Everybody Must Get Estonia
The AP reports:
President Bush says the United States should have a simpler tax system. Apparently he has found one he likes — Estonia's. In a brief stop in the Baltic nation on Tuesday, Bush managed to tout Estonia's flat income tax three times.
[...]
"I appreciate the fact that you got a flat tax, you got a tax system that's transparent and simple," he said.
Well, he certainly knows of simple things. In addition to Estonia not having paid $345 billion to turn Iraq into a slaughterhouse (oh, excuse me, Saddam killed people too, so it's ok what we've done), here are a few other figures to consider:
Estonia GDP 2004 = $19.23 billion (world rank #109)
USA GDP 2004 = $11.75 trillion (world rank #1)
Estonia average income = $8124/year
USA average income = $36,264/year
Estonia population = 1.3 million
USA population = 300 million
That makes us almost the same country! (I really never want to see Bush's score on the analogies part of the SAT. Darn good thing he was a legacy or the closest Bush ever would have got to Yale was eating pizza at Pepe's.)
President Bush says the United States should have a simpler tax system. Apparently he has found one he likes — Estonia's. In a brief stop in the Baltic nation on Tuesday, Bush managed to tout Estonia's flat income tax three times.
[...]
"I appreciate the fact that you got a flat tax, you got a tax system that's transparent and simple," he said.
Well, he certainly knows of simple things. In addition to Estonia not having paid $345 billion to turn Iraq into a slaughterhouse (oh, excuse me, Saddam killed people too, so it's ok what we've done), here are a few other figures to consider:
Estonia GDP 2004 = $19.23 billion (world rank #109)
USA GDP 2004 = $11.75 trillion (world rank #1)
Estonia average income = $8124/year
USA average income = $36,264/year
Estonia population = 1.3 million
USA population = 300 million
That makes us almost the same country! (I really never want to see Bush's score on the analogies part of the SAT. Darn good thing he was a legacy or the closest Bush ever would have got to Yale was eating pizza at Pepe's.)
posted by George at 3:08 PM
4 Comments:
We're not the same country, but this latest sojourn tells us that Geirgie thinks Estonia & Latvia are the real NATO powerhouses.
Without their help, how can we continue to win & win & . . . uhhh, win in Iraq?
Actually, I want to say hi to all the folks dropping in from Estonia since I made this entry.
Tere!
I just want to ask how long have you been independent? Estonia has been independent for about 15 years. We have had to build up our country from nothing. And I think that we have done a pretty good job of it. Flat tax has helped a lot. It´s easy to understand and cheating proof. Probably some form of it would be great for the USA too.
Mihkel--
I meant no slight to Estonia. What I meant was assuming what's good for a country much smaller (in both population and economics) than the U.S. isn't probably good for the U.S.
I did mean a big slight (sorry for the oxymoron) towards our own president.
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