{"id":1920,"date":"2009-10-14T03:18:53","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T09:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2009-10-14T03:18:53","modified_gmt":"2009-10-14T09:18:53","slug":"vat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1920","title":{"rendered":"VAT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The more I think about it, the more I think:<\/p>\n<p>1) We&#8217;re going to have to raise taxes to balance the budget.  Right now, the tax burden is lower than its historical average in the post-WW2 era.  The money for Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and defense &#8212; none of which will ever be cut &#8212; has to come from somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>2) A <a href=\"http:\/\/gregmankiw.blogspot.com\/2009\/10\/value-added-tax.html\">Value Added Tax<\/a> is the least destructive way to get there.  It&#8217;s much better than the stupid Fair Tax, which I&#8217;ve attacked <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?cat=23\">here<\/a>.  And if it replaced much of our existing system, the capital and potential freed up would more than compensate for the deleterious effects of a tax increase.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the GOP is not interested.  They&#8217;re too busy screaming, &#8220;They&#8217;re raising taxes!  Taxes! Taxes! Taxes!  AIEEEEEEEE!&#8221;  The question is not whether taxes are going up; the question is whether they can be raised in the least destructive way possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The more I think about it, the more I think: 1) We&#8217;re going to have to raise taxes to balance the budget. Right now, the tax burden is lower than its historical average in the post-WW2 era. The money for Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and defense &#8212; none of which will ever be cut &#8212; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=1920\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">VAT<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-tax-and-spend"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2BzKF-vat","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1932,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/1932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}