Friday, March 18, 2011

What Happens When You Can’t Raise Taxes

Ezra Klein What happens when you can’t raise taxes "Andy Kroll fact-checks Gov. Haley Barbour’s claim that ‘we’ — meaning Mississippi under Barbour’s leadership — ‘dug out of a $720 million budget hole in two years without raising anybody’s taxes.’ As it turns out, Barbour raised all sorts of taxes during his time in office: He created an excise tax on cigarettes and then raised it, increased taxes on hospital beds and businesses that lay off workers, and tried and failed to pass a new tax on hospital revenue."

"Barbour, to keep people from noticing his tax hikes, ended up passing some fairly regressive, narrowly targeted, economically inefficient taxes. He still had to raise taxes, but he ended up doing a worse job of it."

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