Cutting taxes for the rich does not stimulate the economy.

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: eleison
Everyone who likes taxes should move to California or NY. Their elected leaders are doing a great job. Free money in California folks.

Did you have a point?

CA and NY are two of the most popular states, high incomes and standard of living.

The problem in my state's elected leaders is basically in our disastrous Republican minority who is out to destroy the state to try to hurt the Democrats, abusing the 2/3 requirement.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
As to the rest of your BS - How can a group that pays ZERO fed income tax due to Bush's tax-cuts have a worse benefit? That's right - they didn't. They benefited the most as their incometax liability when from some - to NONE. Now I know you libs tend to not understand this but when the top 1% pays 40% of Fed income taxes so obviously their amount will be higher. And also if you libs actually looked, the top 1% have increased their share of fed income taxes under Bush.
Meh, I'm sure you won't admit any of this...but so be it...

Even if they've increased their share, 35% is far from an optimal rate. 40% wouldn't be a huge increase, but it would increase government revenue considerably.

Better yet, we could eliminate the countless loopholes in the system that allow so many in the top bracket to evade taxes. The share would definitely jump then, even though the people currently paying taxes in that bracket wouldn't see any change

Here is a mental exercise for you: Say I charge the only rich man in the country a 5% tax rate on his $10,000,000 income. I then charge the rest of the country (say 1,000 people) a 5% tax rate as well, but they all make only $10,000 each.

Rich guy's tax = $500,000
Everyone else = $500,000
Total tax revenue = $1 million

You might say, "Hey, the rich are paying over 50% of the taxes for all of those freeloading peasants! That's unfair!" However, that is a deceptive and illogical claim; the rich man might not directly use services like public transportation, and perhaps he even hires his own security force so he doesn't use the police. However, without the rest of the population he would have no income. Indirectly, he is receiving more benefit from those public services than any individual in the group because so many people are responsible for his elevated income. The public police and fire services keep his city and workers safe. The public transportation system allows his workers to get to work (and with the money saved, they can buy more of whatever product Rich Guy produces).

This is a simple example, but it helps to illustrate the fallacy of the "40% of taxes are paid by x people" claim. While it's true, it's also meaningless. They directly might use none of the public services, but they indirectly benefit from them much more than any individual in the population.

In other words, even if income tax were flat across the board the rich would still probably pay a larger percentage of total tax revenue because they make that much more money than everyone else.

Edit: And it has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. If you earn more money, you'll pay more taxes to the government (even if the percentage is the same for all income levels).

Also, the "flat tax" that Ron Paul people love to squawk, ie a national sales tax, is nothing but regressive taxation, giving the poor a larger (effective) income tax rate than the rich.

Yes, but one man paying $500,000 does not get $500,000 worth of police protection. He doesn't get 500x more protection than the people who pay $1000 each. Do you get it? So if the policeman patrols once an hour around most blocks where the average Joe lives, rich man doesn't get 500x more patrols meaning that he has an army of officers surrounding him. So he's getting a shitty value for his money. I think what you're trying to say is that to YOU it's justifiable for a rich person to pay more, and so this is where you talk about how rich people aren't losing that much and benefit from the working class.

Yes the rich ARE paying a bunch of taxes for the rest of us freeloaders. Get over it. I feel like people below me benefit more than I do from my money, and I'm sure people above my income level feel the same too. However, a lot of us are content where we are and while some like my parents get killed by AMT and have to pay up the ass, we still have plenty of money to go around, so while no one likes to pay taxes, the rich are more ok with losing a chunk of their money than say the poor.

I think it's whether we feel it's justified this way or not. Unfortunately this is the way society works, and we rich will ALWAYS get raped with taxes.

What my fair share is and what your fair share is becomes a tricky issue. To say that the rich deserve to lose more of their money because they don't need it as much is moving towards wealth redistribution. But to say that holding their money benefits everyone as a whole would be a better way of phrasing things. And here's where conservatives and liberals differ. Supply side believes that letting people spend their own money would be better than the government spending their money. Which is better? Well, not a simple answer is it?

