Thursday, June 9, 2011

Are Taxes Really Higher in Europe Than in US?

link here to article

Bruce Bartlett is a recovering conservative. He spent most of his life supporting conservative tax policies and now he is exposing the conservative myths about tax policy. His OECD chart shows that more taxes are collected in Europe than by the US and that the US has a much lower tax structure (despite the conservative love affair with tax cuts). One can think of spending on healthcare as a tax since, like tax cuts, it reduces consumption of other consumer goods. He adds spending on healthcare to the US tax burden and we look a bit more like Europe. The only problem is that they have universal coverage and they have lower per capita spending on healthcare than we have in the US.

Most American's live in a fantasy world. They know little about anything that is really important and they know a lot about what's happening on their favorite TV shows. I guess conservatives and the conservative media like it that way.

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