Posted by Tina
The idea that a 48% tax rate should be imposed on millionaires is not surprising or new. The fact that it has been proposed is news…here’s the scoop, according to *The Hill:
Several House Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation that would impose a minimum 45, maximum 49% percent tax rate on taxable income above $1 million…For taxable income from $1 million to $10 million, the bill would set a 45 percent tax rate. That rate increases to 46 percent for income between $10 million and 20 million, 47 percent for income between $20 million and $100 million, and 48 percent for income between $100 million and $1 billion.
The Fairness in Taxation Act, H.R. 1723, was proposed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who said the bill would help put the nation’s wealth back into the hands of middle- and lower-income workers.
“Our country faces an inequality crisis,” she said Thursday. “While the amount of earned income — and accumulated wealth — by the top one percent of earners continues its dramatic rise, most Americans have seen little or no gain in take-home pay for decades.
Point one: It’s another crisis…a crisis of inequality!
Point two: It’s all about the “nations” wealth. What you earn belongs to the “nation”!
That is in direct conflict with a primary tenet of freedom…personal property.
How to express the true meaning of this so-called solution?
Other than making sure the American people remain adolescent forever? Let’s see…going for it in terms of aspiration and dreams, training and educating oneself, gaining in work experience, having a strong work ethic, taking personal risks, saving and investing, being willing to sacrifice, and enduring both disappointment and success is the same thing as being lazy, goofing off, drugging and partying, living off the efforts of others, and failing even to try to prosper. How’s that sound? Totally nuts!
In the progressive mind both behaviors and many variations in between should all result in the same allotment of monetary reward to be decided by elites in government and accomplished through the imposition of “progressive” tax rates. This spreading of wealth, this equalizing of outcomes through what amounts to theft, is the most anti-American idea that ever came down the pike!
The dirty little secret is that no matter how much we send to government it is never enough. The elites will keep over-spending to stay in power. What they offer in return amounts to the crumbs from their plates once full equalization has been achieved. Crumbs are the reward for hard work or for goofing off. Who would ever choose to work in such an environment? Ahhh…unless working is mandated and enforced.
Radical progressive Democrats don’t give a damn about wages going up or about creating greater opportunity for middle and lower class Americans. If they did they wouldn’t propose legislation that limits opportunity. they wouldn’t suggest legislation that demeans the dignity of all citizens. The Marxist idea behind redistribution suggests that the only way middle and lower income people can better their lives is by remaining under the thumb of government, demanding services, and going along with government confiscation of wealth. It suggests that people are incapable of creating the life they want or acquiring whatever level of wealth they might desire. Eventually this type of government denies every citizen the basic right to pursue happiness as he sees fit.
This legislation is a terrible idea generally but at this time it would be a disaster. I doubt it will fly but in this day of socialist thinkers anything is possible. they passed Obamacare didn’t they? Still, it’s quite disturbing to think that people raised and educated in America would think this way.
* The Hill reported the top rate as both 48% and 49% within the article. I did not attempt to clarify because I doubt that it will matter.
Why doesn’t this article mention that the tax rate for millionaires was well above 49% from 1932 all the way to 1982? This fact is almost never mentioned by conservatives when discussing the issue. It seems as if you are trying to mislead people into believing that this is a radical, untested new idea. In reality, many of our country’s most prosperous years were during a time when taxes on millionaires were much higher than they are today. During the 1950s, a period where innovation and industry reached unmatched heights, the top tax rate never went under 90%.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/history-of-american-income-tax-rates/
Do you really believe America was a more Marxist country in the 1950s than it is today? This is a yes or no question.
The evidence is clear that high taxes on the rich don’t have a negative impact on American prosperity, and in fact seem to correlate positively with a healthy economy. In contrast, low taxes on the rich correlate not with job growth, but with growing income inequality. This was the finding of a recent CRS report, which congressional Republicans tried to suppress–not because of any valid critiques of the study’s methodology, but simply because they didn’t like the results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/business/questions-raised-on-withdrawal-of-congressional-research-services-report-on-tax-rates.html
That said, I don’t think Democrats should focus on raising the top tax rate to 49%. Not only will this prove politically impossible given GOP obstruction, it’s simply not the biggest issue in our tax structure right now. The main problem isn’t that our top tax rate is too low, it’s that too many who fall into this bracket aren’t even paying this rate; their effective tax rate ends up being much lower. In 2011, the 400 richest Americans only paid an average of 18% of their income in taxes.
A lot of this has to do with how we tax investment income at a much more generous level than earned income. This, to me, seems to run counter to both conservative and liberal principles. Conservatives argue that work needs to be incentivized. If that’s the case, it is nonsensical to tax earned income at a higher rate that investment income. Why are we punishing working class families by taxing them at a higher rate than a millionaire that makes most of his money from investments?
According to the New York Times, it wasn’t always this way:
“There was, in fact, only one time that capital gains were taxed at the same rates that were paid by people who earned their money by working. That was during the years 1988 to 1990, as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 — a law championed by President Ronald Reagan.
To be sure, he changed his mind about unearned income in 1988. After Vice President George H. W. Bush, then campaigning to succeed Mr. Reagan, endorsed lowering capital gains taxes, the president allowed that might be a good idea. Mr. Bush and the Congress did lower them after he was elected.
These days, the conventional way to look at taxes on investments is to think they should be low to stimulate investment and thus help the economy. It is a view that has much more support in economic theory than in economic history.
Correlation is not causation, of course, but the economy has tended to do the best when taxes on unearned income were high. Economic growth was great during the 1950s, when dividends were taxed at very high levels and capital gains rates were 25 percent, much higher than they are now. Since 2003, tax rates on unearned income have been at their lowest levels ever, and economic growth has been sluggish.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/business/investment-income-hasnt-always-had-tax-advantages.html?pagewanted=all
A proposal put forth by Democrats is to put a small tax on risky, high-speed Wall St. trades. This tax would be barely noticeable but would raise a lot of revenue. I don’t see any reason why I should have to pay more in sales tax at a grocery store than a financial speculator has to pay for a risky transaction. What kind of behavior does that incentivize?
We need to close loopholes and reform the tax structure so that is rewards hard work and productivity, not risky speculation practices that put our entire economy at risk. This would put us back on the path toward prosperity. Raising the marginal top tax rate to 49% before adressing all of these other issues is a political loser, and even if it did pass, without these other reforms it would not have much of an effect.
Chris: “Why doesn’t this article mention that the tax rate for millionaires was well above 49% from 1932 all the way to 1982”
Because it is irrelevant that the tax rate was higher then! A lot of things were much different then. We are not living then, and THEN, we were not obligated to finance multiple entitlement programs.
“It seems as if you are trying to mislead people into believing that this is a radical, untested new idea.”
No…it is a very stupid idea. The purpose behind it is non-American.
The best way to spur economic growth, as has been shown by presidents from both parties, is to lower taxes, particularly on investment and big investors.
Over the past six and a quarter years (Pelosi/Reid 06) we have seen the result of policies that progressives favor. These policies, on top of the enormous debt that comes from ultra poor management of tax monies, unfunded entitlements, unsustainable programs, and support of business have resulted in a stagnant economy, high unemployment, and very little confidence in a better future.
The economy cannot grow if you take money from those who invest and produce. There’s your stupid.
“Do you really believe America was a more Marxist country in the 1950s than it is today? ”
NO! Never would suggest the WWII generation was more Marxist than their children. Marxist ideas have been failing for decades, however. Why slog along in shared misery when you can fly?
“The evidence is clear that high taxes on the rich don’t have a negative impact on American prosperity…”
Bunk!
“In contrast, low taxes on the rich correlate not with job growth, but with growing income inequality.”
WSJ
Read the article, Chris, and learn something! Behaviors change with tax policy. that seems to be something the money grubbing left just refuses to get.
“A proposal put forth by Democrats is to put a small tax on risky, high-speed Wall St. trades. This tax would be barely noticeable but would raise a lot of revenue”
BUNK! Another very stupid, non-American idea.
“We need to close loopholes and reform the tax structure so that is rewards hard work and productivity, not risky speculation practices that put our entire economy at risk. This would put us back on the path toward prosperity…blah, blah, blah…more progressive horse hockey!
What needs to happen is the American people need to learn how to be American’s again! We have obviously failed miserably to properly educate the young since so many have swallowed the crap that leftist theorists put out to fool people into supporting policies that create high unemployment, stagnation, inflation and misery.
A lot of people would be screaming much louder today if they were not being bought off with gimmicks like extending the unemployment benefits and raising limits to qualify for food stamp and other programs.
Tina, I use to think you or Jack replying to Chris was a waste of your time.
However, the more I read your replies to his liberal babble the more I thank you both for the valued explanations to his mindless progressive self-serving thinking. Please keep it up, the knowledge we learn from you two is worth it. I too thought that what is the parallel between then and now, about high taxes, our than more wasted money by the Government on welfare and over the top spending.
The Taxocrats wouldn’t be happy even if the tax rate was 100%.
They’d still be looking or more ways to get more of your $$ so they could continue to $pend.
To misquote Nancy Pelosi – “Democrats don’t have a problem spending . . . .”
Do they . . . . .?
Tina: “Because it is irrelevant that the tax rate was higher then!”
No, it’s not irrelevant, just inconvenient to you. It shows that, under certain circumstances, it is possible to have both high taxes on the rich and a booming economy.
“A lot of things were much different then. We are not living then, and THEN, we were not obligated to finance multiple entitlement programs.”
That’s a good point. If I recall, the minimum wage was higher in the 1960s than it is today. That meant there was less of a need for entitlement programs–Americans could be expected to take care of themselves, because they were actually paid the value of their work. Today, that’s not the case. The minimum wage has gone down over the past 40 years, while worker productivity and inflation has gone up, pushing more and more working people onto the welfare rolls. People are working harder and longer, and getting less out of it. Yet you are against both welfare and a minimum wage increase. Sorry, but you’re going to have to choose one or the other to oppose–you can’t in good conscience oppose both, because in doing so, you’re simply ensuring that more and more people turn to the government due to lack of a sustainable wage.
“No…it is a very stupid idea. The purpose behind it is non-American.”
So our tax policy during our country’s most productive years, when we fought WWII and created the middle class, was “non-American?” I don’t see it that way.
“The best way to spur economic growth, as has been shown by presidents from both parties, is to lower taxes, particularly on investment and big investors.”
I’m sorry, I don’t know of a single economist who agrees that lowering taxes “particularly on investment and big investors” is the way to stimulate the economy. Most economists agree that we should focus on lower and middle class workers, not the rich, in designing tax policy. That’s because the rich tend to save their money, while the lower and middle classes tend to spend it right away. A thriving middle class is what stimulates the economy, not tax cuts on the rich.
As you know, the middle class has shrunk dramatically since the 1980s. Which is, not coincidentally, when Reaganomics became the “in” thing.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm
Trickle down economics has helped the rich get richer, but has been a total disaster for our economy.
“Over the past six and a quarter years (Pelosi/Reid 06) we have seen the result of policies that progressives favor…”
Tina, taxes on the rich have only been raised once during the time period you specify, and that happened only a few months ago.
We’ve had twenty years to evaluate the economic policy favored by Republicans. Low taxes on the rich, deregulation, spending cuts on programs for the poor–none of these have proven effective, because you’re targeting symptoms, not the causes of our problems.
“The economy cannot grow if you take money from those who invest and produce. There’s your stupid.”
“Investing” and “producing” aren’t always done by the same people. Workers produce. Your opposition to taxing capital gains at a higher rate shows that you actually value investment over production.
Furthermore, it’s stupid to say that if you take money from those who invest, the economy cannot grow. I’ve already proven this wrong by citing the 1950s. During that period, the government “took” a lot more from investors than it does now, and the economy grew by leaps and bounds.
“NO! Never would suggest the WWII generation was more Marxist than their children.”
But that’s EXACTLY what you’re suggesting when you say that a 49% tax rate on the rich is Marxist. If a 49% tax rate is Marxist, a 90% tax rate must be super-duper-Marxist. Your arguments simply are not consistent, Tina.
““The evidence is clear that high taxes on the rich don’t have a negative impact on American prosperity…”
Bunk!”
Good argument! I cited a CRS study which shows evidence that high taxes on the rich don’t correlate with a poor economy, and your response is simply to say “Bunk?” You have no case.
As for your WSJ link, are you really going to take advice on the economy from one of the chief architects of the global economic crisis? Phil Gramm, one of the authors of the WSJ piece you cite, was also the primary author of the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act, which repealed Glass-Steagle and enabled banks to engage in the kinds of risky practices they had been prohibited from since the Great Depression.
TIME names Gramm as one of the 25 people most responsible for the financial crisis. CNN puts him at number 7.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/14/culprits-of-the-collapse-7-phil-gramm/
Of course Gramm is going to keep arguing that what we really need is more deregulation and more perks for the rich. The alternative would be to take responsibility for his role in the worldwide economic crash.
Gramm has proven that his allegiances lie with the 1% and their interests, regardless of the chaos they cause for the rest of us. It’s no surprise he would argue that continuing to make policies that favor the 1% actually help all of us in the long run. What is surprising is how many people actually buy that.