Civil disorder would rapidly nullify the rich mans personal property.

So keeping a functional society by paying taxes is in his best interests.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Kennedy cut taxes and the economy took off.

Reagan cut taxes and the economy took off.

Clinton cut capital gains taxes and we saw a huge increase in capitals being taken and more revenue.

Bush cut taxes and the economy came out of a recession.


I think you can make the argument that lower tax rates do not lead to higher tax revenue. Hard to prove that higher economic activity leads to enough tax increases to offset the lower rates etc etc.

But it certainly seems that every time we lower tax rates we get a period of strong economic growth afterwards. Kennedy and Reagan are the best proof of this.

Bullshit, did you even read the paper?

I was completely indiscriminate in my selection of data. I did not acknowledge the party in power, who was president, or other factors.

I looked only at the tax rates, private and public investment, and its effects on economic growth.

Is this a college paper? If so is this like a 1st year paper? It doesn't sound one bit professional, and what data analysis do you call that? Drawing trendlines in Excel and coming up with a quick conclusion when your data shows wild swings? This is more like an ATOT post with graphs in it. All your sources are lopsided in that they were designed to show what a joke supply side economics is. LoL. What a paper. I mean seriously, look at the numbers the CBO crunches to show. It's at least more partisan and actually draws logical conclusion and uses proper data analysis.

Err sources are cited. The sources are non-partisan.

Supply side economics is the target and scope of the entire paper. It is not intended to be professional it was for a "rebels" class where we were to pick incendiary topics for 4 papers and write a mix of opinion and fact.

Are you KIDDING ME? Look at the TITLES of your damn sources. They were written to prove one thing and only one. Throw out the IRS data but really that's just data.

The number crunching is atrocious. You call that number crunching? At best that's inconclusive data that you've shown us. Graphs with trendlines showing a SLIGHT slope when the data itself is just a bunch of wild swings? There's no trending data at all. Like I said, this paper is as good as a post on ATOT just with graphs. I don't think you looked at issue in an unbiased way and then threw in arguments and numbers from both sides and did some PROPER statistical analysis.

Just the tone itself of the damn paper is pretty terrible. You can tell from the first few words that the author already doubts tax cuts. Really, you make Fox News' fair and balanced look like the most unbiased news channel there has been.

A bunch of wild swings?

You are aware that the economy works in cycles?

The trendlines reflect 60 years of data in each graph. Each comparison of data has a very specific point. A trendline that has a different slope from another one indicates a poor relationship. The final graph shows very clearly that public and private investment drive the economy. The tax rate vs private investment graph clearly shows there is no relationship what so ever.

The sources you discredit:

The IRS.
US Department of Commerce.
US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Nation, The NYT, and Essays were just op-eds I read for some ideas on the issue and i included in the sources for completeness, none of those idea are reflected in the paper.

Again if you take issue with some piece of data, please go ahead and say so.

Saying "LOL ITS DUMB LOL" is not a valid reubuttal.

Ok so look at your sources. Everything except the last 2 is partisan. The last 2 is just data I presume. This means that any commentary you use to back up your analysis is pretty much partisan meaning I should just pay attention to your number crunching, which... well isn't very good.

Wild swings? Yes the economy works in cycles, and to show that the tax cuts had a negative effect when the economy works in cycles is ridiculous using this data that shows swings due to economic cycles. To show 60 years of trending data means you go through MANY economic cycles, some longer than others. Your point is to show that there's no real reinvestment into the economy is that correct?

