Tax Rates Still Too High

It's incredible that liberals decry the Bush tax cuts as unfairly targeting the poor when the poorest Americans receive the biggest percentage cuts. But such shrieks of alarm are rendered all the more useless when federal tax receipts for October and November have risen for the third year in row, according to Jerry Bowyer.

Federal tax receipts for October and November (the first two months of fiscal 2006) were $288 billion. This is up from the first two months of fiscal 2005 ($271 billion), 2004 ($254 billion), and 2003 ($244 billion).

The Laffer Curve, invented by Arthur Laffer, depicts the point at which the government collects maximum revenue while people continue to work hard. Over the past three years, the federal government has continually increased its tax revenues while cutting taxes. And as Bowyer notes, these increases suggest that we're still on the wrong side of the curve, where tax rates are too high.