Their argument is self-defeating. They write:
“Nowhere is the political debate over income inequality more detached from reality than the call for the top 1% of American income earners to pay their “fair share.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data on the ratio of the share of income taxes paid by the richest taxpayers relative to their share of income show that the U.S. has the world’s most progressive tax burden.
The top 10% of earners in the U.S. pay 35% more of the income tax burden than in Sweden and 22% more than in France. These figures—from the 2008 OECD publication “Growing Unequal?”—include all household taxes imposed on income at the federal, state and local level, including social insurance taxes.”
Simply put, Gramm and McMillan are looking at the wrong numbers. The percentage of taxes paid by the top 10%, as a group, is not relevant (especially since the discussion is about raising taxes on the top 1-2%, not the top 10%). What’s relevant is how much each individual is paying. When a super-wealthy individual like Mitt Romney only pays 15% in taxes due to the privileging of investment income over earned income, there is a problem.
The reason the top 10% pay such a large percentage of our income taxes is because they have so much more money than the other 90%. The countries Gramm compares the U.S. to have a more equal distribution of wealth than the U.S. French and Swedish workers are paid more than their American counterparts, so not only can they afford to pay more in taxes, the government collects more in revenue per percentage point than the U.S. France just raised their minimum wage above inflation. Sweden has no minimum wage, but before you get excited by that, you should know that all wages are set by collective bargaining, another thing you oppose.
“BUNK! Another very stupid, non-American idea.”
Yet you offer no actual argument against this proposal. Why is it “non-American” to tax risky Wall Street transactions–the very thing that helped get us in this mess in the first place? Why should consumers have to pay a sales tax on everyday, necessary products, but Wall Street traders shouldn’t have to pay a tax on their speculative ventures? It defies reason. Besides, the tax is extremely small, smaller even than a normal sales tax–it’s a fraction of a percent!
And how does it make sense to tax investment income at a lower rate than earned income? Investment isn’t work; investors don’t actually produce anything. If the goal is to encourage work, shouldn’t we tax earned income in a more generous manner than investment income–or, at the very least, tax them at the same rate?
You’re putting tribal politics ahead of reason and common sense. “Taxes are bad, m’kay?”
Chris: “It shows that, under certain circumstances, it is possible to have both high taxes on the rich and a booming economy.
That economy was built, in part, on rebuilding and feeding all of Europe and a build up of nuclear weapons and research. We were the only nation with the infrastructure to rebuild and provide what they believed was necessary in terms of defense. There is no need to rebuild Europe today.
What we do face is a lot of competition from countries like India and China. Canada is giving us a run for our money. Tax policy that supports American companies is crucial if we are going to be in the running. The success (or failure) of the big companies is vital to smaller companies that support them. Smaller support companies do business with these companies and service companies do better when all of the above do well.
Companies and individuals are already being taxed more and regulated more. Another tax would only add to the uncertainty that has a stranglehold on economic growth now. It would be stupid to raise taxes now.
Re: minimum wage, an argument you continue to push although you have no experience in business and refuse to acknowledge what happens when it is raised: fewer jobs/hours, pressure to raise other worker wages, resulting in higher prices so that the min wage worker ends up about where he started…unless he has lost his job. Read and learn…it’s called Zombie Economics in this article by CATO.
STUPID! Stupid idea.
” I cited a CRS study which shows evidence that high taxes on the rich don’t correlate with a poor economy, and your response is simply to say “Bunk?” You have no case. ”
Bunk! The case I have is ITS NOT YOUR MONEY! You are one sick in the head citizen as an a American if you come from the point of view that you have the right to demand our government seperate wealthy people from their money, especially when that government has not shown it has any desire to be a good manager of that money. it’s sickening that you are not alone.
Progressives have zero respect for the fact that what all of us earn is OUR PROPERTY. Taxes, like war, should be a last resort and used only when it can be shown that, A. The money is for a worthy purpose, and B. The money will be managed with great care.
This administration is out of control. The so-called “affordable” care act, Obamacare, demonstrates that our Congress is also out of control in terms of managing our tax dollars and our economy.
Taxing the rich more will not solve the problems we have…it’s like feeding booze to a drunk…heroine to an addict. The answer is NO!
“Your arguments simply are not consistent, Tina. ”
You think that because you have no real world experience. Like Obama, you think that policy X will result in Y, never bothering to examine how policy X affects and changes human behaviors to produce a much different result. For instance in 2008-09 we were told that Quantitative Easing would result in a roaring economic recovery…those Keynesian’s couldn’t wait to prove Reagan and the Laffer Curve wrong. Four plus years down the road and we are still slogging along and we have endured high unemployment and a minimum in opportunities to grow and expand, to make money even in a savings or MM account…the horror stories keep piling up…college grads living with their parents and working for min wage. It’s freakin’ UGLY…and you still hang in there with these charlatans who are doing what they do for political power.
Gotta go…back later if I can stomach it.
Re I don’t know of a single economist who agrees that lowering taxes “particularly on investment and big investors” is the way to stimulate the economy.
Ignorance is bliss.
Pie: “Ignorance is bliss.”
And a wasted four years to get a college education. In today’s world EVERY student needs to know how the economy works and how to make and save money. It would help if they also learned what it is to be an American.
“…which repealed Glass-Steagle and enabled banks to engage in the kinds of risky practices they had been prohibited from since the Great Depression.”
Banks weren’t “enabled” to engage in “risky” practices by this act but they were ORDERED TO when the sensible bill written by Phil Gramm and others was revised to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act!
Bill Clinton signed the bi-partisan legislation that required banks to make risky loans and it was the risky loans that were bundled into securities and sold again and again until the whole she-bang crumbled like the house of cards that made the crisis.
From Wikipedia:
And the legislation did not deregulate the industry as so many leftist assert.
Another dirty secret is that the banks didn’t want a bail out…at least most of them didn’t. They were ordered to take the money in a “special meeting” with the President.
Democrats NEVER take responsibility for anything and they never fail to distort the truth and point the finger of blame. Defensive arguments from Wikipedia:
“Of course Gramm is going to keep arguing that what we really need is more deregulation…”
The above remarks made by Gramm are backed up by others the bill called for both sustained and increased regulation.
“Deregulate is one of those words that democrats use to hammer the opposition and deflect attention away from themselves. They placed the smelly swirl in the lending punch bowl and now that it has stunk up the entire economy they hope you don’t find out about it. In the old days no one would have found out because the left media would keep their role in this quiet.
“…more perks for the rich…”
What perks?
Making money by saving and investing is not a perk and it is open to anyone that wants to train, work, save, and invest. Please explain what you mean by “perk”.
“When a super-wealthy individual like Mitt Romney only pays 15% in taxes due to the privileging of investment income over earned income, there is a problem.”
Oh…so you think he woke up yesterday and suddenly had wealth to invest simply because he got lucky? He worked and paid taxes (I imagine at several rates) on his way to the top. Yes he is fortunate to be in his circumstance but he earned it. He is there due to his smarts, his efforts over time, and his willingness to risk and play the role of leader. Tell me Chris is it also a problem that he has employed other people for years, paid corporate and personal taxes, donated countless hours of his time to things like the Olympics without pay…is that a problem too?
Where the hell do twirps like you get off? People like Romney have paid taxes on that money as they earned it. they pay again when they make money from investing it. These investments drive our economy and make it and the investors strong. many of them are school teachers making money in their retirement accounts.
I only wish the nimrods in the Obama administration were as dedicated to America and JOBS.
The French, Chris? You are going to defend your economic position by citing the wonderful French economy? What a joke:
If you are lucky, Chris, the world will awaken from the utopian dream that “government can spend us into prosperity and equality for all” and you will have an opportunity to experience what real growth and a little work, savings and investment can do for ANYBODY that’s willing to participate.
“Why is it “non-American” to tax risky Wall Street transactions”
I think you should seek the answer to that. Start with it’s not the government money and then move on to the fact that it does have to do with private property and personal responsibility…two things for which you seem to have little regard.
“Why should consumers have to pay a sales tax on everyday, necessary products, but Wall Street traders shouldn’t have to pay a tax on their speculative ventures?”
Good question. Why should we have to pay sales tax and property tax, and car license tax, and boat tax, and business tax and cigarette tax, and liqueur tax, and gasoline tax…and on and on?
The short answer is because government has grown too big. The sad answer is because people like you don’t realize it is not yours (through your votes and government channels) to take. If you think the rich have enough think again. We are all being taxed way to much IF WE WORK and government always looks for more ways to tax.
“Besides, the tax is extremely small, smaller even than a normal sales tax–it’s a fraction of a percent!”
Yeah…they always suck people in with a low starting rate. What was the rate for Social Security when it was passed? How much was the California Sales Tax in 1960? Take a look at all of them Chris…they always go up?
You want to know where most of the money goes that doesn’t go to higher wages and more good jobs look at the federal government…it is sucking trillions out of what would be the economy now. I can’t imagine what it will be like when you are fifty at this rate.
It comes down to a basic question. Do you want an opportunity to create some wealth for yourself to do with as you see fit or do you want to be a ward (slave) of(to) the state?
America was built because individuals had the freedom to dream and to make their dreams reality. It’s a precious legacy, Chris and worth much more than anything else save your immortal soul…but that’s a different discussion entirely.
“Investment isn’t work; investors don’t actually produce anything.”
Chris you cannot be this dense. Investment is risk. Investment is a leap of faith that the thing you are putting your own personal money into will take off and grow. When it does, people have opportunity to make money, they have jobs, things get made and sold. Everybody wins and the economy can thrive. If your risk is a loser you lose your own money.
“You’re putting tribal politics ahead of reason and common sense.”
Chris! You give yourself away with that progressive tribal jargon…keep listening to their tripe, particularly on things economic. It’s working so well for them; by now you should be crowing about it.
But you can’t.
Reagan and Thatcher applied the principles of Friedrich von Hayek, ended stagflation, and — shortly — reversed the failed Keynesian model of central governmental control of the economy. At first painful, it soon led to a reverberating global economic boom. This is sometimes lazily and artificially labeled “Reganomics” or Laissez-faire economics.
During Reagan’s and Thatcher’s tenure representatives of governments across the globe from Chile to Asia flocked to Great Britain and the USA to learn of and apply the same or similar principles to end their own spirals of hyperinflation and ruin. They did so backing away from central control of the economy by government and punitive taxation. More or less, depending on the country.
This is all about some government bureaucrat determining “fair share” and having the power to tax (which is also the power to destroy). It is also all about free markets, or more realistically, relatively free markets. The free market system is a worthy ideal, but that ideal smudged anywhere there is a protective tariff. (For the progressives who may read this, tariff is another word for tax.)
The return to the Keynesian central control/collectivist approach (which Chris evidently admires) fueled and brought about the banking collapse where the government encouraged bad loans by backing them and allowed such loans to be repackaged and traded without disclosure. Sometimes a certain amount of regulation makes sense. It appears to me that Barak Obama and most Democrats fully embrace not only Keynesian economics but Marxism. How is that working out for you?
The astonishingly counter-intuitive morphology here is that it is a Communist dictatorship run country successfully applying Hayekian economic principles and has become a leading global economic power while the west fiddles away in the half-baked “progressive” nonsense Chris so adores.
There is my two cents worth.
Nicely said Pie. It can’t be repeated enough. I would think that after four years of money pumping by the fed and no relief in the job market some of the young people like Chris would begin to at least show some curiosity about the historical results of tax cuts by Presidents Democrat and Republican. Sadly they prefer to believe the hard left pie in the sky promise that prosperity is “just around the corner.
Tina: “That economy was built, in part, on rebuilding and feeding all of Europe and a build up of nuclear weapons and research. We were the only nation with the infrastructure to rebuild and provide what they believed was necessary in terms of defense. There is no need to rebuild Europe today.”
No, today we face different problems. But these problems still require sacrifice. You ask that these sacrifices be made entirely on the backs of the poor. You want drastic cuts in social programs, but you don’t want rich people to pay a single penny more in taxes. In fact, you want them to pay even less than they are now. You complain about the deficit but you oppose all measures for collecting more revenue.
During WWII, all were willing to sacrifice for their country. Hollywood starlet Ann Sheridan is reported to have said, “I regret that I have only one salary to give for my country.” Now, what used to be seen as a patriotic duty, conservatives now call “theft.” It’s absurd.
“What we do face is a lot of competition from countries like India and China. Canada is giving us a run for our money.”
All of those countries have higher effective tax rates than the U.S. The U.S. collects less revenue as a percentage of GDP than almost any other developed country:
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/oecd201106.pdf
“Companies and individuals are already being taxed more”
No, that’s entirely false. Corporate tax rates are at a 40-year low. The effective corporate tax rate is only 12.1%.
http://mattbruenig.com/2012/02/06/corporate-taxes-at-record-low-profit-margins-at-record-high/
Corporate profits are also at record highs. There is NO EXCUSE for the lack of job creation we are seeing today. Our tax policy, and our policies toward the rich and corporations, are the epitome of Reagonomics. You are getting everything you’ve ever asked for. But you’re denying this because you’re not seeing the results you expected. So you demand MORE tax cuts, and MORE deregulation. You’re right: it’s never enough. Perhaps Republicans won’t stop until corporations don’t have to pay a dime in taxes. Oh wait, that’s already happening!