Look at Graph 2 (seriously, label your graphs... you should've learned this in high school). WTF is the green shit. Look at that swing. Let's take this as random data and plot it. What's the STANDARD DEVIATION on that. 10%? I'm not going to crunch numbers for you, but I think you can see it visually already. Then you're claiming that with this ridiculous 1SD #, that you can say with STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE that a 3% trend means anything? 3% shift in the face of a huge swing is nothing. It's one thing to see a trend of 3% shift down in personal investment, meaning you could say personal investments on a whole went down based on your trend line, but is that number statistically significant? Not at all. What's you correlation #s on that? I bet it's not that great. Why? Because a lot of other factors determine personal investment % such as the state of the economy, lifestyles changes, etc.

Let's rinse and repeat for Graphs 3 and 4. Graph 3 you're claiming a drop from ~4% to 2.5%, yet your standard deviation is probably 2x or 3x of that. I don't even see how you could comment on these things.

Trendlines are terrible when you have data that has wild swings. Based on your data in Graph 3, GDP change has been decreasing. So you're saying the 90s boom was not very meaningful at all compared to the past? Come on, look at all the discussion here praising the Clinton era. Graph 4 is even more pathetic. Look at that data.

I hit reply before I meant to, but in Graph 2, how can you graph tax rate like that? You're comparing TOP tax rate versus private investment? I mean seriously, I think that that you should factor a lot more into that. You're taking the very TOP TOP of the tax bracket. How many people actually paid 91%? Shouldn't OVERALL tax rate be accounted for? What about payroll taxes, and state income taxes and all these other taxes that we pay? People who are in the 25% bracket today easily pay over 35% in OVERALL taxes. What about sales taxes? Blah blah blah.

Come on. When you do experiments in science you make sure that your test plan is foolproof. The arguements you have presented today are neither sound nor valid.

I will reply to this today, i dont have time now.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
As to the rest of your BS - How can a group that pays ZERO fed income tax due to Bush's tax-cuts have a worse benefit? That's right - they didn't. They benefited the most as their incometax liability when from some - to NONE. Now I know you libs tend to not understand this but when the top 1% pays 40% of Fed income taxes so obviously their amount will be higher. And also if you libs actually looked, the top 1% have increased their share of fed income taxes under Bush.
Meh, I'm sure you won't admit any of this...but so be it...

Even if they've increased their share, 35% is far from an optimal rate. 40% wouldn't be a huge increase, but it would increase government revenue considerably.

Better yet, we could eliminate the countless loopholes in the system that allow so many in the top bracket to evade taxes. The share would definitely jump then, even though the people currently paying taxes in that bracket wouldn't see any change

Here is a mental exercise for you: Say I charge the only rich man in the country a 5% tax rate on his $10,000,000 income. I then charge the rest of the country (say 1,000 people) a 5% tax rate as well, but they all make only $10,000 each.

Rich guy's tax = $500,000
Everyone else = $500,000
Total tax revenue = $1 million

You might say, "Hey, the rich are paying over 50% of the taxes for all of those freeloading peasants! That's unfair!" However, that is a deceptive and illogical claim; the rich man might not directly use services like public transportation, and perhaps he even hires his own security force so he doesn't use the police. However, without the rest of the population he would have no income. Indirectly, he is receiving more benefit from those public services than any individual in the group because so many people are responsible for his elevated income. The public police and fire services keep his city and workers safe. The public transportation system allows his workers to get to work (and with the money saved, they can buy more of whatever product Rich Guy produces).

This is a simple example, but it helps to illustrate the fallacy of the "40% of taxes are paid by x people" claim. While it's true, it's also meaningless. They directly might use none of the public services, but they indirectly benefit from them much more than any individual in the population.

In other words, even if income tax were flat across the board the rich would still probably pay a larger percentage of total tax revenue because they make that much more money than everyone else.

Edit: And it has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. If you earn more money, you'll pay more taxes to the government (even if the percentage is the same for all income levels).

Also, the "flat tax" that Ron Paul people love to squawk, ie a national sales tax, is nothing but regressive taxation, giving the poor a larger (effective) income tax rate than the rich.

