The Value-Added Tax: A Recipe for More Spending…and More Debt

My views on the value-added tax are very straightforward.

• Washington taxes too much today and wastes too much money today.
• Giving D.C. politicians even more tax revenue will encourage more fiscal profligacy.
• It is profoundly naive to think a VAT will lead to lower deficits and less debt.
• It is profoundly naive to think politicians will use VAT revenues to lower other taxes.

These points are worth contemplating because I am increasingly worried that we’ll get a VAT because of misguided conservatives rather than because of tax-and-spend leftists.

Consider, for instance, Alan Viard of the American Enterprise.

He wrote a column last November arguing that we should let politicians in Washington have this new source of tax revenue, and I explained why his arguments were wrong.

But I’m obviously not very persuasive since he just reiterated his support for a VAT in an interview with the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. Here are some of the highlights (lowlights might be a better term).

…tax increases on corporations and high-income households as well as benefit cuts could be part of a debt-reduction package…such tax increases would have limited revenue potential. …a VAT should—and undoubtedly would—be accompanied by rebates to offset the tax burden on low-income households. The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 7.7 percent VAT with rebates, which would raise the same net revenue as a 5 percent VAT without rebates, would generally be progressive. …the VAT would be only one component of the federal tax system. Individual and corporate income taxes would continue to add progressivity.

There are two remarkable admissions in the above excerpts.

1. He’s basically admitting a VAT would be accompanied by class-warfare tax hikes on companies and households – thus undermining the usual argument that the VAT is needed to avert these other types of tax increases.
2. He’s basically admitting a VAT would be accompanied by a new entitlement program of “rebates” – thus undermining the argument that VAT revenues would be used to reduce deficits and debt.

But what I found particularly amazing is that Viard never tries to empirically justify his main argument that, a) debt is a problem, and b) the VAT is part of a solution.

I don’t particularly object to the first part (though I would argue the real problem is spending). But the assertion that a VAT will solve that problem is contrary to real-world evidence.

For instance, government debt has continued to grow ever since Japan adopted a VAT.

Moreover, the evidence from Europe, which shows not only that the burden of government spending increased after the VAT was adopted beginning (see chart at start of column), but also that government debt subsequently exploded (see nearby chart).

And that data doesn’t even include all the additional red ink accumulated in recent years!

P.S. The clinching argument is that one of America’s best presidents opposed a VAT and one of America’s worst presidents supported a VAT. That tells you everything you need to know.

P.P.S. The pro-tax International Monetary Fund inadvertently produced a study showing why the VAT is a money machine for big government.

P.P.P.S. You can enjoy some amusing – but also painfully accurate – cartoons about the VAT by clicking here, here, and here.