“Re: minimum wage, an argument you continue to push although you have no experience in business and refuse to acknowledge what happens when it is raised: fewer jobs/hours, pressure to raise other worker wages, resulting in higher prices so that the min wage worker ends up about where he started…unless he has lost his job. Read and learn…it’s called Zombie Economics in this article by CATO.”
Tina, do you ever wonder why you can’t find information supporting your point that doesn’t come from right-wing think tanks funded by the Koch brothers? Here’s the answer: because it doesn’t exist. CATO, Heritage, AEI, the Tax Foundation…these are all contrarian voices, and they all get their funding from the same places. They are paid to come to conclusions that are the total opposite of mainstream economists. That’s their job.
The most recent, reliable studies on the minimum wage correct for previous errors in the research and find no correlation between minimum wage increases and the consequences you list above.
http://www.epi.org/publication/bp357-federal-minimum-wage-increase/
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
“President Obama is practicing zombie economics when he ignores the law of demand and promises to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9, so that “no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.” He believes that “this single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.” If so, why not increase the federal minimum to $100 an hour and abolish poverty?”
That’s a stupid question. I could just as easily ask you, “Why not decrease the corporate tax rate to 0%?” Obviously, we both believe there are limits to the effectiveness of both minimum wage increases and tax cuts. We both recognize that it’s possible to lower taxes beyond a sustainable limit, and we both recognize that it’s possible to raise the minimum wage beyond a sustainable limit. We simply disagree on where those limits are. When you make a caricature of your opponents’ argument, you often end up making a caricature of yourself in the process.
$9 is still lower than what the minimum wage was in the 1960s, correct?
“Bunk! The case I have is ITS NOT YOUR MONEY!”
So, you don’t actually care about what the CRS data shows, or what’s effective; it’s all about principle and ideology? What actually works doesn’t matter?
“You are one sick in the head citizen as an a American if you come from the point of view that you have the right to demand our government seperate wealthy people from their money,”
Wow. So all of those people who gladly paid more in taxes from 1932 to 1982 weren’t patriotic Americans doing their civic duty…they were “sick in the head citizens.” That is the implication of your argument.
“For instance in 2008-09 we were told that Quantitative Easing would result in a roaring economic recovery…those Keynesian’s couldn’t wait to prove Reagan and the Laffer Curve wrong.”
I don’t believe anyone said “roaring,” and most economists say we actually needed a larger stimulus:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-6837357.html
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Gooz-News/2012/01/23/Most-Economists-Told-Obama-to-Pursue-Bigger-Stimulus.aspx#page1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/did-the-stimulus-work-a-review-of-the-nine-best-studies-on-the-subject/2011/08/16/gIQAThbibJ_blog.html
“Four plus years down the road and we are still slogging along and we have endured high unemployment and a minimum in opportunities to grow and expand, to make money even in a savings or MM account…the horror stories keep piling up…college grads living with their parents and working for min wage. It’s freakin’ UGLY”
Tina, these problems existed long before Obama, and are a result of failed Reaganomics policies that have caused the largest gains to go the rich while the middle class has faltered and millions have slid into poverty.
“Banks weren’t “enabled” to engage in “risky” practices by this act but they were ORDERED TO when the sensible bill written by Phil Gramm and others was revised to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act!
Bill Clinton signed the bi-partisan legislation that required banks to make risky loans and it was the risky loans that were bundled into securities and sold again and again until the whole she-bang crumbled like the house of cards that made the crisis.”
Tina, as I have shown you again and again, the majority of subprime loans in the lead-up to the crisis were not CRA-mandated, and were done by private banks, such as Ameriquest, Countrywide, New Century, etc. excercising their own free will in the free market. The CRA simply did not apply to them. In fact, CRA loans generally performed better than private loans, and were less likely to default. You know this already.
You have never been able to account for these simple facts in your misguided, faith-based mission to blame the CRA for the housing crisis and world-wide economic crash.
Get back to me when you are able to explain how the CRA could have been responsible for the crash when banks not subject to the CRA accounted for 83% of subprime loans. Or, since you likely won’t be able to explain that, you can get back to me when you are ready to admit you are factually wrong about this. But don’t waste my time with distractions: either explain how your position could be true given this fact, or admit that it can’t be.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-39741513/fannie-freddie-and-the-cra-are-not-responsible-for-the-financial-crisis/
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/george-will-spreads-some-lies-about-the-economic-crisis
Virtually every independent analysis of the crisis has concluded that the CRA was not the main culprit:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09782.pdf
http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_conclusions.pdf
http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/16711/RiskChars9132010.pdf
http://research.stlouisfed.org/conferences/gse/Van_Order.pdf
“Making money by saving and investing is not a perk and it is open to anyone that wants to train, work, save, and invest. Please explain what you mean by “perk”.”
A tax cut on capital gains is a perk. President Bush cut the rate from 20% to 15% in 2003, and promised it would promote investment and economic growth. But nothing of the sort happened. Investment income should be taxed at least at the same rate as ordinary income. Taxing it at a lower rate is a giveaway to the people who need one least. Our capital gains tax is now lower than it’s been since the Great Depression. Coincidence?
A high capital gains tax is actually correlated with periods of economic growth:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-06-01/news/fl-aocol-corporate-tax-rates-orlando-0601-20120601_1_capital-gains-tax-tax-rate-job-creation
The New York Times lists several other government perks enjoyed by the 1%:
“Over the years, some of the wealthy have been enormously successful in getting special treatment, shifting an ever greater share of the burden of financing the country’s expenditures — defense, education, social programs — onto others. Ironically, this is especially true of some of our multinational corporations, which call on the federal government to negotiate favorable trade treaties that allow them easy entry into foreign markets and to defend their commercial interests around the world, but then use these foreign bases to avoid paying taxes.
General Electric has become the symbol for multinational corporations that have their headquarters in the United States but pay almost no taxes — its effective corporate-tax rate averaged less than 2 percent from 2002 to 2012 — just as Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee last year, became the symbol for the wealthy who don’t pay their fair share when he admitted that he paid only 14 percent of his income in taxes in 2011, even as he notoriously complained that 47 percent of Americans were freeloaders. Neither G.E. nor Mr. Romney has, to my knowledge, broken any tax laws, but the sparse taxes they’ve paid violate most Americans’ basic sense of fairness.
In looking at such statistics, one has to be careful: they typically reflect taxes as a percentage of reported income. And the tax laws don’t require the reporting of all kinds of income. For the rich, hiding such assets has become an elite sport. Many avail themselves of the Cayman Islands or other offshore tax shelters to avoid taxes (and not, you can safely assume, because of the sunny weather). They don’t have to report income until it is brought back (“repatriated”) to the United States. So, too, capital gains have to be reported as income only when they are realized.
And if the assets are passed on to one’s children or grandchildren at death, no taxes are ever paid, in a peculiar loophole called the “step-up in cost basis at death.” Yes, the tax privileges of being rich in America extend into the afterlife.
As Americans look at some of the special provisions in the tax code — for vacation homes, racetracks, beer breweries, oil refineries, hedge funds and movie studios, among many other favored assets or industries — it is no wonder that they feel disillusioned with a tax system that is so riddled with special rewards. Most of these tax-code loopholes and giveaways did not materialize from thin air, of course — usually, they were enacted in pursuit of, or at least in response to, campaign contributions from influential donors. It is estimated that these kinds of special tax provisions amount to some $123 billion a year, and that the price tag for offshore tax loopholes is not far behind. Eliminating these provisions alone would go a long way toward meeting deficit-reduction targets called for by fiscal conservatives who worry about the size of the public debt.
Yet another source of unfairness is the tax treatment on so-called carried interest. Some Wall Street financiers are able to pay taxes at lower capital gains tax rates on income that comes from managing assets for private equity funds or hedge funds. But why should managing financial assets be treated any differently from managing people, or making discoveries? Of course, those in finance say they are essential. But so are doctors, lawyers, teachers and everyone else who contributes to making our complex society work. They say they are necessary for job creation. But in fact, many of the private equity firms that have excelled in exploiting the carried interest loophole are actually job destroyers; they excel in restructuring firms to “save” on labor costs, often by moving jobs abroad.”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/a-tax-system-stacked-against-the-99-percent/
“The French, Chris? You are going to defend your economic position by citing the wonderful French economy? What a joke:”
Do try and keep up. It was your article by Phil Gramm that brought up the French, in relation to the proportion of taxes paid by the rich in France v. the U.S. What he failed to mention was the actual reasons the French rich, as a group, pay a lower percentage of their nation’s taxes: wealth distribution is more equal in France than in the U.S., and French workers earn more, so the percentage taken in taxes from both groups is also more equal. Thus, his argument that America has the most progressive tax rate in the world is simply false; his evidence, when examined closely, actually supports the opposite conclusion.
“It comes down to a basic question. Do you want an opportunity to create some wealth for yourself to do with as you see fit or do you want to be a ward (slave) of(to) the state?”
Such binary thinking is not conducive to healthy debate. Expand your mind.
“If your risk is a loser you lose your own money.”
Is this a joke? Or so you actually think risky Wall Street trades have never led to the loss of other people’s money?
Michael Kinsley argues in favor of raising the capital gains tax at Bloomberg:
“Yes, yes, people with capital gains work too. They may even work hard. And they take risks. But it’s still a heckuva lot easier to watch your stock go up than it is to work on the assembly line, and a tax differential really adds insult to injury.
Capital gains are favored by the tax system in various ways, most of which aren’t even under discussion. The biggest is that you don’t pay any taxes at all until an investment is traded or cashed in. If your stock portfolio doubles in value, you still owe no taxes unless you sold any of it. And when you die, all those profits on unsold assets disappear for tax purposes. The meter goes back to zero for your heirs. Capital gains are also exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes, which start at the first dollar of ordinary income.
It’s sometimes said that capital gains are “taxed twice.” First they tax your wage income, and then they tax the return on anything you manage to save out of it. In reality, much of the income of the very rich is not taxed on either occasion. Mitt Romney was embarrassed when the world discovered that he had paid taxes of only about 13 percent on his income in recent years. But that’s on realized income. What percentage of his total lifetime fortune will have been through the tax mill when he dies?
Anyway, what’s so terrible about “double taxation”? There are two economic decisions going on: work versus sloth, and saving versus spending. True, you want to encourage work and saving, while discouraging sloth and spending. Just as true: You must tax something. So it makes sense, or so it seems to me, to tax all of these activities equally at the lowest responsible rate. Right now we are violating this principle in every possible way.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/the-capital-gains-tax-a-tragedy-in-two-acts.html
Finally history has been made. Republicans actually got credit for how to fix the sequester mess.
CBS’s Charlie Rose: Wait – You Mean Republicans Actually Have A Point About Sequester?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJuuBjM0CZU&feature=player_embedded
Samuel Gregg on morality and taxation:
Re stock transaction tax? CATO paper cites a few of the problems when a similar tax was imposed on stocks and in the futures market:
Most of the burden would fall on the big investors that have the financial ability to shift to other exchanges. I doubt this would work as the left hopes it would.
What does the radical left have against doing what will generate more revenues from taxes, encourage better compliance, stimulates the economy, and create more and better jobs A low tax policy)? They can’t grow government, put people under their thumb, and redistribute wealth as they see fit.
Freedom people, think about it.
Tax cuts today won’t raise revenue or stimulate economy, says Guy Who Invented Reagan’s Tax Cuts:
“Today, by contrast, income tax rates are at a historical low – the top tax rate is just 35 percent and revenues are less than 15 percent gross domestic product versus 19.6 percent in 1981. The average federal income tax rate on a median family is less than 5 percent and its marginal rate is 15 percent. Inflation is nonexistent and the federal funds rate is close to zero.
Therefore, there is no possibility of replicating the experience of the early 1980s because economic and financial conditions now are virtually 180 degrees opposite from what they were then.
Making economic policy is not like making cookies and you can’t use a cookie-cutter approach. Policies need to be crafted to the circumstances. I believe Reagan’s policies were appropriate to the economic conditions of the early 1980s. Today’s economic problems require a very different set of policies.”
Samuel Gregg’s argument is not very good. He writes:
“In 1913, the highest American federal individual income-tax rate was 7 percent on $500,000. Today, the equivalent tax-rate is 35 percent on $357,700. It is not only the rate increase that is remarkable.”
No, what’s truly remarkable is Gregg’s decision to “yada yada yada” over 100 years of tax policy. He totally ignores the massive increase in taxes that occurred in the 1930s, and the fact that taxes only began to significantly decrease again in the 1980s, and have been decreasing ever since. Between 1930 and 1980, when taxes were much higher than they are today, our economy boomed. But it’s much more convenient to Gregg’s argument to jump straight from 1913 to 2013 in order to frame the whole issue as a “rate increase.” That’s incredibly misleading, and would be hilarious if so many people didn’t actually fall for it.
