{"id":31667,"date":"2015-06-17T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=31667"},"modified":"2017-04-11T15:21:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:21:00","slug":"when-you-tax-something-you-get-less-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/06\/17\/when-you-tax-something-you-get-less-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"When you tax something, you get less of it"},"content":{"rendered":"

At International Liberty<\/em>, Dan Mitchell<\/a> points out an example of leftists who genuinely want higher taxes on “the rich” even when the higher rate will return less money to the government:<\/p>\n

Every so often, I\u2019ll assert that some statists are so consumed by envy and spite that they favor high tax rates on the \u201crich\u201d even if the net effect (because of diminished economic output) is less revenue for government.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

In other words, they deliberately and openly want to be on the right side (which is definitely the wrong side) of the Laffer Curve.<\/p>\n

Critics sometimes accuse me of misrepresenting the left\u2019s ideology, to which I respond by pointing to a poll of left-wing voters who strongly favored soak-the-rich tax hikes even if there was no extra tax collected.<\/p>\n

But now I have an even better example.<\/p>\n

Writing for Vox<\/em>, Matthew Yglesias openly argues that we should be on the downward-sloping portion of the Laffer Curve. Just in case you think I\u2019m exaggerating, \u201cthe case for confiscatory taxation\u201d is part of the title for his article.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some of what he wrote.<\/p>\n