changes , never has been , never will be .
It always means more .
This is the porblem with Greens whilst there is nothing wrong with paying for costs but they are infected with collectivism for its own sake and authoritariansim which always loves a “State of emergency”
2 Deregulation « Cambridge University Conservative Association // Feb 19, 2010 at 10:19 pm
[...] they protect those with jobs, but stop plenty of people getting jobs at all. They encourage the replacement of labour with [...]
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