Yes, but one man paying $500,000 does not get $500,000 worth of police protection. He doesn't get 500x more protection than the people who pay $1000 each. Do you get it? So if the policeman patrols once an hour around most blocks where the average Joe lives, rich man doesn't get 500x more patrols meaning that he has an army of officers surrounding him. So he's getting a shitty value for his money. I think what you're trying to say is that to YOU it's justifiable for a rich person to pay more, and so this is where you talk about how rich people aren't losing that much and benefit from the working class.

Yes the rich ARE paying a bunch of taxes for the rest of us freeloaders. Get over it. I feel like people below me benefit more than I do from my money, and I'm sure people above my income level feel the same too. However, a lot of us are content where we are and while some like my parents get killed by AMT and have to pay up the ass, we still have plenty of money to go around, so while no one likes to pay taxes, the rich are more ok with losing a chunk of their money than say the poor.

I think it's whether we feel it's justified this way or not. Unfortunately this is the way society works, and we rich will ALWAYS get raped with taxes.

What my fair share is and what your fair share is becomes a tricky issue. To say that the rich deserve to lose more of their money because they don't need it as much is moving towards wealth redistribution. But to say that holding their money benefits everyone as a whole would be a better way of phrasing things. And here's where conservatives and liberals differ. Supply side believes that letting people spend their own money would be better than the government spending their money. Which is better? Well, not a simple answer is it?

Civil disorder would rapidly nullify the rich mans personal property.

So keeping a functional society by paying taxes is in his best interests.

So by principle you already believe that the rich deserve to pay more because they make more, and that because the working class has numbers and can screw everything over, we should submit to paying the working class otherwise they will screw us over. Sounds quite socialistic to me. But this is no surprise to me seeing the bias in your paper. I just wished I saw more scientific and methodical rationale especially in showing the fiscal effects.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Carmen, I would agree with most of your post.

The only time either side worked to control spending was during the 1990s, otherwise it has been spend spend spend.

I do disagree with the idea that Bush only helped the richest of Americans though. Due to his tax cuts the number of people paying NO income tax at all increased from around 33% to almost 40% if I remember correctly.

If you look at Bush's tax cuts in terms of percentage degrees in tax dollars paid then the poor did better off. (A guy who paid $400 a year under Clinton but $0 under Bush received a 100% decrease in his tax rate) But if you look at it in terms of actual dollars saved then of course the rich did better, they make so much more that they will always benefit when looking at tax cuts in this way.

My understanding was that most of the money lost in revenues came from cutting the taxes for the highest income bracket.

Of course it does. They pay all the taxes in the first place!!!!

The top 1% of earners pay more taxes than the bottom 50%!!! The top 5% of the country pays over half of all income taxes. When tax rates are skewed that much there is no way you can reduce taxes without the top earners gaining the largest share of those cuts.


Let me put this in dollar terms, using 2005 figures since they are the ones I have available.

According to the FY 2009 budget's historical charts PDF individual income taxes in 2005 amounted to 927 billion.

Based on the IRS 2005 tax share figures it breaks down like this: (the numbers are accumulative.)
Top 1% paid $361 billion in taxes
Top 5% paid $546 billion in taxes
Top 10% paid $649 billion in taxes
Top 25% paid $787 billion in taxes
Top 50% paid $889 billion in taxes

That means the bottom 50% paid only $38 billion in taxes.

Rather than posting the numbers as usual to rebut your propaganda, I'll point out the net effects:

Despite all your complaining about any statements that the rich pay too low taxes, they are getting practically all of the nation's growth over the last 25 years after inflation.

The post I made above had the following quote - a conservative set of numbers:

The top one percent will gain by far the most from the tax cuts even though it has already been the main beneficiary of income trends since the 1970s. Data from a separate CBO study, released in April of this year, indicate that between 1979 and 2001 (the latest year CBO examined), the average after-tax income of the top one percent of households rose by a stunning $409,000, or 139 percent, after adjusting for inflation.[1] This dwarfed the $6,300, or 17 percent, average increase among the middle fifth of the population, over this 22-year period, and the $1,100, or 8 percent, increase among the bottom fifth of the population.

