Howard Kveck said:Speaking of graph smoothing:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011682.php
This is way off thread and topic now, and it is your fault.
I have my doubts that was "smoothing" or regression at all. It just
looks like drawing a line where "you" decide you want it.
But the line in the second graph is bogus too:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/yet-again-tax-c.html
Even if some mathematical operation is performed correctly, it says
nothing about whether it has any meaning, or the underlying data is
(or not) bogus; it doesn't. It is only a facade of legitimacy.
The Laffer curve has to exist a priori -- that part is not arguable
(unless one adds some twists to language, and that has indeed been
done). That doesn't mean someone can acquire data to demonstrate the
Laffer curve in a real economy.
The actual question right-wingers and left-wingers hissy-fit about is
whether the corporate tax levels are anything close to a point where
cutting them would actually increase revenues. I wouldn't propose to
say the US corporate tax rate is near or at that "point." I don't
know, but I have some doubts.
But wonder what the real question is. Are left-wingers just saying:
"soak them because we can; because we can get more of someone else's
stuff?" Frankly, I have to say yes. They tax because they can. They
don't have another good reason. "Should they(?)" doesn't even seem to
come into the picture. Left-wingers simply seem to be saying "I'll
just tax as heavily as possible until squeezing stops increasing my
revenue." There is no introspection, no justification.
I think during Reagan the corporate rates were higher, so maybe there
was a better chance then that reduced rates increased revenue. I
don't know, and I don't think that is the prime question, although it
would be really stupid to raise rates to a negative return (so it is
something leftists would do).
Should corporations be taxed at all? I don't think they should be
taxed. Therefore the rates are too high, regardless of where the
rates would fall on the Laffer curve if one could actually acquire the
data.
Do you have any rationale of why you think corporate tax rates, or any
tax rates for that matter, should be this or that?
"It's the spending stupid." --BF, 1759
"To the intellectual the social device of capitalism
offers a displeasing picture. Why? In his own terms,
here are self-seeking men in quest of personal aggran-
dizement. How? By providing consumers with things they
want or can be induced to want. The same intellectual,
puzzlingly, is not shocked by the workings of hedonist
democracy; here also self-seeking men accomplish their
aggrandizement by promising to other men things they
want or are induced to demand. The difference seems to
lie mainly in that the capitalist delivers the goods."
--Bertrand de Jouvenel,
_Treatment of Capitalism by Intellectuals_
de Jouvenel tapped his mother-in-law IIRC. Another great Frenchman!!!!