Bartlett on Tax Policy in Europe v. the U.S.

Bruce Bartlett claims:

…it is interesting to discover, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, that governments of the left in Europe have been doing pretty much the same thing as President Bush has done here…there have been a number of major tax cuts in Europe that have lowered taxes as a share of the gross domestic product by 1 percent, from 39.9 percent in 2000 to 38.9 percent in 2002.

Given that total U.S. taxes – even if one includes Social Security contributions – are less than 30%, I am more struck by how high Europe’s tax share is relative to ours. Then again, our reporting of taxes is misleading as it fails to account for the massive amount of deferred taxation from the Bush Administration’s pretending to give us our money back and they increase government spending. Normally, Mr. Bartlett is quite good for pointing this out.