There has been an even higher skyrocketing of the wealth at the top and increase in the concentraiton of wealth.

So for all your propaganda about how high their taxes are, the net result is that they are leaving everyone else in the dust as they grab a far bigger share of the total pie.

Your irrational conclusion: it'd be wrong for their taxes to increase at all.

Top 20% up 139% after inflation, bottom 20% 8% after inflation - that's percent, so your usual nonsense about proportionality is not relevant - you say the rich have it tough.

The problem with those numbers is how the 20% grouping is too large, because within the top 20%, the growth is highly fixed at the top - the bottom 75% of the top 20% bracket got far less than those at the top - when you get to the top tenth or hundredth of the top 1%, you see the increase top 500%, compared to 13% for the middle and 8% for the bottom.

500% versus 8% - PERCENT - and you say the rich pay too much, or at worst, every cent they possibly should.

Can you show me these numbers because you threw out so much in a poorly worded manner it's kinda tough to see where you're getting these #s from and what you're trying to say.

So let's do the math:

Income: $10,000,000
Tax Rate: 39.6% under Clinton ==> 3,960,000 due for taxes
Tax Rate: 35% under Bush ==> $3,500,000 due for taxes
Net change: $460,000

Let's say this guy spends $2,000,000/year cuz he lives in gold.
His take home income under Clinton would be: 4,040,000
His take home income under bush would be 4,500,000
What % change is this?

I don't see how your numbers make sense. The more you make, the more disposable income you have unless you spend a fortune and your leftover income is like $100k, then yes a 5% cut can give you like half a million more resulting in a 400% increase, but other than that I don't see how it makes sense.

Furthermore:

Read this

Highlights:

* As a result of the tax cuts since 2001, all taxpayers face lower effective federal income tax rates than they would have without the tax cuts.

* While many characterize the CBO report as evidence that the tax cuts shifted the burden of taxation to the middle class, CBO data show precisely the opposite effect. The tax cuts actually made the tax system more progressive. The highest 20 percent of earners now pay a larger share of federal income taxes than they would have without the tax cuts, while the share of income taxes paid by all other income groups fell.

* The overwhelming majority of federal income taxes are paid by the very highest income earners. The top 1% of income earners pays 31.6% of all income taxes, the top 5% pays 51.4%, the top 10% pays 63.5%, and the top 20% of income earners pays 78.4% of all federal income taxes. The bottom four-fifths of income earners pay just over one-fifth of all federal income taxes.

* Some analysts cite total effective federal tax rates, as opposed to effective income tax rates, as the best measure of the effects of the tax cuts across income groups. This method can be misleading because it measures the burden of payroll taxes without accounting for the highly progressive Social Security and Medicare benefits to which payroll taxes are linked."

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234

More than 70 percent of the tax savings on investment income went to the richest 2 percent of taxpayers, about 2.6 million people. Meanwhile, very few poor and working class people saw any benefit from the most recent wave of tax cuts. The bulk of ?investments? held by working class people are retirement accounts, and these aren?t even eligible for the cuts. In fact, the tax break on dividends applies only to stock held outside of retirement accounts--most of which is in the hands of the richest 1 percent of the population.

That's because they don't pay any fucking taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, that's not true. They might not pay income taxes, but they pay sales tax, gas taxes, and payroll taxes. They also pay social security and medicare, and medicaid if their state has it. So saying they pay no taxes isn't right, unless they do not work and do not purchase goods or services.

The article and the quote is about income taxes and Bush's income tax cuts and nothing else. In those terms my statement is completely correct.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WOW! This is so beyond "pot/black". Poofjohn do qualify his terms much.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The writers of that piece are being intellectually dishonest by making that statement.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
Can you show me these numbers because you threw out so much in a poorly worded manner it's kinda tough to see where you're getting these #s from and what you're trying to say.

