I mentioned yesterday that Senator Johnson of Wisconsin did a good job at the Senate Budget Committee’s hearing on tax reform. Today, I want to elaborate on two of his points.
First, he asked all three of the witnesses what the maximum marginal tax rate on any American should be. The two leftists on the panel, Len Berman and Diane Lim Rogers, hemmed and hawed because they (correctly) smelled a trap. But the Senator persisted and Len said something in the range of 45 percent and Diane said 70 percent-80 percent. This matters because recent polling data shows that the vast majority of Americans don’t want any of their fellow citizens to ever pay more than 30 percent.
Most Republicans aren’t smart enough to focus on arguments that are simultaneously economically sound and politically effective, so kudos to Senator Johnson.
The Wisconsin lawmaker also hit hard on the notion of phony spending cuts, a point near and dear to my heart (as you can see by these interviews with Judge Napolitano and John Stossel).
I touched on this yesterday, but I want to share a chart that Senator Johnson used during the testimony. As you can see, Obama’s budget doesn’t call for any budget cuts.
When Obama released his budget, I did a post showing how annual spending was going to be $2 trillion higher in 10 years than it is today. But I think I’ll steal Senator Johnson’s chart since it makes the same point more dramatically.
I’ve already confessed to having man crushes (in the philosophical sense) on Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. If Senator Johnson continues this good work, I may have to become really promiscuous.
