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In today's L.A. Times, there is an article titled "Senator's Tax Plan May Not Raise All He Expects." The article quotes Daniel Feenberg, of the National Bureau of Economic Research:
"Proposals to raise taxes don't raise anywhere near as much as you'd hope because people rearrange their finances to avoid the higher tax."
It also quotes William Beach, of the conservative Heritage Foundation":
"People who are wealthy make an effort to keep their tax rate low, regardless of their politics. When tax rates rise, upper-income individuals are able to hire accountants and attorneys to help them find ways to shelter their income. The rest of us can't afford that."
Get the insinuation? Kerry is on the wrong track. He can't collect the tax money because the tax code has loopholes the rich can take advantage of. This is comparable to saying that we should not have laws incarcerating criminals because the criminals can hire lawyers to get them off. Or, we should not bother trying to secure our ports against terrorists because the terrorists will find other ways to penetrate our homeland. Ridiculous.
Kerry's idea is good. But it's not sufficient, and he never said it was sufficient. Kerry has said that we should cut out the many corporate tax loopholes - such as opening up an office in an island in the Carribean to avoid paying ANY taxes.
This is all part of the stealth campaign against Kerry. It's difficult to argue against Kerry's cogent ideas. So Republicans grab a subject and "beat around the Bush" about it.
