NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — An agricultural tax law professor from Washburn University doesn't see a whole lot of positives in the government expansion bill euphemized as the inflation reduction act.
"This is an example of government picking winners and losers," said Roger McEowen, the Kansas Farm Bureau Professor of Agricultural Law and Taxation at Washburn University School of Law. "If you're in a certain type of industry, if you're into renewables, so called green energy, you are being favored. If you're in the oil and gas industry, if you are a major manufacturer of the old style economic system of production in this country, you are disfavored."
McEowen sees the economics behind the legislation as detached from reality.
"This whole bill is based on Modern Monetary Theory, which, in essence, is just simply warmed over Keynesianism from 90 years ago," McEowen said. "It didn't prove true then. It won't prove true now. What that theory means is, we can spend, the government can spend as much money as it wants and has no impact on inflation. That's again, trying to redefine the laws of economics. It doesn't work."
He goes further to say that renewable energy is parasitic in nature, feeding the urban needs at the cost of rural America.
"This is cost shifting problems from the urban areas to you," McEowen said. "They don't have space to put up wind farms in urban areas. They find space out here. They use your land. They scar the aesthetics of the countryside and then they ship that electricity back to them."
The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation also says that average tax rates will increase for nearly every income category in 2023.
According to McEowen's blog post, the JCT says that taxes will rise by $16.7 billion in 2023 on those earning less than $200,000 annually and those making between $200,000 and $500,000 will pay $14.1 billion more. The JCT also concluded that 61 percent of taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 will see a tax increase, and that 91 percent of taxpayers making between $100,000 and $200,000 will see higher taxes.