Well, I think it's a fair point to discuss what is and is not "excessive" taxation. I certainly think it is ultimately incumbent upon any proponent of a position on taxation to justify whether they think a tax is too high, or too low. I have seen just as many people supporting tax increases without providing "evidence" that it would be a good thing to increase taxes, just as I know there are those who support any tax decrease without needed to understand why they should be reduced.JimC wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:11 amGenerally, I think that current levels here and in the US are certainly not excessive, in fact they are skewed in favour of the big end of town already. Certainly the proposed corporate tax cuts via our current government are far too generous, but they try to justify them via the "trickle-down" effect...
One point of contention often involves the purpose of taxation. From my perspective, taxation is to be a means of funding the government for necessary expenses, and should be done in a fair manner affording equal protection of the laws. I do not subscribe to the notion that taxation should generally be used as a means of social engineering, to encourage behaviors and discourage others. Taxation does that. Add a 20% sales tax on cars, and you encourage people to buy cheaper cars, and fewer cars.
However, we can look to the effect that the current tax cut appears to have had, which appears to have been quite positive to the economy. We don't know yet if it has increased revenues over what would have been collected with higher taxes. But, overall, there is reason to think it will, because there is a flow through aspect of this. If it helped the economy expand at 4.1% clip, then that is going to result in more businesses paying taxes on a greater amount of profit - taxation is on profit. If it helped unemployment go down, then tax revenues go up because employed workers pay more income taxes than unemployed ones.
We have a booming economy right now, and I think it's hard to argue that the tax cuts and deregulation didn't help. Growth was anemic under Obama, and became un-anemic when Trump's policies were enacted. Under Obama, a lower GDP growth rate was billed as a "new normal." And, the idea of building up US industry and such was poo-pooed as Trump claiming to have a "magic wand." Now, of course, the Democrat side wants to take credit for the economy, saying that the burst in growth occurred after Obama toiled away on the issue, and that the economy is booming despite Trump's policies, not because of them.
Also, some folks on the far left, like the Sanders and !Ocasio! wing of the Democrat Party, they like to say that the economy really isn't doing well for the people, because it's only the rich who are benefiting and unemployment is only low because "everyone has two jobs", lol.
So, these arguments are political on both sides of the aisle.