Ya, you can get the info from the links, but I won't bother much other than to point you there, because your 'request' was 'so poorly worded'.

On your points - you can resolve the differences between my links and yours.

Yours look pretty useless mostly, and are a reminder of which politicians ran the system at the time.

For examples, the 'everyone gets a cut' line was propaganda to hide the unequal cute, huge for the top and often trivial for the bottom.

So that one is 'propaganda' when used to respond to the issue of *unequal* cuts.

On the fair share issue - did your data include the cost of repaying the tax cuts, or did it just ignore that cost?

See my links for the difference that makes on who pays what.

The repayment cost being included makde the Bush 'tax cuts' a net *loss* for the lower end of the spectrum.

Here's the link to the main page I posted again for convenience, you might read it for the first time now.

link

There are others, if you learn to 'word your requests better'.

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: Evan

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Kennedy cut taxes and the economy took off.

Reagan cut taxes and the economy took off.

Clinton cut capital gains taxes and we saw a huge increase in capitals being taken and more revenue.

Bush cut taxes and the economy came out of a recession.


I think you can make the argument that lower tax rates do not lead to higher tax revenue. Hard to prove that higher economic activity leads to enough tax increases to offset the lower rates etc etc.

But it certainly seems that every time we lower tax rates we get a period of strong economic growth afterwards. Kennedy and Reagan are the best proof of this.

You should forward your analysis to the Congressional Research Service and other such esteemed groups, because these places staffed with large numbers of extremely intelligent and highly educated economists seem to think that these tax cuts produce very small levels of GDP growth, and that tax cuts financed by debt actually cause long term economic harm.

Maybe they should staff people who are part of the real world - one where tax-cuts aren't "costs". This liberal notion that tax cuts have to be "financed" is utter bullshit. Always has been and always will be. SPENDING is what necessitates financing, debt, etc. Tax-cuts don't "cost" a dime.

When will you morons ever wake up to that reality?

Aren't you the same moron who doesn't like to use financial definitions in finance discussions? Let me guess, they're liberal definitions? :laugh:

LMAO! Changing definitions midway through an argument, and then blasting others for not agreeing with him for it... great debate technique. Someone sure has a hard time admitting when he's wrong...

 

[trooper11]

my question here is, is the title of the thread to mean that if your cut taxes for EVERYONE that it will not stimulate the economy, or when you only cut for the 'rich'


and by rich, are we talking about any above 250K or some other number?


to me, I dont have any problem with cutting everyone's taxes. if you make more money (i.e. pay more to the government), it seems logical that you would get mroe back when taxes are cut by percentage. i guess the other option is to cut by a monetary number, but how in the world do you fairly pick that number?

plus, there are alot of numbers and sources being thrown around in this thread and I cant even begint o make since of who might be completey correct or not, but it seems logical tot hink that if everyone that pays taxes is getting more money back, that would be a boon for our economy. More money to spend on goods and services, more to spend on business expansion, which would also lead to more goverment funds becuase of revenue from taxes put on those goods and services and business.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: trooper11
to me, I dont have any problem with cutting everyone's taxes. if you make more money (i.e. pay more to the government), it seems logical that you would get mroe back when taxes are cut by percentage. i guess the other option is to cut by a monetary number, but how in the world do you fairly pick that number?

plus, there are alot of numbers and sources being thrown around in this thread and I cant even begint o make since of who might be completey correct or not, but it seems logical tot hink that if everyone that pays taxes is getting more money back, that would be a boon for our economy. More money to spend on goods and services, more to spend on business expansion, which would also lead to more goverment funds becuase of revenue from taxes put on those goods and services and business.

Of course, a dollar cut in taxes can be used for spending by the poor, or accumulation by the rich; but it also, in a deficit situation, adds to the debt and has to be repaid later, with interest, which has a countering harmful effect; and it also fails to be used by the government for whatever purpose it would have been, which typically also has economic benefit of varying degree.

