Rebuttal: Gar Alperovitz
| 02 January 2008
Rebuttal: Gar Alperovitz
Deadweight losses, in the form of progressive tax proposals and really bad writing
Something very important is brewing just beneath the radar of most media attention-something which looks very much like the first stages of a progressive tax revolt. Moreover, it is about to converge with a broad range of developing strategies which suggest the possibility of something even more interesting: a progressive "ownership society." Taken together the two directions could offer new hope for progressive politics in general
Your quotations are necessary, for no redistributed provision of the progressive tax represents anything more than creative accounting, and certainly not ownership. Short-term effects of these redistributions can tickle the fancies of socialists, but one must realize that coerced investment is not a long-term solution. The point will be proven.
Furthermore, the manic optimism that would term a few desultory policies evidence of a "revolt" markedly ignores the reality that Mr. Bush was reelected with a greater margin than he was originally elected, after he imposed several wide-ranging tax cut policies.