Cutting government: state salaries
The average state bureaucrat salary is $54,309. If you took double the educational rate of $43,664, which is $87,328 and cut all those salaries by 25%, you'd lower that 87k salary down to $65,496, still comfortably above the average. I don't know how much money this would save, but if the state refuses to lay off state bureaucrats, the least they could do would be to cut the salaries to make them feel the same pinch the rest of us are feeling.
Another thought: every dollar for a state employee past the average salary in the state ought to be considered a 'bonus' and if they receive more than that, it's conditional on budget surpluses. No surplus, no bonus.
Labels: budget, policy, taxes, theory
politically incorrect tax cheats
Get an appointment by Obama and your tax cheating is an 'honest mistake' but be
politically unpopular like these folks, and you're going to prison.
Labels: government, obama, taxes
Why raising the gas tax could be a good thing
Wired puts out
this article which seems silly at first. But they make an interesting comment a little bit into the article -- that it would then be wise to make a corresponding cut in payroll taxes. Now, at first this seems like quite the silly proposition-- just a displacement of current tax. But the gas tax is paid by everyone -- the unemployed, the poor, and the over 50% of Americans who pay no tax. So in reality this is the most regressive of all tax systems, and honestly, the most fair. If we're going to embark on a brave new world of construction projects, the least we can do is to free up other parts of the economy so that we don't have the economic efficiency of the Soviet Union. Displacing "progressive" taxation onto more "regressive" taxation making it flatter, simpler and more 'equitable' is honestly a great way to do that.
The only downside of course is that we all know once they raise the gas tax they won't really cut the payroll taxes. But it's a nice thought in the abstract.
Labels: Economics, media, taxes
