A graphical assault on supply-side tax cuts

[Atreus21]

It's only until the elite have finished pillaging the system of lucrative contracts and subsidies at the same time avoiding paying into the pot when possible in turn. I wouldn't worry. Once the country as been bled dry they'll leave our shores to rot and move onto greener pastures. Like a virus.

Those evil evil bastards. If only people would stop voluntarily giving them their money.

 

[Jhhnn]

Those evil evil bastards. If only people would stop voluntarily giving them their money.

Yeh, just quit paying the rent & the utility bill. Quit buying food & clothes for the kids. Quit buying gas & car insurance. Quit going to the doctor & the dentist. Embrace the simplicity of homelessness.

 

[Roflmouth]

Yeh, we know, Righties never met a tax cut they didn't like regardless of the need for revenue. Like Dick Cheney said about tax cuts at the top- "deficits don't matter."

Cuz it'll all trickle down, right?

Because the government deserves that money more than the people who earned it. Say, when are you planning on sending even more of your own money to the government? 😀

 

[ivwshane]

Because the government deserves that money more than the people who earned it. Say, when are you planning on sending even more of your own money to the government? 😀

I'd say "deserve" and "earned" are subjective.

Say, when will you stop using government services/benefits/policies in order to help lower government spending?

You wouldn't be one of those anarchists, would you?

 

[ElFenix]

Because the government deserves that money more than the people who earned it. Say, when are you planning on sending even more of your own money to the government? 😀

civil government is property insurance by another name. its function is to 1) keep foreigners from coming and taking your stuff; and 2) keep the poors from coming and taking your stuff.

as such, the people who should be paying for it are those with property, and probably in rough proportion to the amount of property owned.

guess who is skimping on their premiums?

 

[Zaap]

^ I've read some really nutty "taxes are just bribes to keep those dumb savage poor people in line" arguments in my time... but that one is a cake-taker.

 

[DrDoug]

I hate to say this but I hope Brownback and the Republicans in Kansas keep getting their way. I hope they keep gutting Kansas until it's little more than a shell of a state. They need to let their economic agenda run the state economy into the ground, leaving little more than smoking ruins. First it was cutting taxes would bring businesses to Kansas in droves and it didn't happen. Then it was Obama causing problems for the Kansas economy and it was time for more spending cuts! Now it's spending is too high and deeper spending cuts are in order! Regarding Republicans at the federal level demanding that the Post Office fund pensions 70 years in advance (just to be assholes), Brownback is delaying pension payments for his own state employees. Fucking hypocrites.

I'm glad Kansans decided to become the lab rat for the Republican party because now they own the mess, every bit of it.

Who wants to place odds on Kansas asking the federal government for a bail out?

 

[woolfe9998]

Because the government deserves that money more than the people who earned it. Say, when are you planning on sending even more of your own money to the government? 😀

It isn't "government" that "deserves" it. It is the people who deserve a government which provides important services. These services cannot be dispensed without taxation. Yeah I know, conservatives think, or at least claim they think, that many of these services are unnecessary or even counter-productive. Which is where the debate should really lie.

The real question is, when and for what do we need and not need government? The question of taxation is secondary to that inquiry. The over-arching problem, however, is that people treat the issues separately. They want services but low taxation, as if the two are disconnected. Which is also a problem with the GOP and its history. They tend to deliver on promises to lower taxes - because that is politically popular and therefore feasible to accomplish, but at the same time, they do not cut government programs, which tends to be politically unpopular and therefore not feasible.

The bottom line is that whatever the majority want as government services, they need to come to terms with whatever they must pay in taxes to support those services. The GOP has unfortunately not been helpful because their approach is asymmetric. You either tax and spend, or cut taxes and cut spending. You can't cut taxes and not spending.

Or worse, they increase spending and cut taxes at the same time. What did Bush and the GOP Congress do to pay for Medicare D, the Iraq War, the Afghan war, etc? Or Reagan with his arms race and massive military spending? See, it isn't only the left that has things they want government to pay for. The difference is the GOP can't cover anything it wants because it is an "anti tax" party by ideology. Anti-tax ideology is as foolish as "pro-tax" ideology (which doesn't really exist so far as I can tell). Taxes are just something that is necessary when you want government to do something. So perhaps it is best we focus on that first instead of taking foolish, absolutist positions and signing rigid binding "pledges" about taxation.

 

[ivwshane]

It isn't "government" that "deserves" it. It is the people who deserve a government which provides important services. These services cannot be dispensed without taxation. Yeah I know, conservatives think, or at least claim they think, that many of these services are unnecessary or even counter-productive. Which is where the debate should really lie.

The real question is, when and for what do we need and not need government? The question of taxation is secondary to that inquiry. The over-arching problem, however, is that people treat the issues separately. They want services but low taxation, as if the two are disconnected. Which is also a problem with the GOP and its history. They tend to deliver on promises to lower taxes - because that is politically popular and therefore feasible to accomplish, but at the same time, they tend to not cut government programs, which tends to be politically unpopular and therefore not feasible.

