"History is a wonderful thing, if only it was true"
-Tolstoy

Thursday, September 09, 2010

VAT coming?

But does Congress have the will to do this?

Contributing Columnist - One Nation, Two Deficits - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

One possibility would be to establish a new source of revenue, perhaps through revenue-increasing tax reform, and possibly including a modest value-added tax (that is, a V.A.T. of 5 percent to 6 percent). This approach has many potential benefits, including the opportunity to improve our tax code by cutting back on loopholes and shifting toward a consumption-based tax system. It is also politically impossible, at least in the era of the 60-vote Senate. Those who fear a V.A.T. have little reason to worry — the votes aren’t there.


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