“The fact that high taxes destroy incentives for entrepreneurs and businesses to create the wealth that gradually improves everyone’s material well-being — including the poor — appears to escape many politicians’ attention.”
Gregge provides no evidence for this “fact,” and ignores the fact that entrepeneurs and businesses managed to create a lot of wealth, and millions of Americans rose out of poverty to create the middle class, when taxes on the rich were much higher.
“Then there are the negative moral effects of high tax rates.
First, high taxes undermine respect for property rights. If the state routinely takes, say, 40 percent of peoples’ incomes, then we should hardly be surprised that some individuals become rather casual in the way they treat others’ private property.”
Another assertion made with no evidence. If Gregg’s statement is true, it should be easy to look back at the period between 1932 and 1982 and see a culture of casual regard for property rights. We should also be able to look at the period from 1982 to today and see a growing respect for property rights. This could be managed by looking at the rates of theft then and now. While I don’t have statistics handy at the moment, I doubt you would see any positive correlation there–if anything, theft has likely increased since 1982.
“Second, the existence of high taxes helps facilitate a culture in which some political parties basically tell people that, in return for their vote, they will effectively transfer large amounts of others’ property to them via taxation.”
This is a total, willful misrepresentation of how social welfare programs work. “Large amounts of others’ property” are not transferred to people on welfare. For the most part, government assistance amounts to a small pittance given to people who can’t get by without it. This small pittance per person is taken from tax money that is contributed to by virtually everyone, including the poor, who pay sales and other taxes. The amount directly taken from any one individual and then given to any one individual probably amounts to less than a penny.
“Third, high taxes create what might be called “occasions of sin.” When the state takes such large amounts of people’s income, is it any wonder many are tempted to minimize the law’s effects through tax avoidance or actually break the law through tax evasion?”
This is a problem that could be resolved through closing loopholes that make tax evasion so easy, but Samuel Gregg doesn’t ever suggest doing that.
Chris: “…revenues are less than 15 percent gross domestic product versus 19.6 percent in 1981”
I don’t know where your source got this information. The chart at US Government Revenue indicates that revenue expressed as a percentage of GDP averaged around 32% in the 1980’s and has ranged from 32% to 34% of GDP under Obama. (scroll down at site).
“The average federal income tax rate on a median family is less than 5 percent and its marginal rate is 15 percent.”
Which means the tax burden has been lifted from the lower classes. You can thank Bush for that. How does this justify raising taxes even more than we have on the wealthy?
“Inflation is nonexistent..”
Time out…I’m laughing! The government reaches this conclusion by excluding groceries and gasoline. Ask the average consumer whether think there is no inflation. But beyond that, the fed is keeping interest rates low artificially. When the money printing stops we could see massive inflation…we could see hyperinflation. That’s when the cost of goods go up so fast that you can’t stay ahead…you’ll need barrels full of dollars just to buy bread.
See here for the 12 warning signs of hyperinflation.
Some think deflation is on the way…see here. (scroll down)
See also here:
“Making economic policy is not like making cookies and you can’t use a cookie-cutter approach.”
Oh yeah? Tell that to the big spending and borrowing guru’s that have directed economic policy since 2008…that cookie cutter approach ISN’T WORKING AT ALL! We have more debt, fewer jobs, the rich are making money but the middle and lower classes are up the creek without a paddle. If this is what you call progress you live in an upside down world.
Are you interested in a real recovery? If you are it would behoove you to discover what will make that happen.
“Today’s economic problems require a very different set of policies.”
Talk about your basic yada yada!
The problem is pretty clear: government is spending too much, it is borrowing without the means to repay, it is printing money making our dollars worth less, it is expanding government (obamacare) when it should be doing less. It is asking the public to aid and abet them in what amounts to theft from the rich to pay for this irresponsible behavior.
“…when taxes were much higher than they are today, our economy boomed.”
It didn’t boom because of the tax rates! Must I repeat that? IT DIDN’T BOOM BECAUSE TAX RATES WERE HIGH!!!!!!!!!
Today the government is borrowing and printing money instead of taxing the rich. It isn’t making us boom. That’s because this is not how you create a dynamic thriving economy!
What did Americans have following WWII that did help to create a boom? Freedom (less government reg), a huge overseas market, the means of production (in tact factories and eager employees, loving the opportunity and willing to work), and confidence in a brighter future.
“…that’s incredibly misleading, and would be hilarious if so many people didn’t actually fall for it.”
Hmmm…seems like your side skips ahead to avoid the reality of the economic booms produced by lowering taxes and removing barriers to unleash the productivity of the American people under Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Bush. You always go back to the years following WWII and then you think high tax rates CAUSED the boom. Sorry Chris but your little joke just doesn’t fly.
“…Americans rose out of poverty to create the middle class, when taxes on the rich were much higher.”
Oh look, two thinks happened in the same time frame, one MUST HAVE caused the other!
Today there are more people in America who think the government should take care of their needs than there was right after the war. You can argue all day long but I lived in the 1950’s and I assure you that no one thought the government should provide healthcare, housing, childcare, and food. People believed they were responsible tom provide these things. The notion that the rich had to share their wealth simply because they had it was also not
a widely held position. The Democrat Party also creates giveaway programs and public spending policy because they believe it buys them votes…a permanent voting block. Gregg’s moral arguments are right on the money…no pun intended!
“For the most part, government assistance amounts to a small pittance given to people who can’t get by without it.”
How would we know…as long as it’s there a bunch of them don’t bother to try…don’t think about the need to graduate high school or learn a trade…don’t think about the babies they make…big daddy government will provide it’s not my problem. That in a nut shell is social entitlement thinking and it is rampant in today’s society compared to earlier times.
“This is a problem that could be resolved through closing loopholes that make tax evasion so easy, but Samuel Gregg doesn’t ever suggest doing that.”
That’s because he was making a moral argument not a policy argument. But the charge is silly anyway. conservatives have favored simplification of tax law for a long time. They also favor making cuts that make sense. Cutting welfare programs would result in those who are truly needing services continuing to get them and people gaming the system being shown the door. A better system would make more sense; spend some of the money training people so they have skills to work and then expecting them to work.
“I don’t know where your source got this information. The chart at US Government Revenue indicates that revenue expressed as a percentage of GDP averaged around 32% in the 1980’s and has ranged from 32% to 34% of GDP under Obama. (scroll down at site).”
It took me a while to figure out why that chart had a different number than every other source I checked, but eventually by looking at another U.S. Government Revenue page I was able to figure out that the chart you cited documents total government revenue, including state and local revenue. Bartlett was referring to only federal revenue. On this page U.S. Government Revenue confirms that federal revenue has decreased since the passage of the Bush tax cuts, which mostly dealt with federal income tax.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history
We were told that the Bush tax cuts would increase revenue, because it would free up businesses to make more money. That Is What Always Happens, according to Heritage and other major supply-side proponents. But that’s not what happened this time.
http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/08/cherry-picking_season.html
http://joelmathis.blogspot.com/2011/10/did-bush-tax-cuts-increase-or-reduce.html
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-the-root-of-our-fiscal-problem/
Bruce Bartlett explains quite well why this didn’t work. When taxes are punitively high, tax cuts make sense. When taxes are at record lows, tax cuts don’t make sense. This seems like common sense, but in today’s Republicans party, tax cuts ALWAYS make sense, no matter how low taxes are relative to historical levels. In fact, “historical levels” aren’t even something today’s Republicans are interested in looking at, which is why they are totally ignored even in the very article I am commenting on right now.
One doesn’t have to throw out the Laffer Curve to believe that tax cuts on the rich aren’t a wise decision today; the Laffer Curve simply proposes that there is a certain threshold beyond which increasing taxes will lead to reduced revenues. No one really knows where that threshold is, but any objective look at the data will tell you that we aren’t there right now; the most recent tax cuts led to a reduction in revenue, so there’s no earthly reason to believe that cutting taxes even further will increase revenue.
“Which means the tax burden has been lifted from the lower classes. You can thank Bush for that.”
No, Tina. You’re misinterpreting the data. The reason that the median family pays so low of a tax rate isn’t because their “burden has been lifted.” It’s because they’ve become poorer, and can no longer afford to pay as much of a percentage in taxes as they used to. I would gladly pay more in taxes if it meant my wages were higher.
“How does this justify raising taxes even more than we have on the wealthy?”
Well, first, the premise of your question is wrong; you say “even more than we have,” as if we have raised taxes on the wealthy, when in fact their taxes are lower than they’ve ever been.
Second, this is justified because federal revenues as a percentage of GDP are at a low not seen since 1941. We have a revenue problem. Since taxes on the rich are also at record lows, it only makes sense to increase taxes on the rich in order to get our revenues back to a sustainable level. I would argue, however, that this would best be done by closing loopholes and cracking down on foreign tax havens, so that the wealthy actually pay the current marginal rate rather than the effective rate of about 15%. It doesn’t make sense to propose raising the marginal rate to 48% when so few are even paying the current (and historically low) marginal rate due to all of the loopholes and giveaways to the top 1%. I would also favor raising the rate on capital gains taxes, rather than earned income.
“Time out…I’m laughing! The government reaches this conclusion by excluding groceries and gasoline.”
Yes, which is the most accurate way to measure inflation, since food and energy are subject to more volatile, unpredictable forces than other goods.
http://cincinnati.com/blogs/economics/2013/02/21/how-can-a-measurement-of-inflation-excluding-food-and-energy-prices-be-useful/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/16/no-inflation-still-isnt-a-problem/
“It didn’t boom because of the tax rates! Must I repeat that? IT DIDN’T BOOM BECAUSE TAX RATES WERE HIGH!!!!!!!!!”
There’s no need to yell. I never said that economic growth happened *because* of high tax rates. I said that it happened *with* high tax rates. Your argument is that any tax increase, even on the historically low tax rates we have today, would make it impossible for the economy to grow. But the fact that economic growth has correlated with much higher tax rates than we have today is enough to prove that it is possible. There is no need to show causation; simply showing correlation is enough to prove your argument incorrect.
“Hmmm…seems like your side skips ahead to avoid the reality of the economic booms produced by lowering taxes and removing barriers to unleash the productivity of the American people under Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Bush.”
As I have shown, the Bush tax cuts did not improve the economy. And I have cited a Reagan economist who argues that the Reagan tax cuts did improve the economy, so I am not ignoring that period of time. But the same Reagan economist says that the logic that led him to devise the Reagan tax cuts simply doesn’t apply today. I thought that you’d listen to him, of all people, but it seems like your “no new taxes, ever” stance is pure ideology, and that you won’t be moved by any evidence that contradicts it.
“Oh look, two thinks happened in the same time frame, one MUST HAVE caused the other!”
Again, I never said one caused the other. You are engaging in a strawman argument. The fact that those two things did happen together is enough to contradict your argument that tax cuts on the rich always lead to economic growth, and tax increases on the rich always lead to economic ruin.
“How would we know…as long as it’s there a bunch of them don’t bother to try…”
Tina, if the problem was that people were unwilling to try, we wouldn’t be seeing record unemployment right now, because there wouldn’t be so many people looking for work. People want to work; the two main problems are our government’s permissive, even encouraging attitude toward outsourcing, and low wages. The majority of people on social welfare programs DO work. They simply don’t get paid enough to pay their bills and put food on the table.
Your argument is that we should cut programs that help such people, while also cutting taxes on the wealthy. That is completely backwards. You are absolutely opposed to collecting more revenue because you are trying to prove an ideological point about it being “their” money. The rich are currently sitting on a supply of cash larger than any seen in human history. But we can’t tax them at a rate comparable to the rate it was for most of our country’s most prosperous years, because that would be socialism! There’s nothing moral or practical about this position. It fails on both accounts.
“don’t think about the need to graduate high school or learn a trade…don’t think about the babies they make…big daddy government will provide it’s not my problem.”
Where do you get your ideas about people on government assistance? “Maury?” Try working a few months on today’s minimum wage + food stamps, and get back to me.
“That’s because he was making a moral argument not a policy argument.”
If you read the whole thing, it’s clear he’s making both; he believes that raising taxes on the rich to help the poor is both immoral and impractical. But he’s wrong on both accounts. As I’ve shown, the current tax rates on the rich are too low to be sustainable, and it’s immoral to suggest that we cut programs for the poor in order to give even more tax breaks to the rich, who are already paying much less than the marginal rate anyway.
“But the charge is silly anyway. conservatives have favored simplification of tax law for a long time.”
You favor “simplifications” that favor the rich, like eliminating the estate tax and instituting a flat tax, which is inherently regressive. I have offered simplifications such as taxing capital gains at the same rate as earned income, restricting the use of tax havens, lifting the cap on social security taxes. You oppose all of these because they demand more of a sacrifice from the wealthy, and instead argue that the poor should sacrifice more. That is hardly moral.
Chris: “On this page U.S. Government Revenue confirms that federal revenue has decreased since the passage of the Bush tax cuts, which mostly dealt with federal income tax.”
We were discussing revenue as a percentage of GDP. This Chart of federal revenue only clearly shows that revenue as a percentage of GDP ranged from 17.41 to 18.41. The numbers vary only slightly under Reagan and Clinton. However, Obama has not topped 15.4% revenue to GDP since 2009 when the recession officially ended which suggests that his policies are stifling business.