The bottom line is that whatever the majority want as government services, they need to come to terms with whatever they must pay in taxes to support those services. The GOP has unfortunately not been helpful because their approach is asymmetric. You either tax and spend, or cut taxes and cut spending. You can't cut taxes and not spending.

You are on it tonight! I agree!

 

[ElFenix]

^ I've read some really nutty "taxes are just bribes to keep those dumb savage poor people in line" arguments in my time... but that one is a cake-taker.

yeah adam smith was a real nutball. big time proletariat eat the rich kinda guy.

 

[Zaap]

yeah adam smith was a real nutball. big time proletariat eat the rich kinda guy.

Oh so your question was based on Smith?

Well, according to his principals of taxation, a big chunk of the bottom 50% aren't even close to paying their share of taxes.

And many in at the top are paying too much.


Also, smith would find the leviathon we call the federal government frighteningly abhorent and in dire need of limits.

Please quote him equating taxes to insurance against the attack of the poors.

 

[Meghan54]

Oh so your question was based on Smith?

Well, according to his principals of taxation, a big chunk of the bottom 50% aren't even close to paying their share of taxes.

And many in at the top are paying too much.


Also, smith would find the leviathon we call the federal government frighteningly abhorent and in dire need of limits.

Please quote him equating taxes to insurance against the attack of the poors.

I think he meant this:

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

 

[Paratus]

I think he meant this:


Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

😀 that's gotta hurt.

 

[soulcougher73]

I wish we could just split the US into 2 separate countries right now. One for the GOP conservatives and one for Dem Liberals and see which one works out better 🙂 But you must swear you allegence to one side and cant switch when one goes to shit 🙂

 

[Blackjack200]

I wish we could just split the US into 2 separate countries right now. One for the GOP conservatives and one for Dem Liberals and see which one works out better 🙂 But you must swear you allegence to one side and cant switch when one goes to shit 🙂

After 40 years the conservatives be like

 

[fskimospy]

I think he meant this:


Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

Headshot.

 

[kstu]

lol will Zaap make another appearance in this thread or slink away in shame?

 

[dank69]

OP, is there a link that isn't behind a paywall? One that we can actually read?

Copypasta added to OP just for you Jaskalas. :thumbsup:

 

[brycejones]

I think he meant this:


Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

You win P&N today.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I think he meant this:


Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

Internet win of the day.

In the last decade of so we seem to have elevated our founding fathers and great thinker like Smith to god like status. I'm not saying they were bad people or had bad principles. I'm saying they were men who were right about many things, wrong about other things and lived in a different time. We need to keep this in perspective and not blindly worship them.

 

[Zaap]

I think he meant this:


Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expence of Justice

touche!

It is fair to point out that that quote is horribly misused. Taken in actual context, he was pretty much saying that's NOT how an effective government should operate.


http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/12/adam-smith-on-civil-government.html

“Taking a quotation out of context can always cause misunderstandings. It does so in this case. Smith was not outlining the appropriate policies for civil governments for all time and in no sense did he suggest that the appropriate role of government in modern societies was to suppress the poor. Quite the reverse! His entire approach to modern government was for it to cease intervening on behalf of special interests to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers, the majority of whom were among the poor. He saw commercial society as a road to opulence that would spread its benefits to the family of common labourers.

https://inveritascrescentes.wordpre...ith-the-most-misquoted-economist-of-our-time/

Smith was talking about the origins of civil government here and how no effective institutions for the regulation of property were put in place without significant corruption. Further in the chapter, Smith elaborates on the necessity of a separation of powers to ensure fair judgment of the Rule of Law to promote egalitarian treatment. A fair justice system will ensure that both the rich and the poor have property rights.

 

[fskimospy]

touche!

It is fair to point out that that quote is horribly misused. Taken in actual context, he was pretty much saying that's NOT how an effective government should operate.


http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/12/adam-smith-on-civil-government.html


https://inveritascrescentes.wordpre...ith-the-most-misquoted-economist-of-our-time/

Those are some pretty weak rebuttals that aren't even attempting to refute the central point.

 

[Zaap]

Those are some pretty weak rebuttals that aren't even attempting to refute the central point.

There's noting needing a rebuttal. Smith wasn't saying that's the ideal form of government. He was saying that's a corrupt form of government.


I'll also point out, as to the question being asked or if that was some 'central point' - according to taxation rules Smith actually did lay out, plenty of rich people would be due a tax cut, and plenty at the bottom would be paying a lot more taxes, if going by Smith's guidelines about what is a 'fair share'.

Those arguing about that age old 'fair share' are foolish to use Smith as a source, if socking it to the rich is their goal. Smith didn't even like income taxes.

 

[zephyrprime]

Why is it something so obviously wrong is so extremely difficult to rail against in government?

because our government is just a bunch of corrupt paid for shills. They don't believe the economic theories they peddle - they're just flat out lies and they know it. They sell their votes for campaign contributions. It's easy as day to see.

 

[Meghan54]

OK....how about this one? 😉

The rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter II, Article I: Taxes upon the Rent of House