奥巴马和税收引爆点——纳税人能被逼迫多久？ 

  作者：Adam Lerrick， 翻译：浪宽

如果选民中的确切中等收入的人群从华盛顿得到的好处超过他们所支付的税款后会发生什么事？经济学家艾伦·麦策和斯科特·理查德27年前提出了这个问题。我们可能会很快知道答案。

奥巴马给选民提供强有力的奖励，以支持较高的税收和更大的政府。这可能是民主党长期以来都在寻找神奇的收入再分配公式。 

参议员奥巴马承诺选民以退还税收抵免的形式送给一些人500美元和1,000美元的礼包。这将改变税务人口统计的临界点，即一半以上的选民将从华盛顿收到现金横财,以及绝大多数将受益于增税和政府开支。 

在2006年，即最近一次有人口普查数据之年，总共有2亿2千万美国人有资格投票，其中8千9百万（即40％）不支付任何所得税。根据税收政策中心（一家合资企业的布鲁金斯学会与城市研究所）的统计，如果按照奥巴马先生的现金回馈计划，进一步从税务名册中删除1千8百多万选民，这个比例将跃升至49％。更何况，还有另外2千4百万纳税人（11％的选民）将支付最小数额的所得税——少于收入的5％，每年不到1,000美元（译者注：这将使不缴或基本不交缴税的人口上升到60%，足以让任何一位加税并扩充福利的候选人轻易击败对手）。 

总之，按照奥巴马的计划，在每5个选民中，有3个支付很少或几乎不支付所得税的人将会因为政府对另外40%已支付95％的联邦总所得税的人群增税而受益。 

这种对5％每年收入超过$25万“非常富裕”的、已经支付60％的联邦税的人群的掠夺性的征税，将永远不够用以支付奥巴马先生承诺的庞大计划。 

下一步会怎样？一组核心奥巴马支持者——那些赞扬他们的候选人的税收计划“公平”的受过教育的专业人士，将很快转向那些年收入在$10到15万的家庭。出于自身权力和利益的考量，作为人口多数的选民，将会把高税率的阶梯下降，直至年收入在$75,000的家庭。 

要计算一个社会对最能赚钱的高收入人群施加多少压力才会迫使他们停止（或减少）生产是很困难的。但奖励是很容易看到效果的。受益于政府计划的选民将推动政府对较高收入的人群征收更高的税率——至少在这些为经济注入活力并创造就业机会和财富的富人们停止工作、停止投资、或搬出该国以前不会停止。 

在其他国家，曾试图搞理想的公平社会的地方最后却发现，对不付出辛苦工作的人们的奖励是生产力低下的良方。在1970年代后期和整个20世纪80年代，撒切尔夫人在大不列颠与工会对峙并削减税收，从而恢复经济增长和增加就业机会。几年前在德国社会民主党总理施罗德不顾他本党的教条，力主放松劳工对经济的控制，使停滞结束。另外，最近在法国，使萨尔科齐能掌权的舞台就是恢复经济的弹性。 

流程大底相同。高税收、大支出的政策会使经济失去增长的动力。如果政府的开支增长率超过了财政收入，财政和贸易赤字就会剧增，这又进一步导致政府公债增加、税收过重和高失业率。央行试图通过印钞票来解决这一问题，从而导致国际竞争力丧失和货币贬值，直至该系统停摆。然后，收过了惊吓的选民会将权力再还给保守派（译者注：这种情况在80年发生在里根身上，人们抛弃了大搞社福的卡特而选择了保守的里根）。 

当华盛顿试验欧洲的社会民主主义的时候，经济大潮将不会停止不动，尽管美元作为全球储备货币的作用会为我们赢得一些时间。我们的商品的竞争优势将会丧失，而且一旦失去，就很难再恢复，因为世界上有很多的新兴经济体，它们注重于经济的繁荣而不是再分配，不会让美国轻易地重新夺回其对全球经济的主导地位（译者注：中国、印度、巴西等大国会抢占美国大公司衰落后空出的市场）。 

明天的儿童可能会质疑，为什么他们的父母会为了一种混乱的“公平”而卖掉他们与生俱来的天赋——那将意味着就业的减少以及不再为世人瞩目的美国机会。 

（Lerrick先生是卡内基梅隆大学经济学教授和美国企业研究所访问学者。）

 Obama and the Tax Tipping Point How long before taxpayers are pushed too far?

What happens when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes? Economists Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard posed this question 27 years ago. We may soon enough know the answer.

Barack Obama is offering voters strong incentives to support higher taxes and bigger government. This could be the magic income-redistribution formula Democrats have long sought.

Sen. Obama is promising $500 and $1,000 gift-wrapped packets of money in the form of refundable tax credits. These will shift the tax demographics to the tipping point where half of all voters will receive a cash windfall from Washington and an overwhelming majority will gain from tax hikes and more government spending.

In 2006, the latest year for which we have Census data, 220 million Americans were eligible to vote and 89 million -- 40% -- paid no income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute), this will jump to 49% when Mr. Obama's cash credits remove 18 million more voters from the tax rolls. What's more, there are an additional 24 million taxpayers (11% of the electorate) who will pay a minimal amount of income taxes -- less than 5% of their income and less than $1,000 annually.

In all, three out of every five voters will pay little or nothing in income taxes under Mr. Obama's plans and gain when taxes rise on the 40% that already pays 95% of income tax revenues.

The plunder that the Democrats plan to extract from the "very rich" -- the 5% that earn more than $250,000 and who already pay 60% of the federal income tax bill -- will never stretch to cover the expansive programs Mr. Obama promises.

What next? A core group of Obama enthusiasts -- those educated professionals who applaud the "fairness" of their candidate's tax plans -- will soon see their $100,000-$150,000 incomes targeted. As entitlements expand and a self-interested majority votes, the higher tax brackets will kick in at lower levels down the ladder, all the way to households with a $75,000 income.

Calculating how far society's top earners can be pushed before they stop (or cut back on) producing is difficult. But the incentives are easy to see. Voters who benefit from government programs will push for higher tax rates on higher earners -- at least until those who power the economy and create jobs and wealth stop working, stop investing, or move out of the country.

Other nations have tried the ideology of fairness in the place of incentives and found that reward without work is a recipe for decline. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher took on the unions and slashed taxes to restore growth and jobs in Great Britain. In Germany a few years ago, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder defied his party's dogma and loosened labor's grip on the economy to end stagnation. And more recently in France, Nicolas Sarkozy was swept to power on a platform of restoring flexibility to the economy.

The sequence is always the same. High-tax, big-spending policies force the economy to lose momentum. Then growth in government spending outstrips revenues. Fiscal and trade deficits soar. Public debt, excessive taxation and unemployment follow. The central bank tries to solve the problem by printing money. International competitiveness is lost and the currency depreciates. The system stagnates. And then a frightened electorate returns conservatives to power.

The economic tides will not stand still while Washington experiments with European-type social democracy, even though the dollar's role as the global reserve currency will buy some time. Our trademark competitive advantage will be lost, and once lost, it will be hard to regain. There are too many emerging economies focused on prosperity and not redistribution for the U.S. to easily recapture its role of global economic leader.

Tomorrow's children may come to question why their parents sold their birthright for a mess of "fairness" -- whatever that will signify when jobs are scarce and American opportunity is no longer the envy of the world.

Mr. Lerrick is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.