Hart Hits Personal Tax Boost: Says Corporate Increase Should Pay for Great Society
Sen. Philip A. Hart (D-Micb.) flatly opposed an increase ip the personal income tax yesterday, claiming it would be of little help in the fight against inflation.</br></br>ÛÏSo why hit consumers, already hard pressed by highÛª prices and high interest rates with another punishing blow in the form of a tax hike when it wonÛªt have the desired result anyway,Û he asked.</br></br>Hart, chairman of the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, proposed: Instead that taxes on corporate profits be raised to furnish added funds for Great Society programs.</br></br>After-tax corporate profits, he said, have climbed 88 per cent in the past nine years, ÛÏin part because there is no longer enough competition to keep prices at minimum levels.Û</br></br>HartÛªs notion that prices ÛÏno longer bear a clear relationship to demandÛ is rank heresy to most Administration economists, particularly those who have leaned toward a tax increase in the past year.