You are discounting the fact that taxes can ALWAYS be raised and, historically, ALWAYS have been raised. So your objection, on its face, is simply to situation normal. The fact that future Congresses may try to raise tax rates is not a risk unique to the 999 plan.
However, here is what is unique about the 999: it actually makes the usual risk of later tax rate hikes LESS LIKELY.
Why?
Because under 999, EVERY person in America would pay the same income tax rate. Therefore, whenever ANY one Congresscritter wanted to raise tax rates, he couldn't get away with it without affecting 100% of the American population.
Today tax rates get hiked because so many people don't pay taxes, and so many people who do pay taxes have loopholes available to them, that it's easy for congresscritters to vote for taxes that don't affect THEIR constituents.
Under 999, EVERY SINGLE constitutent in EVERY SINGLE congresscritter's district would be affected by any tax rate increase (both income and sales).
That puts exponentially more accountability into the system than we have now.
Again, don't act as though tax rates can't and don't increase now. They do and WE USUALLY CAN"T STOP THESE HIKES because there are two few of us who are stakeholders. That would change under 999.
“Under 999, EVERY SINGLE constitutent in EVERY SINGLE congresscritter’s district would be affected by any tax rate increase (both income and sales).”
And so they would do it gradually, a half percent here, a half percent there, kind of like the frog put in a pot of cool water that is warmed gradually so that you don’t notice.
You are discounting the fact that taxes can ALWAYS be raised and, historically, ALWAYS have been raised.
I assume nothing.
And Art Laffer, who should know better and has recently supported this bad idea, will bear me out.
There is a peak amount of tax-to-income ration that people are willing to pay. We have just about hit that max. Tax revenues are falling rapidly because of the down economy, which results in lower income taxes and lower sales taxes.
9-9-9 will create an immediate bounce in the economy as people are allowed to keep more of their earnings and to save more of that money by not spending it if they so choose.
This will increase capital formation, which usually results in greater business investment.
However, it will not fix the overall economic problems that not only the US faces but the entire industrialized world.
People will cling to their savings, not invest. They will buy a bit more, but not enough to pay for all that the government is spending on.
What will be the result at that point?
The government will turn up each of those three dials to the “Laffer Curve” maximum. At first they’ll raise it just a couple of points, using incrementalism as they always do. There will be a lot of backlash, but it will pass. After that the increases will be easy. They’ll keep it up until we are at 29-29-29 and we are being taxed to death. Now, I don’t mean literally 29-29-29. I use that number as an easy read to refer back to 9-9-9. Who knows what the eventual numbers will be.
But you know damn thing perfectly well. When the government sees people either 1. Are saving more money or 2. Have more money to spend, they WILL increase taxes.
Now if you want to talk about passing an amendment to the United States Constitution that is so written that we will never see an increase in the 9-9-9 tax plan AND can successfully prevent congress from creating any type of workaround (hidden taxes, taxes through inflation, taxes through regulatory fees, etc.), then we can talk. But that will never happen. Because in the mind of congress, they have one unified goal: take as much from the workers as you possibly can and still keep them going to work.
The incremental increases will eventually surpass the Laffer Curve and undo all of the gains that 9-9-9 creates.
And the left will be able to blame it on a “conservative” economic plan.