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Jon Coupal

Static Cling In Sacramento

Jon Coupal is President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

What is it with progressive politicians who believe that taxpayers won’t change their behavior because of tax policy? One would think that repeatedly seeing pie-in-the-sky revenue projections from big tax hikes that fall way short of reality would be a wake-up call.

In trying to project the impact of tax hikes on government revenues, the failure to account for predictable changes in behavior is called “static scoring.” And since many progressives mindlessly hew to this method of analysis, let’s call it “static cling.”

Static scoring is different from “dynamic scoring.” Dynamic scoring simply means taking into account predictable changes in behavior that result from tax increases (or tax cuts) to accurately project the amount of money that will be raised.

To read the entire column, please click here.