In the debate on tax reform, we are going to hear so much nonsense from the White House, the Treasury, the Congress, the Brookings Institution, Harvard, and People of Sensibility that I would like to head off some of it by getting some facts on record before it begins.
First, let’s look at the impact of inflation on the taxpayer and on government revenues. Who can imagine a jar of peanut butter costing $11.23, a gallon of milk costing $12.49, a pair of work pants costing $80.69? Yet that is exactly what these things will cost 45 years from now if prices rise by 5 per cent a year—and how many of us have heard it said that if we could just get inflation down to 5 per cent a year and keep it there we would have the beast back in the box?
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