Pelosi floats new VAT tax

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Charlie Rose on Monday that a new tax is “on the table” to help Congress pay for its massive spending programs. The so-called value-added tax (VAT) taxes manufacturers at each stage of production for the value an additional producer adds to the final product. Pelosi said such a tax would help put domestic goods on an equal footing with foreign goods since the latter don’t have health care and pension costs factored in (since their socialist governments pay for those).

First of all, that just sounds like a tariff to me, and protectionist tariffs don’t work in the long run. Second, this tax is going to be levied against all goods, rising costs to consumers who will receive the brunt of a tax hike levied against businesses. It’s precisely the wrong move in an environment where jobs and a vibrant economy are desired. That Speaker Pelosi can claim that such a tax wouldn’t result in an increase in taxes for the middle class is either dangerously naive or cunningly misleading. I have a suspicion it’s both.

I have a proposition for Pelosi, Congress, and the Obama administration – instead of devising more ways to get more money from the American people, why don’t you concentrate on finding a way to stimulate job production and economic growth? Taxes don’t do that, but they do help you pay for an unsustainable expansion of government. Not totally, of course, but enough to give the sham appearance of budgetary responsibility.

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Tagged: congress, economy, nancy pelosi, taxes, value added tax, vat tax

Posted in: News, Politics