Speed Gibson uses colors to illustrate a very flawed analysis in yesterday's StarTribune. Learn the codes and follow along if you like through a maze of tax increases and decreases that indicate its author knows exactly how the economy should be structured and by gum he'll change relative prices to make it so. A couple of quick points:

• As the post immediately below points out, if you make around $30k a year, your payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) take a bigger bite out of your paycheck than your income tax. That has been true for many years. But those people not in the labor force (which is far less than 70 million, by the way). An increase in employment of 13% would add 18 million workers "in the long run". Where would they come from? And why do we think what they did before wasn't valuable (like homemaking, or being a student?)
• You can use any tax you want to increase burdens on the wealthy if you wish, but taxing only labor income through a payroll tax means all the non-wage means of earning money would be missed by this plan. Is that really what Drayton means?

Labels: economics, Minneapolis