RALEIGH — “Brevity is the soul of wit,” says Shakespeare’s Polonius, “and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”
One of the great things about writing for the Web is that there’s no fixed expectation of length. I can write as much or as little as I think I need to make my point. So today, and not for want of enough time, I’m going to err on the side of brevity.
It’s Thursday, May 15. In Washington, the U.S. Senate has just passed its version of a federal tax cut. Estimated at $350 billion in taxpayer savings over 10 years, the package would, among other things, eliminate the double-taxation of corporate dividends, albeit in a gimmicky way. Now the bill will be reconciled with a $550 billion House tax cut that cuts dividend and capital gains tax rates to 15 percent.
Meanwhile, here in Raleigh our state lawmakers are busily engaged in upping the size of an impending tax increase on North Carolina’s struggling families and businesses, the third such major tax increase in as many years. The only question apparently is which products will cost us more, and how much more. The total damage could be three-quarters of a billion dollars next year, or more.
Guess which group of elected officials has a clue?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.