David Schweikert: “The reason I am doing this again is that I have just grown exhausted trying to work with some of my brothers and sisters…”

“The reason I am doing this again is that I have just grown exhausted trying to work with some of my brothers and sisters on the Democrat side who I have walked through the math with, and say, here are some ideas and things we can do. They say, no, people just want us to tax rich people more. Okay. Fine. Maybe do it. The next day, can we go back to talk about the problem because you didn't fix anything? Taxing the rich could raise, at most, 1 to 2 percent of the GDP by maxing out all the different tax rates and then adjusting for the economic losses. Let's say you get the full 2 percent. We borrowed 8.4 percent of GDP last year. I know I have come back and done this again, but is anyone paying attention? Let's walk through this in a little more detail. I will do this quickly. Maximizing sustainable revenues from taxing the rich. Let's actually maximize income taxes. Raise the top two income tax brackets by another 10 percent. There is a whole model out there--I need to explain this for someone who doesn't live in this economic world. There is this concept that you can raise taxes to a point where you maximize receipts--technically, the government doesn't have revenues, they get receipts--but the next incremental tax hike rolls over and you start to get fewer receipts. Capital gains is actually in many ways the most sensitive to this. There is sort of this maximizing rate--and we actually have very, very good models on this now.…”