| | Excellent article!
I do have a few small quibbles. When talking about tax exempt retirement plans, Mr. Hibbert says, "As with mortgage tax deductibility, it requires government to increase taxes, which are spread over all taxpayers."
Not a good way to look at it. Government isn't "required" to increase taxes on others because of deductions given to some - it can and should reduce spending to make budget (not that it pays much attention to budget anyway). The tax code is ridiculousness piled upon absurdity, and it is better just to accept all deductions possible and to argue that to achieve fairness, others should be granted a matching sort of deduction (which also doesn't have to make sense) - the idea is to always argue in favor of reducing tax loads and never in favor of increases. If someone points out the unfairness of the interest expense deduction for a homeowner compared to a renter, just squawk that there should be a renter's relief tax deduction. And save most of your energy for arguing for getting rid of all income tax as a burden on productivity and unfair in general.
I also would have like to seen a much stronger emphasis in the article on the laws that pushed lenders into making subprime loans, and the regulations that put pressures on Fannie and Freddy to accept all mortgages no matter how bad and on the taxpayer money that went to community organizer organizations to fund activist advocacy for minority and poor housing loans.
Despite my little quibbles, I enjoyed the article. Here is an excellent article on the bailout - from a Harvard economist.
|
|
