Is opposing a VAT a far right position?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not unless basically every single Democratic elected office holder is well to the right of Ted Cruz, no.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Of course not (sane).

[Intell]

What kind of idiot would believe this?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Of course not (sane).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What kind of idiot would believe this?

Someone cited Hillary not supporting a VAT as an example of her being far right.

[Intell]

What kind of idiot would believe this?

Someone cited Hillary not supporting a VAT as an example of her being far right.

Jesus Christ. The Stupidity, american liberalism is cancer.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Err, the people most against the GST's in Australia, Canada and India were (or are) the left. And typically the left campaign on lowering or narrowing the range of the vat in countries where it exists. Weird statement.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Uh no, in fact regressive taxes are very much a right-wing idea. Who said that?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In us terms it's probably mild to extremely liberal. In world wide terms it's center right.

You do realize most of the world's population lives in countries where SSM is illegal, right?

You realize Hillary Clinton would be a far right candidate in many countries.

Name one.

Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Ireland off the top of my head.

Much of Europe would find her hawkish lean and non embrace of socialism to be to the right, in some of the more liberal countries she'd be far right

Knowing that BRTD reads this thread, I'll just let him take care of this when he gets back.

I mean let's ignore actual stances of things. The US is a center right country, our left politicians are often center right on a world scale.

Again, Clinton's hawkish tendency, no support for a vat, and stating universal health care would never come to pass alone would sink her in much of Europe.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Maybe by "vat' they mean sort of nationalised industrial vats that store the People's Produce or something.

[DC Al Fine]

Err, the people most against the GST's in Australia, Canada and India were (or are) the left. And typically the left campaign on lowering or narrowing the range of the vat in countries where it exists. Weird statement.

Eh, the last people to cut our federal VAT were Tories and the last government to raise the provincial one was NDP. Most of my memories of VAT cuts are being lectured by centre leftists about how cutting GST was irresponsible.

[Torie]

It's a regressive tax. It's essential however in nations packed with tax cheats.

[IceAgeComing]

Err, the people most against the GST's in Australia, Canada and India were (or are) the left. And typically the left campaign on lowering or narrowing the range of the vat in countries where it exists. Weird statement.

Eh, the last people to cut our federal VAT were Tories and the last government to raise the provincial one was NDP. Most of my memories of VAT cuts are being lectured by centre leftists about how cutting GST was irresponsible.

In the UK the last people to cut VAT were Labour (in 2008 right in the middle of the financial crisis they lowered in temporarily to 15% from 17.5%) and have never really raised it (some fiddling with charging a higher VAT rate for petrol and a small number of "luxury goods" in the mid 70s and that's about it: indeed they were really rather gong ho about putting goods on the lower VAT rate of 5%) while the Tories raised in in their first budget after winning the 2010 election to 20% and historically have been the party to try to use it to gain revenue if they needed to - the whole "lets charge full-rate VAT on fuel" thing is a perfect example of that: and one of the only budget matters that I can ever remember the government losing a vote on in parliament.

[parochial boy]

It's a regressive tax. It's essential however in nations packed with tax cheats.

It's perfectly possible to avoid VAT if you have the right accountants.

[mvd10]

Depends on how the revenue is used. But if the US wants to have an European style welfare state the VAT seems to be the only way. You can't build a welfare state solely by soaking the rich. Personally I would support the US adopting a VAT if the revenue is used for slashing/repealing the corporate income tax, a huge increase in the standard deduction and a rebate for low income taxpayers.