How To End Tax Increases? Stop Calling Them Tax Increases

Tax increases are incredibly unpopular, so, those who support them are loathe to call them as such. Newsbusters has the video of an absolutely astounding example of this phenomena. While interviewing former Governor George Pataki, columnist Mike Barnicle said the following:

Governor, let me ask you a question off of Gene's answer. There's a certain wing of the Republican Party that claims that the Bush tax cuts, that if you go back to the tax rate prior to the Bush tax cut, that that's a tax increase. Is that your view?

... [Pataki answers yes]

I understand that, but, I mean the idea that reverting back to a tax rate that existed that people paid into, calling it now a tax increase, I just think that's politics at its worst.

The top federal income tax rate was 70% before the Reagan tax cuts and over 90% before JFK cut taxes. According to Barnicle's thesis, raising the top tax rate to 90% would still not be a tax increase because we would be reverting to a tax rate that once existed. In fact, the only way to raise taxes would be to pass the WWII peak of 94%. Anything short of that is not a tax increase.

I think Barnicle's bosses should cut his salary to an entry-level wage and tell him it's not a pay cut - they are simply rescinding his years of pay raises and reverting to the rate Barnicle once earned when he first started.

 

I wonder what Barnicle's answer would be?