Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

This has actually been known for some time


But for whatever reason, the corporate media has decided to cover this (not new) analysis from the Brookings Institution that states the obvious:

This paper examines the tradeoffs among three competing goals that are inherent in a revenue-neutral income tax reform—maintaining tax revenues, ensuring a progressive tax system, and lowering marginal tax rates—drawing on the example of the tax policies advanced in presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s tax plan. Our major conclusion is that any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.

You can find summaries and discussion here and here with the headline "Study: Romney tax plan would shift burden to poor," no less.

But guess what? It doesn't matter! Romney will keep saying that Obama wants to raise your taxes, and the stenographers will just write it down, and people will continue to believe that Republicans cut their taxes and Democrats raise them, because that's just the way it is.

I know this because I already know that it doesn't make any difference what lies Romney tells. There is no penalty for lying. He'll just keep doing it, and it will continue to work. There's no sense even pointing it out.

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