What is seen...

Stephen Moore is on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. He writes some intelligent stuff.
This excerpt is from an article about an interaction he had with the CEO of FedEx on the topic of our present economic situation.
In it is a key example of corporate taxation and what is seen compared to what is not seen:

"He uses an example from FedEx. "Look, our capital budget as we went into this year was about $3 billion. We went out to Boeing in July for our board meeting to see the new triple seven, [the Boeing 777] which we have bought. If we had a lower corporate tax rate with the ability to expense capital expenditures, guess what? We'd buy more triple sevens. We absolutely have to cut the corporate tax. Our current tax rate is about 38%. Even Germany has a 25% rate.""

What is seen: higher tax rates, revenue and expansion of aid programs. For a time.

What is unseen: the fact that more packages aren't getting delivered, jobs aren't being created and wealth spread to the rest of society in a meaningful, effective manner.

Of course, his opinion is one among many, but I thought it illustrated the seen and unseen well.

Here's the whole article if you're interested