In fact, if you go here you will see that since 1950 federal revenue as a percentage of GDP has always been in about the same range of 16% – 18% on average with a couple of highs of 20% (1952 & 2000).
The assertion that tax cuts under Bush lead to low revenues is specious.
This page indicates tax revenues collected from federal income tax years 1980 to 2012. Revenues slowed under Bush following the dotcom recession he inherited from Clinton and 911 but the tax cuts worked and revenue increased starting at 1205.5 billion in 2005 and rising to 1450.10 billion in 2008.
“We were told that the Bush tax cuts would increase revenue, because it would free up businesses to make more money.”
As I just showed you, it did. You can use the same chart to discover similar increases in revenues following the Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton tax cuts.
“…but in today’s Republicans party, tax cuts ALWAYS make sense, no matter how low taxes are relative to historical levels”
What is this a political Yarn. Republicans have a lot to say about what works. One of them is how stupid it is to ADD huge piles of expense on the American taxpayer when jobs are so scarce. Another is that if you want to increase the number of jobs available you DON’T create disincentives for business like more costly regulation, uncertainty about future expenses including healthcare and energy, and higher taxes on wealthy investors. Also tax rates need to be competitive in the world. America is at a disadvantage because the Obama administration has handcuffed business by increasing taxes and expenses on American business when other nations are doing just the opposite…Canada provides an excellent example!
Chris the leftist at your links are misleading you.
“Your argument is that any tax increase, even on the historically low tax rates we have today, would make it impossible for the economy to grow.”
I have never said that. I have said that, historically, lowering tax rates creates increased economic activity…it also causes less tax evasion and as a result more revenues flow to government. I can also explain, in common every day terms that anyone can understand, how it works. You, so far, have not been unable to tell me in like fashion how raising tax rates right now (or ever) will work.
You mention the fifties following WWII like it was some magic panacea but your explanation that the high tax rates at the time caused the great economy or even that the economy was great with those high rates is misleading…it ignores all of the other factors of the era.
“…simply showing correlation is enough to prove your argument incorrect.”
Oh for heavens sake Chris. My argument is not “incorrect” so this is a patently stupid remark bordering on the infamous Al Gore consensus as proof regarding global warming.
If you are going to argue for higher taxes as a means to get economic growth you had better be prepared to tell us how it will happen…how would higher tax rates create increased business activity?
“‘historical levels’ aren’t even something today’s Republicans are interested in looking at…
…No one really knows where that threshold is, but any objective look at the data will tell you that we aren’t there right now; the most recent tax cuts led to a reduction in revenue, so there’s no earthly reason to believe that cutting taxes even further will increase revenue.”
There you go again, to borrow a phrase. Republicans are willing to look at anything and have an honest discussion. I can’t say the same for your side.
Less revenue is flowing to government now because small to medium businesses are experiencing a lot of fear about the future…even with a few cleverly targeted tax cuts (if you borrow money for equipment or hire veterans you get a tax break – big whoop who wants to risk to do that?). There is no sense that the economy will improve and sales will increase. The tax base has shrunk with so many people out of work. Obama tax cuts were not designed to spark business. He’s merely playing big brother for votes. He’s not interested in opportunities for all Americans or making small business thrive. He’s only interested in keeping his big business buddies happy (Buffet) and redistributing wealth.
I have some things I have to do…I will continue in a bit.
At least one Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), is showing an interest in closing a major loophole that gives an unfair tax advantage to the wealthy:
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/04/25/1923231/coburn-nfl-tax-exempt/
I didn’t know pro sports organizations like the NFL were considered a tax-exempt charitable organizations. That is nuts. These are hugely profitable businesses, and taxpayers are losing $91 million a year to subsidize them. Coburn is right to support ending this tax break to the rich. Will you join him?
Tina: “The numbers vary only slightly under Reagan and Clinton.”
The chart shows pretty consistent growth in revenues under Reagan, faster growth under Clinton, and then a consistent drop under Bush, followed by a short spike then another drop-off at the end of his term. The drop-off continues into Obama’s term, but since 2010 there has been a slight increase.
“However, Obama has not topped 15.4% revenue to GDP since 2009 when the recession officially ended which suggests that his policies are stifling business.”
That’s a very selective reading of the chart, and one you’re not applying consistently. Revenue as a percent of GDP fell at a faster rate under Bush than it has under Obama, yet you don’t use that as evidence that Bush “stifled business.” Furthermore, revenues have grown since 2010; is Obama stifling business less now than he was before then?
More importantly, this interpretation doesn’t stand up to an analysis of several other important factors. You’ve argued that Obama is stifling corporations and wealthy investors. But they’re doing better than ever. Corporate profits are higher than they’ve ever been. You can’t look at that evidence and see people being “stifled.” Under your theory of trickle-down economics, the combination we’re seeing today–record profits, record low taxes, and record low revenues– wshould be literally *impossible.* Not strange, not hard to explain–impossible. Record corporate profits and record low taxes on the rich should automatically translate to higher revenues and more job creation.
The better explanation for the record low revenues is that taxes on the rich are simply too low to be sustainable. This is a much simpler explanation, and matches up with all of the available facts.
“In fact, if you go here you will see that since 1950 federal revenue as a percentage of GDP has always been in about the same range of 16% – 18% on average with a couple of highs of 20% (1952 & 2000).”
Yes, I know that already, and the same chart shows that revenues as a percent of GDP are at a record low.
“The assertion that tax cuts under Bush lead to low revenues is specious.”
No, it’s extremely well-supported, which is why even the cheif architect of the Reagan tax cuts is out there arguing that the Bush tax cuts lowered revenues. Bartlett cites CBO data showing that the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue by $2.9 trillion, significantly contributing to the debt.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-the-root-of-our-fiscal-problem/
“This page indicates tax revenues collected from federal income tax years 1980 to 2012. Revenues slowed under Bush following the dotcom recession he inherited from Clinton and 911 but the tax cuts worked and revenue increased starting at 1205.5 billion in 2005 and rising to 1450.10 billion in 2008.”
I’m not clear why you’re only using the years 2005 through 2008 as evidence, when the previous years contradict your point. Furthermore, revenue may have slightly increased during that period, but the CBO estimates that revenues would have increased much further without the Bush tax cuts. The CBO has also argued that cutting the tax cuts on the wealthy while leaving them in place for everyone else would provide more revenue than leaving them in place for everyone:
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/cbo-ending-high-income-tax-cuts-would-save-almost-1-trillion/
“As I just showed you, it did.”
No, you showed that during a three-year period toward the end of Bush’s term, revenues did increase slightly. But didn’t you just say that correlation does not mean causation? And yet here you are, assuming that the slight increase in revenues can be attributed to the Bush tax cuts. But revenues fell for four years before that, and fell again from 2008 to 2009. And the CBO says that revenues would have increased much further without these tax cuts. So even the slight increase from 2005 to 2008 can’t be attributed to the tax cuts; the increase would have happened anyway, and it would have been larger, without them.
More later.
“Also tax rates need to be competitive in the world…”
Tina, you cite the Tax Foundation, which argues that America has a higher effective corporate tax rate than that of most other countries. But it relies on extremely flawed studies to get to this conclusion, according to Citizens for Tax Justice:
“To back this assertion, the Tax Foundation cites its 2011 report that reviewed nine different studies of effective tax rates.[8] On close inspection of these studies, it turns out that six of them do not even examine the taxes and profits of actual firms but rather are based on models of taxation applied to hypothetical firms.
Only three of these studies are based on what the authors considered to be the actual taxes and profits paid by firms according to their financial reports. But these studies have several severe methodological problems that made it almost impossible for them to come to any conclusion other than that U.S. corporate taxes are high.
For example, one of the studies, by Kevin S. Markle and Douglas A. Shackelford of the National Bureau of Economic Research, actually states (on page 10) that it excludes those companies with a negative effective tax rate.[9] This essentially means that the study simply excludes those companies that are corporate tax dodgers, which obviously will result in a higher estimate for the average effective tax rate.
To take another example, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Business Roundtable counts what companies report in their financial filings as “deferred” taxes, as well as “current taxes” as taxes paid by a company.[10] As we have explained before, current taxes are the taxes a company actually pays during the year, while deferred taxes are the taxes that the company might pay at some point in the future (and if they ever are paid they will show up as current taxes in the financial report for that year).[11] In other words, “deferred” taxes are taxes that companies have not paid (and may never pay) and should not be counted as taxes paid.”
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2013/04/bernie_sanders_is_right_and_the_tax_foundation_is_wrong_the_us_has_very_low_corporate_income_taxes.php#.UYcZIbVQFic
The U.S. collects very little in taxes as a percentage of GDP than other countries:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/international.cfm
“Chris the leftist at your links are misleading you.”
Bruce Bartlett isn’t a leftist.
“Oh for heavens sake Chris. My argument is not “incorrect” so this is a patently stupid remark bordering on the infamous Al Gore consensus as proof regarding global warming.”
“Al Gore consensus?” 97% of climate scientists agree that man-made global warming is happening. That’s a fact, and it has nothing to do with Al Gore. Why do you write such ignorant things?
“If you are going to argue for higher taxes as a means to get economic growth you had better be prepared to tell us how it will happen…how would higher tax rates create increased business activity?”
Higher tax rates on the rich would increase revenue to the government. This would diminish the need to cut vital social welfare programs, which stimulate the economy (Google this before scoffing). Cutting these programs would cause many families to spend less, which would further decrease demand. Low demand is the primary problem in our economy right now. Increasing government stimulus would increase demand (again, just Google “We need more stimulus,” and see how many economists agree). Business activity would increase as the average consumer would have more money to spend. That’s why your focus on increasing the amount of money for wealthy investors and corporations is wrong. They aren’t the job creators; consumers are. This billionaire agrees:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/rich-americans-arent-the-real-job-creators/262833/
“Less revenue is flowing to government now because small to medium businesses are experiencing a lot of fear about the future…”
No, it’s the lack of demand.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/14/news/economy/regulation_job_creation/index.htm
Chris for all his criticism of the Reagan tax cuts your expert didn’t bother to let us know what he thought would work better. I’ve read (and experienced) plenty on my own that tells me those who favor cutting taxes (or at least not raising them) in a poor economy make more sense and can back it up with numbers that show how the cuts worked so your next assertion floors me.
“the Bush tax cuts did not improve the economy.”
That is simply not true. Once the Bush tax cuts were fully implemented the economy improved and Americans had more money in their pockets to spend. An article comparing Bush and Obama, including two charts on debt and deficits, in Human Events will quickly demonstrate the lie that Bush tax cuts did not improve economic conditions for everyone:
So much for your theory that the Bush tax cuts didn’t help lower income people.
“The fact that those two things did happen together is enough to contradict your argument that tax cuts on the rich always lead to economic growth, and tax increases on the rich always lead to economic ruin”
Chris who is setting up straw man arguments now. Always? I have never siad anything of the sort. I have attempted to help you to realize that private sector growth (economic growth) will be better when the government takes less money out of the private sector. That is simple common sense! I have attempted to educate you to the fact that when government is too oppressive, writing complicated.expensive tax law and regulation, it puts uncertainty in the business sector and downward pressure on growth…once again common sense. I have used statistics to back up this reality. I have shown you that this has worked under presidents of both parties. I have argued that government spends only what it takes or borrows from the people and the more they spend and borrow the worse off all Americans will be. None of this penetrates! You continue to think that raising taxes on the rich will lead to a better economy. I’d like you to tell me how that works…how?
“if the problem was that people were unwilling to try, we wouldn’t be seeing record unemployment right now, because there wouldn’t be so many people looking for work. People want to work; the two main problems are our government’s permissive, even encouraging attitude toward outsourcing, and low wages.”
Chris there are “so many people looking for work” because they had a job and they lost it in Obama’s lousy economy. It’s been 4 years. You can’t continue to claim “outsourcing” is the big problem for the lack of good jobs, at least not without looking like a complete fool. Low wages? Get more experience or training…works every time IF the economy is thriving. When the economy sucks for a long, long time, as it has under Obama, nothing helps much for the average person.
And I reassert that a lot of people on assistance don’t try when a handout is so easily obtained. (Not all) A lot of able bodied people are takers simply because it is so very easy to do…Obama has only increased the numbers that prefer to indulge in that natural human propensity to take the easy path. That’s a terrible legacy. Under Obama disability claims have increased as people run out of unemployment benefits. How ugly does it have to get before he admits his policies are not working. (Or are they working exactly as he had hoped?) Either way it’s a terrible record.
“Your argument is that we should cut programs that help such people, while also cutting taxes on the wealthy. That is completely backwards. You are absolutely opposed to collecting more revenue…”
I have shown you that revenues INCREASE when the private sector keeps more of what it creates and earns. That’s because the private sector vibrancy is unleashed when people can keep more of what they earn. That vibrancy (think confidence & certainty) is what causes economic growth.
My argument is that government giveaway programs are wasteful and inefficient. One of the reasons is that they are too complex. Reforming them would take the cost to the taxpayer down and still help those who truly need help. Real reforms, like personal retirement accounts, would also help the poor begin to build personal wealth moving them, and/or their posterity into a higher wealth class.
