Not far from the takedown of RomneyCare, Michael Boskin has a fine
Wall Street Journal piece on the dangers of Obama's economic
platform: "What if I told you that a prominent global political
figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of
his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally
renegotiating his country's international economic treaties;
dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the 'rich' to levels not
seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among
the highest in the world); and changing his country's social
insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between
taxes and benefits?"
I'd only quibble with a couple of things: I don't really mind
people seeing our "country's social insurance system" as "explicit
welfare"; and let's be careful about predicting recessions. The
fact that so many conservatives, myself included, overstated the
economic pitfalls of the Clinton tax increase and predicted a
recession that did not actually occur helped rehabilitate the
Democratic approach to fiscal policy, which had been discredited in
the transition from Carter to Reagan. True, Obama will be
inheriting a weaker economy and wants to raise taxes higher than
Clinton. It's also true that the Clinton tax increase would have
done more damage if it hadn't been minimized by Republicans and
conservative Democrats in Congress, by stripping the BTU tax and
other provisions. But Obama may not get everything he wants either.
Ramesh Ponnuru has more.
topics:
Taxes, Energy
