"Tax Cuts Steal from the Future"

[applegrove]

Tax Cuts Steal from the Future

Whether it's the "fiscal cliff" debate or the way we fund education, our selfishness is impeding our future growth

By Paul Campos at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/14/tax_cuts_steal_from_future/

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The central political problem of our time is finding some way to stop the present from stealing from the future. Whether the issue is global warming, cutting taxes or funding higher education, we apparently find it impossible to resist the temptation to spend today what our children will have to pay for (at much increased expense) in some conveniently distant tomorrow.

In each of these cases, we are passing on the costs of our behavior to future generations, in a way that is both economically inefficient and deeply unfair. For example, it would be much cheaper in the long run to take serious steps to cut back on carbon emissions now, but in the long run, as John Maynard Keynes famously observed, “we are all dead.”

So we continue to live ecologically destructive lives because most of the consequences of our irresponsible behavior will be visited on our descendants, who at present have little or no say in the matter.

Similarly, when we vote ourselves tax cuts today we are in effect voting for tax increases — and/or spending cuts — for our children. Combining tax cuts with increased spending is the social equivalent of running up a multi-trillion dollar credit card balance and then mailing the payment notices to the future.

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