It seems like you think that poor people can’t do well if the wealthy are allowed to keep more of what they earn or make through investments. Why is that? Why do you think you will do better if the rich pay more in taxes?
“The rich are currently sitting on a supply of cash larger than any seen in human history.”
What cheek! “Supply of cash”? Really? Do you think this “pile of cash” has somehow been stolen?
And what pray tell is causing them to “sit” on it rather than investing it? There is an answer to why wealthy people are sitting on their property. The risk of investing it is too great. that is a profound statement because under most conditions some of these people are more than willing to take a risk…it’s how they got to be rich! Obama’s economic and social policies have made putting one’s property at risky undesirable in nearly all circumstances.
“But we can’t tax them at a rate comparable to the rate it was for most of our country’s most prosperous years, because that would be socialism!”
Well yes, it is a socialist position. But the pertinent reason is that it wouldn’t work to make things better. It is, at best, a political ploy…sure makes you sit up and bark!
We showed you a clever video from PJ media that showed if we took all of the wealth the wealthy have (all of it) our government would still run out of money within one year…and then what would we all do for income?
Besides the myth of the 15% tax paid by the wealthy is another political gimmick. People like Buffet, who loves high taxes on the wealthy because they are more likely to put their money in his company, are rare birds. They are the uber rich and they are not particularly affected one way or the other by rates.
The person that’s making good money and is very well off pays a much higher effective rate than that 15% from investments:
“Where do you get your ideas about people on government assistance? “Maury?” Try working a few months on today’s minimum wage + food stamps, and get back to me.”
I wasn’t born yesterday Chris. I lived on $480.00 a month when I first got married. How’s that for getting back to you. Things were a lot cheaper then but not that much cheaper!
You will never understand this stuff as long as you cannot think beyond your own personal wants and needs. You seem to be motivated entirely by what you believe would be better for you. That’s pretty lazy, Chris.
“If you read the whole thing, it’s clear he’s making both; he believes that raising taxes on the rich to help the poor is both immoral and impractical.”
How moral is it, Chris, to teach people that other people’s money is just a “pile of cash” to be collected and distributed by some distant uninvolved bureaucrat?
Why is it moral for government to take my money to give to you? What if I believe someone else is more deserving of my hard earned cash?
What is moral about having children without being married in order to qualify for taxpayer cash? (That is essentially what our welfare code teaches) I know of people that are doing this. I know of one young man that has had four children by different women and all are on government assistance. Social Security is unsustainable. It needs to be reformed. You think these entitlement problems don’t exist but you are a fool because you will be the one paying for this entitlement one day and unless something is done it will only get worse.
“…it’s immoral to suggest that we cut programs for the poor in order to give even more tax breaks to the rich…”
Republicans and conservatives do not make this argument. This is a leftist political statement and it was designed to make you angry.
We argue for competitive taxes on business and low taxes on investors (rich and retirement) because it will help to spur economic growth and create more job opportunities. We argue for reform of entitlement programs because they will collapse if we don’t and because some of them encourage people to be underachievers…civic takers rather than contributors…and that is definitely immoral! If you want to ruin someones confidence and spirit convince him that he has no future without you. It makes me ill just thinking about the evil involved in that.
Conservatives want people to realize their full potential. We don’t mind a hand up when necessary but we prefer that people learn to walk on their own…it makes them strong, capable and they feel alive!
“You favor “simplifications” that favor the rich, like eliminating the estate tax and instituting a flat tax, which is inherently regressive…”
Oh horrors! A smaller government that lets people keep what they have earned…no matter who they are or how much they make. I call that freedom! I call that equality! I call that the pursuit of happiness made manifest in the nation. Think of the unbridled economic investment that would occur…the opportunity that would be generated…the plentiful jobs….the revenue from all that growth flowing freely to government. Yeah..that would be pretty terrible all right. Poor people would have a choice about their entry level jobs because college students could find meaningful work. Our local schools might actually have money for sports teams and the arts because families could buy homes again.
“I have offered simplifications such as taxing capital gains at the same rate as earned income, restricting the use of tax havens, lifting the cap on social security taxes. You oppose all of these because they demand more of a sacrifice from the wealthy, and instead argue that the poor should sacrifice more. That is hardly moral.”
My you are a pompous individual. YOU are so much better than I.
Taxing capitol gains at earned income rates would be really dumb. This is the investment fuel that supports growth and more jobs. It is the wealth building engine that builds retirement accounts and supplements retirement earnings for those who are not working (SS doesn’t cut it and was never intended to do so). If you want less of something tax it more…a basic lesson from history. This would be economic suicide. (But fits the big government dream that eventually we will all rely on government for everything and only the Pelosis, Reids, and Obamas of this world will live like kings as they freely dip into the pile so they can best serve the masses-don’t believe me check out the recent flap about exempting Congress from Obamacare).
I haven’t been opposed to restricting the use of tax havens. I have argued that some of the leftist rhetoric about offshore accounts is pure bologna. A lot of wealthy people use them for business purposes only and hide nothing from the IRS. But it makes those left supporting dogs bark like crazy when the politicians IMPLY that they are being dishonest…they did this with Mr. Romney. Most people don’t try to hide money unless they feel they are being treated unfairly…higher tax rates result in more tax evasion.
The social security system is unsustainable. Lifting the cap will not improve that situation. We can screw around for a few more years doing this and you will still be stuck with an unsustainable program down the road.
We lifted the cap on Medicare a few years back and it hasn’t made the system any less unsustainable; it only delays the inevitable.
These ideas aren’t terrible but they don’t address the real problem in Washington. Spending and piles of legislative crap that places a huge burden on the immediate economy and the prospects and livelihoods of future generations.
“I didn’t know pro sports organizations like the NFL were considered a tax-exempt charitable organizations.”
I didn’t either and it is nuts. I trust Coburn generally to know what he’s talking about. I would support changing this law with one little caveat. I think there are a lot of other organizations getting tax breaks that are very profitable while pretending to be charities. If we are going to go after football then we should also look for other examples. A lot of people are making big bucks (or hiding it) as directors, or as board members, of so-called charitable organizations or foundations…some of them of questionable purpose.
In general I favor a simpler tax code because it would make many of these irregularities go away. It also might put an end to some of the divisiveness that is wrecking the nation.
Chris I think you misunderstand the reasoning or motives behind the conservative approach to government and economics and that could be the cause of some of our disagreement.
For Chris and my grandkids. This is why I’m a fiscal conservative.
It’s not a party issue since both parties are responsible. It is about fixing the problem now so Chris and my grandkids aren’t taxed to pay for our mistakes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0no7O9zmE&feature=player_embedded
Great video Peggy. Our Republicans have not been very successful in the last seventy or so years at holding to republican principles, most recently by spending too much under Bush. Democrats have been steadfastly doing transformative work, against republican principles, to make our nation an entitlement society. Until 1994 Democrats had held the majority position in Congress for fifty years. You can do a lot of damage in fifty years. The Great Society, including Medicare, heaped on top of Social Security have instituted unsustainable systems that’s like being under pressure from loan sharks. Now we’ve added another burden, Obamacare! The debt will just keep piling up and it will be more difficult to get out from under it. Future generations will not be able to do the basic things that government should do, like protecting the public, because the daily demand and the debt service will be so great.
Good video!
Chris: “Tina, do you ever wonder why you can’t find information supporting your point that doesn’t come from right-wing think tanks funded by the Koch brothers”
This conversation is over.
Bravo…
Tina, want some more good news?
There is hope for our nation and it’s coming from the young people. It’s wonderful to see a new Christian group of and for young people spreading across the country.
When my husband and I were in high school we loved going to Young Life meetings and events. We had fun without drugs, booze and breaking the law.
Teens Decide to Fight Back Against Anti-Christian Bullies:
Reach America is a national organized based in Coeur d’Alene, Id., that is dedicated to raising up the next generation of Christian leaders. The group is comprised of young people from various churches around the region.
Brown, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has a long history of working on culture issues. Reach America started in 2006 while he was working on abstinence education on Capitol Hill.
His goal is to create what he calls a “Christ-Centered Counter Culture” – or C4 – to impact their communities and the nation.
“They think they are in a war for the heart and soul of the nation,” Brown said.
Full article and video here:
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/teens-decide-to-fight-back-against-anti-christian-bullies.html
Tina, your Human Events article is simply wrong. It repeats the assertion that the Bush tax cuts “increased revenues,” a claim which you yourself have already proven false. As your own sources show, revenues clearly fell after the Bush tax cuts were passed. Furthermore, the CBO has shown that letting the tax cuts expire on the highest tax bracket would save $1 trillion:
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/cbo-ending-high-income-tax-cuts-would-save-almost-1-trillion/
“I have attempted to help you to realize that private sector growth (economic growth) will be better when the government takes less money out of the private sector. That is simple common sense!”
Sure it is, but that doesn’t make it always true. The fact that I can point to decades where the government took much more out of the private sector than it does today, and private sector growth did better than it’s doing now, shows that this isn’t always true.
And as I’ve tried to show (perhaps unclearly), is that this statement depends on where you take money out of the private sector, and from whom. Raising taxes on the poor and middle class significantly weakens demand. Cutting programs that essentially put more spending money in the hands of the poor, such as food stamps, does the same. Raising taxes on the wealthy, however, does not. This is why the CRS and the CBO have found so little evidence to support the assertion that higher taxes on the rich weaken the economy. Forget causation–they can’t even find a correlation between high taxes on the rich and low economic growth, because this correlation doesn’t exist. They have found a correlation between low taxes on the rich and high income inequality, however. I know you don’t believe income inequality is a huge problem, but it is directly correlated with low demand, which weakens the economy.
The top 2% are not the main engines of our economy. The average consumers are. We have to focus on solutions that put more money in the hands of the average consumer, not wealthy investors. That’s why taxing the rich to support programs for the poor works. That’swhythe stimulus worked, though not as well as a much bigger one would. Call this “redistribution” if you want to; it works.
“You continue to think that raising taxes on the rich will lead to a better economy. I’d like you to tell me how that works…how?”
I’ve answered this already. The alternative to raising taxes on the rich is cutting social programs for the poor. That will further decrease demand, which is the main problem in our economy right now. Raising taxes on the rich (and by that I mean raising their effective rates by closing loopholes, not raising the largely meaningless marginal rate) can help us get revenues back to historically average levels. Raising the cap on social security will make that program viable, without having to sacrifice seniors’ healthcare or raising the eligibility age, which is Paul Ryan’s plan. As a senior citizen, why wouldn’t you want to do that? Why would you prefer to make future Americans wait longer for the advantages you currently enjoy, as long as it means no one in the top 2% has to pay a cent more in Social Security taxes?
In this world-wide recession, austerity policies have failedeverywherethey’ve been tried. We can easily look at the European economies that have implemented austerity vs. those who have embraces stimulus to deal with their fiscal crises, and clearly see that stimulus has been more effective. And yet, Republicans continue to push austerity. Paul Ryan is standing by his austerity budget even though it’s been revealed that the study he based it on was marred by an embarassing Excel error.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-18/faq-reinhart-rogoff-and-the-excel-error-that-changed-history
“Low wages? Get more experience or training…works every time IF the economy is thriving.”
You’re simply reversing cause and effect here. The economy isn’t thriving BECAUSE wages are too low, which suppresses demand.
“I have shown you that revenues INCREASE when the private sector keeps more of what it creates and earns.”
You’ve also confirmed, through your own sources, that that clearly did not happen with the Bush tax cuts. You’re taking exactly the “cookie-cutter” approach that the chief architect of the Reagan tax cuts warned you about. When taxes are too high, cutting them increases revenue. When taxes are too low, raising them increases revenue. This is the Laffer curve. But today’s Republicans seem to think that the Laffer curve only goes one way–that you can keep reducing taxes year after year and never see any decrease in revenues. This is disproven by recent history and basic logic.
“My argument is that government giveaway programs are wasteful and inefficient. One of the reasons is that they are too complex. Reforming them would take the cost to the taxpayer down and still help those who truly need help.”
Sorry, but I don’t trust you or Congressional Republicans to decide who “truly needs help.” You’re talking about a party whose loudest voice has said that kids should go dumpster diving instead of receiving free school lunches, whose contender in the last presidential election believes that the reason 47% of Americans don’t pay income taxes is because they are lazy and irresponsible, and whose most respectable think tank argues that people aren’t poor if they own microwaves. Trusting you and your party to tell me whether or not my family qualifies for financial assistance would be…unwise, to say the least.
“And what pray tell is causing them to “sit” on it rather than investing it?”
Low demand.
“Why is it moral for government to take my money to give to you?”
I’m not going to waste my time defending the very *idea* of progressive income taxes, Tina. Americans fought over that idea before even you were born, and they decided that a progressive income tax system was what they wanted, and that it was just and constitutional. We can’t get anywhere in this country when one of the major political parties, controlled by a vocal minority, is determined to fight the battles of the early 20th century. There’s no chance of winning a battle that was lost before you were born. But trying to turn people against progressive taxation does slow down progress and muck up the discourse enough to get Republicans elected. None of them would be stupid enough to actually try and get rid of progressive taxation once elected; it’s just red meat for the base.
