Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit

Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit: "The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the historical norm of about 18.5 percent. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5 percent national sales tax on consumers, say Stephen Moore, the senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial, and Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University.

The claim is that these added revenues will be used to reduce the $8 trillion to $10 trillion deficits in the coming decade. If history is any guide, however, that won't happen. Instead, Congress will simply spend the money."

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