An Economic Loser in the Long Run
William McBride

There has been more than the usual amount of rhetoric, noise, and confusion regarding the Senate Democrats' bill that pairs a payroll tax holiday with a permanent surtax on millionaires. This bill would make the tax code more complicated, more unstable from year to year, and more redistributive -- all damaging to long-term economic growth.

It is essentially the 2012 version of cash for clunkers. Economists claim that the payroll tax holiday would stimulate consumption spending, and it very well might in the short term. But just as cash for clunkers merely shifted car sales from the future into the present, this too will merely shift future consumption into 2012. We would basically be borrowing from ourselves and future generations.

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This redistribution would occur not only across time and generations but also across income groups. The payroll holiday would cut taxes for one year on wages up to $106,800, while the surtax would be a permanent tax increase on millionaires.

The effect would be to increase the progressivity of our tax code, meaning high-income earners would pay an even greater share than they currently do. As it is, the top 1 percent of filers pay more in income taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined, giving us the most progressive income tax system in the industrialized world, according to the OECD.

There are real economic costs associated with such a progressive tax system.

First, high-income earners do a great deal of the saving, investing, entrepreneurship, and high-productivity labor necessary for economic growth. Second, the U.S. is unique in that most business income is actually taxed through the personal code, and a large share of that accrues to high-income earners -- about 39 percent to millionaires, as does 18 percent of all small business income.

Lastly, economic growth is suffering right now in large part due to various uncertainties, including an exceptionally uncertain tax environment. Our tax code is in constant flux, which prevents long-term economic planning. There are some 65 so-called tax extenders due to expire at the end of this year, and the Bush-Obama tax cuts are due to expire next year, meaning the majority of our tax code is a perpetual political football. This bill only adds to these uncertainties.