“Taxing capitol gains at earned income rates would be really dumb. This is the investment fuel that supports growth and more jobs. It is the wealth building engine that builds retirement accounts and supplements retirement earnings for those who are not working”
Again, you’re simply wrong about this. Capital gains are not the “wealth building engine” of our country. The real job creators are the middle class. If what you were saying was true, times of extreme income inequality like we see today would literally be impossible. We would not see such a correlation between low taxes on the rich and income inequality. We would also not see such a strong correlation between a strong middle class and strong economic growth.
“SS doesn’t cut it and was never intended to do so). If you want less of something tax it more…a basic lesson from history.”
Exactly, which is why we should tax investment income at a higher rate than earned income. Do you really want less work than investment?
“The social security system is unsustainable. Lifting the cap will not improve that situation.”
Wrong.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf#page=32
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/budget-baloney-why-social_b_824331.html
“I didn’t either and it is nuts. I trust Coburn generally to know what he’s talking about. I would support changing this law with one little caveat. I think there are a lot of other organizations getting tax breaks that are very profitable while pretending to be charities. If we are going to go after football then we should also look for other examples. A lot of people are making big bucks (or hiding it) as directors, or as board members, of so-called charitable organizations or foundations…some of them of questionable purpose.”
I am glad we can at least agree on this.
Chris: “…as your own sources show, revenues clearly fell after the Bush tax cuts were passed.”
Excuse me but revenues increased. Here’s another source that clearly shows revenues increased after the Bush tax cuts:
T%ax Policy Center
Revenues collected in 2003 when the Bush tax cuts went into effect: $1782.3 billion. revenues collected in the following years consistently went higher:
2004 $1880.1 billion
2005 $2153.6 billion
2006 $2406.9 billion
2007 $2568.0 billion (recession begins. Dems take the House)
2008 $2524.0 billion
See also the chart at intellectualtakeout.org
Spending is the big problem in Washington as the chart clearly shows.
“I know you don’t believe income inequality is a huge problem, but it is directly correlated with low demand, which weakens the economy.”
I believe so-called income inequality is an enormous shame and embarrassment to our country. I also believe it is totally unrelated to the wealthy or tax policy. There are a lot of reasons for shrinking middle class prosperity and most of it has to do with social and cultural changes, deficiencies in education, a huge influx of poor people to our country which bends the curve, and a growing sense of entitlement. Big fat bureaucratic constructs with i9nflated pension and healthcare on the taxpayer has also contributed to this problem. I also don’t think that employer paid benefits are considered as compensation (which they are) when they determine “inequality”.
Low demand is a direct result of this bad job market! You can’t get a big shift in demand by taking money in taxes and giving it out in food stamps. As one person recently put it, that’s like taking a cup of water out of a lake, walking to the other side of the lake and pouring the water back in. There has been no increase in wealth. It’s just a recycling scheme. And by the way, the demand for government services would come down if there were good jobs. Studies have been done that suggest the longer people are out of work the less incentive they have to look for work. If the Obama administration wanted to increase the block that is totally dependent on government services and establish a permanent democrat voting block, he couldn’t have chosen a better economic model!
I have to ask you Chris, is it important to you that people get back to work in good jobs? Obama’s policies have not created demand because it has not created jobs.
“CBO has shown that letting the tax cuts expire on the highest tax bracket would save $1 trillion”
Only the government would assert that taxes not collected are “savings”. It tells you have entitled to other peoples money our government officials have become.
“We have to focus on solutions that put more money in the hands of the average consumer, not wealthy investors.”
Chris for the past four years progressive policies have been in place. Wealthy investors are making a lot of money and unemployment/underemployment for the average American has been high. Jobs that have been created are generally low paying jobs. What will it take to get your attention?
We need policies that give businesses incentive to grow so they can expand and hire. We don’t have that under Obama, in fact his policies create the opposite effect. You can’t create demand if people can’t find work, can’t save and make money, can’t invest and make money.
“Call this “redistribution” if you want to; it works.”
Just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat!
“The alternative to raising taxes on the rich is cutting social programs for the poor.”
No Chris. Raising taxes on the rich will give government a little bit of money to spend. We have no idea who will get the money. Raising taxes on the rich will not create a vibrant economy and millions of jobs which in turn would create more revenue flowing to government from a broader tax base. Keeping taxes low would…if they also got rid of Obamacare, quit spending, and paid doen the debt.
Besides, the President got his tax cut on the rich so what exactly is the problem other than the title of this post which suggest that it’s never enough?
“Raising the cap on social security will make that program viable, without having to sacrifice seniors’ healthcare or raising the eligibility age…”
They did that to fix Medicare and here we are a few years later with the same problem rearing its head. The program cannot sustain itself; nor can social security…not without accumulating huge amounts (more) of debt on your working shoulders. I’m one of those people, conservative, that thinks about others instead of just myself. It would be worth losing some of my benefits IF my grandchildren could have personal accounts that grow through their working years (like Congress enjoys) and that could be passed down to their heirs.
I will have to continue this later.
Chris: In this world-wide recession, austerity policies have failedeverywherethey’ve been tried. We can easily look at the European economies that have implemented austerity vs. those who have embraces stimulus to deal with their fiscal crises, and clearly see that stimulus has been more effective.”
Clearly? I don’t think so. There is an illusion that QE1,2,3,4 (5?) has “worked” but in reality it has only propped up the big banking system and allowed the big investors to recover money lost in the crash. The economy remains sluggish and we are also, in the minds of many economists, teetering on a precipice, waiting for the next bubble or crash. Unemployment is still very high. Business is up and down.
“Austerity” (a total misnomer) is not a system of drastic cuts in any case but simply a reduction in the size of growth. Nothing big has changed in budgets. Governments are still spending more every year.
Chris if you make 20K and you expect to get a raise to 25K next year but it turns out the raise only results in your making 23K will that be a positive or negative for your budget? Would you characterize that cut in the increase you expected as austere?
That’s what the words “budget cuts” mean in the mouths of politicians.
“You’re simply reversing cause and effect here. The economy isn’t thriving BECAUSE wages are too low, which suppresses demand. ”
I can tell you first hand that businesses can’t pull cash out of the air. You refuse to understand that unless the businesses doing well there is no money for wages. This administration talks a big game when it comes to business but its actions are anti-business growth. Tax cuts for business were a joke. I get a tax break IF I hire people or take out a loan (go into debt) to buy new machinery…HELLO…there is no reason to do either of those when sales are in the dumper!
Chris, if suddenly you lost half of your income would it make sense to you that the government suggest you can have a tax break if you buy a brand new car and take on that payment? High gas prices, the whole healthcare scare…they say my premiums could go up 25% next year. Do you have any idea what that will do to my budget? Do you even care? My employees could lose their jobs. Employers across the country are already cutting back hours and letting people go to try to survive.
” But today’s Republicans seem to think that the Laffer curve only goes one way–that you can keep reducing taxes year after year and never see any decrease in revenues.”
No one has suggested cutting taxes to that degree. This exaggerated portrayal is political and you buy it every time.
Please remind yourself that we have posted video on the Laffer curve many times on PS. We understand it. We have pointed out that America cannot compete in a world where our corporate tax rates are much higher than other countries. We have suggested that if we want more business a tax rate that is competitive would make sense. We have suggested that raising taxes will not stimulate this economy. It will bring more revenue to government but it will not stimulate the economy. that is the main reason for suggesting we keep tax rates as they are.
“Trusting you and your party to tell me whether or not my family qualifies for financial assistance would be…unwise, to say the least.”
Yes, a party that would rather you had a good paying job than being on assistance is really bad. Your party is known for killing the economy so that more people need assistance putting downward pressure on funds for the truly needy. They suggest that dependency will create a permanent Democrat voting block…the implication is that you are so stupid you will gladly remain stuck in poverty and voting Democrat for the crumbs they throw you. How does it feel to be bought?
“Low demand.”
And what is causing low demand> I know not enough government spending! And where will the government get more money to spend? Why from rich people. And when that money is used up what then? I guess they will have to tax the middle class more…sure if they can find a job.
Your precious big government spending system creates a downward spiral rather like water in a drain. It will swirl around for a bit but eventually we are all in the sewer! Money does not grow on trees. Business people will not risk their savings or borrow to grow when the atmosphere is hostile. Your model is hostile to business. What is business. Business is people, Chris. Your party is very divisive. It likes to squeeze every dime it can to play Santa for votes. This is not the America that was envisioned by the founders and it is not the America of the WWII generation. This is the Marxist model of radical progressives that have taken the party to the utmost extremes.
“Americans fought over that idea before even you were born, and they decided that a progressive income tax system was what they wanted, and that it was just and constitutional.”
Yes the grand experiment in the values of Marx. How’s that workin’ out for America! We have able bodied people stuck in a permanent state of entitlement poverty. Our school system has fallen to new lows compared to other countries and higher education is too expensive. All of our welfare and entitlement programs are dysfunctional and unsustainable. And every time progressive run the government, or progressive policies are enacted, debt continues to rise and the economy slows. I think we’ve had enough of the great progressive experiment. We have the same constitutional right to dismantle what is not working and to put in place different policies that have a better chance to work.
“None of them would be stupid enough to actually try and get rid of progressive taxation once elected; it’s just red meat for the base.”
It took your progressives more than seventy years to get their way please don’t think that reversing that will be a cake walk…we don’t. Progressives are still winning the argument because they have been in charge of education and media. That is changing rapidly. When the people demand moves away from the Marxism that is killing America, politicians will fall in line to get elected. You are sitting on the pinnacle of a failing system, there is no place to go but down for you and your progressive thieves.
“Capital gains are not the “wealth building engine” of our country. The real job creators are the middle class.”
The middle class does own most of the small to middle sized businesses and it does provide most of the jobs but where do they get the capital to start or grow their businesses? Where do they put their profits? Investment capital, and that includes savings, is the fuel they use to grow their businesses and create more jobs. American policies should clear the path for them to do that not put up road blocks.
“We would not see such a correlation between low taxes on the rich and income inequality.”
Oh you can find a correlation all right but correlation does not imply causation! You progressives will make any argument from statistics and attempt to sell it as gold!
CATO has a good article that suggests some of the unaddressed causes for the statistical differences:
One thing I’ve noticed through the years is that the more government is involved in our lives the more we pay for everyday goods and services…and healthcare and education!
If you want to know where the money is going that could be used for better training and jobs for the middle income workers look at the size of our government! It is a huge money sink and growing by the minute!
“Exactly, which is why we should tax investment income at a higher rate than earned income. Do you really want less work than investment?”
I want America to be competitive in the world. Your question fails to address reality. Everyone benefits from low investment income tax rates. They are not tax cuts for the rich, as progressives love to say, they are tax rates that encourage investment and savings for all Americans…grandma benefits by putting her savings into something that will earn her a nice dividend or income from interest on her money market account (at least she can when interest rates are not being kept artificially low). It is a tax rate that will help people saving for their kids college to grow a bigger nest egg. It is the rate that will grow retirement accounts for all workers with retirement plans! We have low rates because everyone in America benefits…everyone!
“Wrong.”
Video that explains why raising the cap on social security is a bad approach. do read the article and then scroll to bottom of the page for the video.
Bigger government is costing Americans a lot and still we have poor people. If progressive solutions are so superior why does poverty persist? They ahve had control over much of our society. they run the schools. Until very recently they controlled the media. They pretend to be outside of the Wall Street and wealthy crowd but that’s nonsense…they are in bed with a lot of big business, banking, big union, and Hollywood!
The progressive big government model is also producing debt that will continue to grow under presidents from any party because the burden causing the debt is the big entitlement programs that progressives favor.
The debt is fast approaching 17 trillion dollars. Remember when Bush was president and progressives
came unglued because of the debt?
It’s now $53,350 for every man, woman, and child. Of course now way too many Americans also don’t have jobs to help them carry that burden. And Obama doubled the amount of debt that Bush created in eight years in a mere four years…he’s still working on spending even more money we don’t have!
We can argue all day and night, economists surely do, and never get anywhere. After all is said and done the question is, should Americans be allowed to keep what they earn and produce. Progressives think that money is there for the picking and they are always looking for new ways to take it from all of us, not just the rich.
Tina: “Excuse me but revenues increased. Here’s another source that clearly shows revenues increased after the Bush tax cuts:”
Tina, that source shows revenue as a dollar amount. We have been discussing revenue as a percentage of GDP. The latter is the correct way to measure revenue. If you are just looking at the dollar amount, you will see rises in revenue nearly every decade as the population increases. As some analysts have noted, crediting Bush for revenues going up is like crediting the rooster for the sun coming up in the morning.
Again, the more accurate measure is revenues as a percentage of GDP, and your own source, U.S. Government Revenue, confirms that revenues as a percentage of GDP went down consistently under Bush.
“And by the way, the demand for government services would come down if there were good jobs.”
