Sunday, February 19, 2006

Gregoire troubled by fervor for tax breaks

As reported here, Gregoire is beginning to panic over proposed tax breaks that the State House and Senate are mulling over, saying that she expects the economy to slow down as the housing market cools down, and has threatened to veto tax breaks she doesn't like. Ironically, enough, most of the tax break bills are from those in her own party.

Some of these tax breaks would benefit the semi-conductor, aerospace, farming and movie industries, all of which have been hard hit, and could use the boost. The biggest fear, of course, is that by decreasing taxes, that revenue generation would slow, but that goes against established fact. The more money you leave in tax payers pockets, the more they spend, generating more tax revenue, not less. The flip side of that coin is that the more money you take from tax payers pockets, the less they have to spend, which decreases tax revenue as people put off discretionary spending, to buy necessities instead.

Note to Chris: You need to pay more attention to what the national economy is doing since the Bush tax cuts went into effect. It is growing at an unprecedented rate. Don't you think the state economy would similarly grow? That's a no brainer!

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