Tax “Cuts”: Fill My Mug and Pass the Popcorn

Greg Mankiw provides this parable about tax policy:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

Greg continues with this parable, which can also be found here, commenting on the distribution of this alleged tax cut. I guess this is supposed to be a comment on the 2001 tax cut but there’s something missing here. In the real world, we did not get a tax cut – only a tax shift. Yes, government spending did not decline so somebody will have to pay more in taxes someday.

So let’s finish his parable by assuming that the owner raised the price of the munchies such as popcorn and the beer nuts. One cannot talk about talk about the distribution of the change in tax policy without bringing in the total picture. Yet, we often see our conservative friends implicitly denying that either sales taxes or employment taxes (or both) will have to be increased. Of course, this is one of many myths that get created when one falls for the free lunch fallacy that permeates Republican discussions of fiscal policy.

Hey bartender – pour me another pint and give me some more popcorn. It’s all free – right?