Agreed, but what is a “good job” to you? You apparently think the current minimum wage is too high, even though it’s lower now than at any time since the late 60s. How do you expect people to get “good jobs” when most of the jobs out there don’t pay enough for a person to survive?
“I have to ask you Chris, is it important to you that people get back to work in good jobs?”
I’ve made it quite clear that I do, we just have different solutions. You believe in supply-side economics, full-stop–even when everyone knows our current economic problems are on the demand side.
You have to address the demand side of the equation first. That means taking your focus off business owners for a second and looking at what we can do directly for their employees.
“Only the government would assert that taxes not collected are “savings”. It tells you have entitled to other peoples money our government officials have become.”
Now you’re playing semantics. The point is that eliminating the Bush tax cuts on only the top 2% would allow the government to collect more revenue as a percentage of GDP and help reduce the deficit. Conservatives claim to want to reduce the deficit, but you’re not open to any solutions that involve collecting more revenue. That is absurd.
“Chris for the past four years progressive policies have been in place.”
Since those policies have not included closing tax loopholes for the rich, raising the minimum wage, or punishing outsourcers, what is your point? What I’m advocating hasn’t yet been done. Even small steps have been blocked by Congressional Republicans…Democrats haven’t done very well but at least they’ve proposed steps to deal with this crisis. And the solutions proposed by Democrats over the past four years have nearly always been scored higher by the CBO than solutions proposed by Republicans. Cutting taxes on business owners was ranked the lowest on a list of proposals to stimulate the economy by the CBO; more support for the poor and middle class was ranked the highest.
“Jobs that have been created are generally low paying jobs.”
Which is why we need to raise the minimum wage.
“We need policies that give businesses”
Stop. Right there. Stop talking about “businesses!” That’s not where the problems are, as even the majority of business owners say when polled. The problems are on the demand side. Supply side economics can’t possibly solve those problems; even the guy who crafted the Reagan tax cuts, which were the epitome of supply side economics, says that won’t work today!
“Raising taxes on the rich will not create a vibrant economy and millions of jobs which in turn would create more revenue flowing to government from a broader tax base. Keeping taxes low would…if they also got rid of Obamacare, quit spending, and paid doen the debt.”
None of those things would increase demand. You are treating the wrong problems.
“Besides, the President got his tax cut on the rich”
I assume you mean “got his tax *increase* on the rich,” and the increase only affected those making more than $450,000 a year, when his initial goal was to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year.
“so what exactly is the problem other than the title of this post which suggest that it’s never enough?”
As I’ve already explained, raising the marginal rates is definitely not enough when the effective rate is so much lower. Closing the loopholes is what really matters, not raising the marginal rate.
“Clearly? I don’t think so.”
Find me a country that has implemented austerity that is doing better than a country that has implemented stimulus, and we’ll talk. Right now the data is clear. Even the IMF has reversed its stance and has said that the austerity policies they recommended at the beginning of the crisis may have done more to harm economies than the initial recession!
I agree with you that bailing out banks was the wrong use of taxpayer money. Iceland prosecuted their bankers, let the banks fail, and bailed out the people. They have done a total 180 since their recession.
“I can tell you first hand that businesses can’t pull cash out of the air.”
No, they get it from a large consumer base. Those consumers need well-paying jobs, or demand goes down.
“No one has suggested cutting taxes to that degree. This exaggerated portrayal is political and you buy it every time.”
Really? “No one?” So Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” plan was something the media just made up? And your support for that plan here on this blog…was that something I imagined?
“Please remind yourself that we have posted video on the Laffer curve many times on PS. We understand it. We have pointed out that America cannot compete in a world where our corporate tax rates are much higher than other countries.”
Our effective corporate tax rates are not much higher than other countries. In fact, they are lower than average:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/11/slideshow-world-corporate-tax-rates-from-lowest-to-highest/
“Yes, a party that would rather you had a good paying job than being on assistance is really bad.”
This statement just reveals how ignorant you are, and how you refuse to listen to the people most affected by this crisis. I have told you a thousand times, I would rather have a good paying job than be on government assistance. That is why I argue that jobs should actually pay well! The current minimum wage does not cut it. The majority of people on government assistance work; it’s not enough! I only see one party making an effort to ensure that people get well-paying jobs, and it’s not yours.
“And what is causing low demand”
Why do you keep asking me the same questions? I’ve been very clear that the main cause is low wages.
“The middle class does own most of the small to middle sized businesses and it does provide most of the jobs”
Yes, and most of those business owners have not seen a tax increase. Less than 2% have.
“CATO has a good article that suggests some of the unaddressed causes for the statistical differences:”
Tina, that CATO article is terrible.
http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/timothy-noah/98199/alan-reynolds-vs-inequality#
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/12/intellectual_ga.html
I’ll say it again: you need to learn to be more skeptical about claims from people who are paid to come to a certain conclusion. There is a lot of money in telling rich people exactly what they want to hear.
“Everyone benefits from low investment income tax rates. They are not tax cuts for the rich, as progressives love to say, they are tax rates that encourage investment and savings for all Americans…grandma benefits by putting her savings into something that will earn her a nice dividend or income from interest on her money market account (at least she can when interest rates are not being kept artificially low).”
So then why not have a progressive scale for capital gains taxes too, then? That way Grandma can keep her low 15% rate and Mitt Romney can pay a cool 40%. Right now, because of the fiscal cliff deal, we’ve gone back to a somewhat progressive capital gains system, where the top 2% pay 20% in capital gains taxes, but that’s not enough. Taxing them both at the same percentage was absurd; 15% of my grandmother’s investment income affects her a lot more than 15% of Mitt Romney’s investment income.
“It is a tax rate that will help people saving for their kids college to grow a bigger nest egg. It is the rate that will grow retirement accounts for all workers with retirement plans! We have low rates because everyone in America benefits…everyone!”
If this is true then we should have evidence by now. But we don’t. The CRS report found no improvement in economic performance from lowering the capital gains rate, and other studies have confirmed this result:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-correlation-capital-gains-taxes-gdp-2012-11
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/11/02/non-partisan-congressional-tax-report-debunks-core-conservative-economic-theory-gop-suppresses-study/
I only have a few minutes left before I have to leave so I will continue my remarks later but I wanted to at least address this:
Chris: “Tina, that source shows revenue as a dollar amount. We have been discussing revenue as a percentage of GDP. The latter is the correct way to measure revenue.
Oh bologna! Both are acceptable ways of expressing how revenue has flowed to government. It just depends on what you are trying to say or compare and whether or not these are being used to fool people.
“…your own source, U.S. Government Revenue, confirms that revenues as a percentage of GDP went down consistently under Bush.”
Which link are you referring to and what are you attempting to say? If revenue is up and rates have been lowered you can’t complain that the government had less to spend!
The questions that matter are: Did the Bush tax cuts lead to economic growth? Was unemployment high and did it remain high? Did tax cuts put more money in the pockets of individuals? Did tax cuts put more money in business persons hands? That’s just as important because they spend too. In short, was the Bush economy better for Americans generally than the Obama economy? I think you have to conclude that although he was dealing with a recession, the 9/11 devastation at Wall Street, and the ensuing war his economy was pretty good and unemployment within the normal ranges with a lot fewer people depending on food stamps or designated as “in poverty”.
CNS News has an article, “WH: Federal Revenue Hit All-Time High of $2.57T—In 2007 Under Bush,” that you need to read. It contains links you can follow to verify their findings. The article deals with revenues, spending, and GDP over decades. Excerpt:
Here is how the article concludes:
Obama’s very radical and very political economic policies just do not work and no matter how you express it it is difficult to get revenues to flow to government when business is being oppressed and a radical spending and redistribution is the only job the President thinks he has.
Later….
Chris: “You apparently think the current minimum wage is too high…”
A gross misrepresentation of what I have said. The problem with a forced minimum wage is that it eliminates jobs for teenagers who used to be able to get very low skilled jobs at less than what might be paid for an entry level job that requires longer hours and better skills. It also creates a false value so that we don’t know what jobs are worth.
Also, entry level jobs are not the only jobs that would be created in a growing economy. Jobs at all levels of pay and of all types would most likely open up…so I’d say your question is really just your way of being snarky.
“You believe in supply-side economics, full-stop–even when everyone knows our current economic problems are on the demand side.”
In a good economy with a government that is supportive, rather than antagonistic and selective, supply and demand work hand in hand. What you don’t understand is wealth building and until you do you will always believe that the secret to everything is government spending, redistribution, and constantly raising the min wage (which forces prices up and people actually get nowhere).
“That means taking your focus off business owners for a second and looking at what we can do directly for their employees.”
WE? What exactly can “we” do for an employers employees without first taxing the employer, his employees, and his business? Your collective mind is in a whirl…focus!
Wealth building…”we” need to get the hell out of the way and let employers create wealth so they can hire people at terms they work out with their employees. Employees are capable of submitting a resume and dealing with their employers directly they don’t need “our help”!
But when there are no jobs available beciase government is oppressive and unpredictable…like now…it’s really a moot point.
“The point is that eliminating the Bush tax cuts on only the top 2% would allow the government to collect more revenue as a percentage of GDP and help reduce the deficit.”
Well you got your tax on the wealthy so what the heck are you bitching about? And what makes you think this administration is in any way interested in reducing the deficit? Obama’s 2012 budget “outline” indicated he had no intention of cutting back on spending:
Reason:
Increases in spending lead to deficits…they spend more than they have.
Obama got a windfall this year (and it’s temporarily making the numbers look better) because of all the people that were able to benefit from shifted dividends and bonuses last year under a lower rate. California benefited from this as well.
Obama will do what he can now to lower deficit spending going into the next election cycle but it’s forcing him to betray his democrats a bit with proposals for cuts they can’t defend easily in an election year.
Bottom line he is a tax and spend man and that won’t really change.
“Really? “No one?”
No one that is in a position to see it through to the Presidents desk! Stay in the room please.
“Our effective corporate tax rates are not much higher than other countries. In fact, they are lower than average”
“Effective” tax rates are lower because when tax rates are higher corporations find ways to legally lower their tax or they do less business in America. When tax rates are competitive with other countries they don’t have to spend time and money evading taxes to be competitive. Lower rates result in higher effective rates and more revenue, not less…at least they do when other polices are not very restrictive and burdensome. Bottom line our tax rates, before legal deductions, are higher than in other countries:
Accounting Today:
See charts here.
“This statement just reveals how ignorant you are, and how you refuse to listen to the people most affected by this crisis. I have told you a thousand times, I would rather have a good paying job than be on government assistance. That is why I argue that jobs should actually pay well!”
You are very close to another premature ending to a conversation. You are not in a position to call me ignorant, particularly since it is you that has ZERO experience in the real world. You have no idea how this has affected different people and by your own accounting you haven’t really had it so bad. Try keeping a company afloat and your employees paid with very little business over five years. You think it’s tough to come up with a few bucks to feed your face? Try finding enough to feed several families faces over those five years.
I will hold my tongue further.
“That is why I argue that jobs should actually pay well! The current minimum wage does not cut it.”
You and others like you wouldn’t be working min wage with your degree if democrat policies in California and in the US were not strangling business and costing students enormous amounts for education…and forcing prices up.
I have explained several times that minimum wage is an entry level wage…people usually move on from those wages and jobs…that is a statistical fact!
In your democrat run existence minimum wage jobs are being held by college grads, IF they can get them, and YOU still think your buddies have all the answers. I’m sorry Chris but to me that is beyond ignorant!
“I only see one party making an effort to ensure that people get well-paying jobs, and it’s not yours.”
Your party hands you a meaningless bone (we’ll raise the min wage) for votes and you ignore four+ years of high unemployment, mounting debt, high gas and food prices, a sluggish non-recovery from a recession that officially ended in 2009, and an unemployment rate for minorities that is approaching 50% and still think that the Dem Party has helped you? Chris for heavens sake…WAKE the hell UP!
“Why do you keep asking me the same questions? I’ve been very clear that the main cause is low wages.”
How about NO WAGES because there are no jobs! And there are no jobs because the costs associated with thousands of new regulations and higher taxes are making businesses (the people that create jobs and PAY people) pull back and delay. I went for nearly four years with a lot less orders…just barely enough to keep my doors open. (I only have one occasional worker on min wage so don’t even go there!). You don’t know how jobs are created and yet you think you have the answer to getting the economy rolling along…unbelievable!
“There is a lot of money in telling rich people exactly what they want to hear.”
Just ask a democrat!
According to The New Republic there are a lot of rich people making money that belongs to the government. That’s the tax and redistribute way…but it is NOT the American way. It is Marxist to think that other people’s money is the governments to take and people should just fork it over without protest and mountains of evidence that high taxes and big government doesn’t work.
In the Soviet Union before it fell they were unable even to feed their own people…talk about poor. Its the same in N Korea and in Venezuela they ahve no toilet paper. And in France:
Back in 2010 The Washington Post, no friend to the right wing, reported:
Nothing has changed since 2010 except Obamacare passed and looms in front of us like a spectre and taxes were raised on the wealthy with other taxes coming, even for the middle class, in Obamacare.
This isn’t making it better for any Americans.
Very soon Post Scripts will be famous due to it’s great articles!