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I remember when during the Clinton years, Republicans claimed that his tax policy would absolutely, positively KILL the economy. Instead, we had a period of strong economic growth, productivity increases, and fairly good economic distribution -- all much better than what we have today.</p>
<p>What EVIDENCE do you have that income tax hurts productivity? Are there years where productivity declined after the income tax went up? If you compare states by state income tax and productivity, what do you see? How about it -- want to make an ideological claim or want to prove something with evidence?</p>
<p>Kind of reminds me of those who say that raising the minimum wage decreases employment -- except there's no evidence that it does!!
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Your argument is not logical. My argument is that productivity gains would have been higher with lower income taxes. An income tax increase doesn't mean negative productivity growth. It means that your productivity growth would be less than what it was otherwise.</p>
<p>I'm saying that the progressive tax structure, in general, is bad because it decreases the incentive to earn. I mean, why not advocate a 90% tax rate for the highest bracket...they don't need the money. Hint: The economy would tank.</p>
<p>Furthermore, sales taxes (presumably taxing higher income items) or other taxes could be the basis for our tax structure.</p>