It's about balance. When JFK cut taxes, as the right likes to point out - and I support his tax cut - he cut the top rate from a 91% rate put in place for an unusual situation, because he determined it was a drag on the economy, but he cut the top rate to 70%. Not 35%, not 39%, not 50%, not 60%, but 70%.

The right doesn't really have much explanation for that; they sort of ignore it, or try a cliche about 'gradual changes taking time', or that Kennedy was only partly right and should have cut them further, but they really just don't have much of any answer to why he chose 70%.

The answer is balance. He wanted to reduce the drag of the 91% rate.

His 70% rate still allowed for plenty of growth, we lacked any economic crisis related to that rate, our deficits were small and the nation's economic standing in the world continued to grow, the American citizen's standard of living continued to increase as the 'rising tide lifeted all boats', we continued to build America with big investments from public schools to roads to a man on the moon.

What happened after the rate was cut to 39% by Reagan? The debt skyrocketed, the nation's building slowed nearly all Americans stopped having their boat lifted by the rising tide as it all went to a few at the top, and the stage was set for the new concentration of wealth to corrupt our political system, and we saw the return of financial crises, from the Savings and Loan industry (Reagan/Bush) to the current crisis (George W. Bush).

The 39% made a top political priority by the right, to the great benefit of the top fraction of 1%, at the great expense of the nation.

 

[trooper11]

Originally posted by: Craig234


and it also fails to be used by the government for whatever purpose it would have been, which typically also has economic benefit of varying degree.

i know the government can do good things with taxes, but I have my doubts that the majority of it is being used efficiently, but thats another debate....

It's about balance. When JFK cut taxes, as the right likes to point out - and I support his tax cut - he cut the top rate from a 91% rate put in place for an unusual situation, because he determined it was a drag on the economy, but he cut the top rate to 70%. Not 35%, not 39%, not 50%, not 60%, but 70%.

so your saying tax cuts for the rich in THAT senario were proper becuase the rate was just too far out of balance. but, cutting the rate now would be wrong becuase you believe the rate is out of balance in the other direction? what is the happy medium then? going back to 70%? thats what Im trying to figure out. There has to me more to it then that. The country and the world are vastly different now, I cant imagine raising taxes dramatically on anyone would be a good idea....

The 39% made a top political priority by the right, to the great benefit of the top fraction of 1%, at the great expense of the nation.

i just dont agree that the situation we are in now is solely the fault of lowering taxes. there are tons and tons of other factors over the years that have effected our economy. From wars to the current mortgage crisis, taxes alone seems to be just one part of the problem (wether they are too high or too low).


I dont agree with just random tax cuts, but there are many different types of taxes that could be cut to spur growth, not just income taxes. The Bush tax cuts arent the answer for our situation now. simply giving me a check for $600 is nice and all, but a one time pay out cant equal long term growth. But, targeted cuts in various types of taxes (permanently or at least for a long term), could spur growth. Just like you said, JFK made targeted cuts at that time that made since for the state of the economy. I believe we should look for those same targeted cuts today to start/sustain a recovery.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Top 20% up 139% after inflation, bottom 20% 8% after inflation - that's percent, so your usual nonsense about proportionality is not relevant - you say the rich have it tough.

The problem with those numbers is how the 20% grouping is too large, because within the top 20%, the growth is highly fixed at the top - the bottom 75% of the top 20% bracket got far less than those at the top - when you get to the top tenth or hundredth of the top 1%, you see the increase top 500%, compared to 13% for the middle and 8% for the bottom.

500% versus 8% - PERCENT - and you say the rich pay too much, or at worst, every cent they possibly should.

I'm talking about this segment. It takes careful reading when you throw out % after % numbers but I kinda get what you're trying to say. The top 0.1% or 0.01% saw an increase of 500%. How does this make sense?

I threw out a scenario earlier:

Income: $10,000,000
Tax Rate: 39.6% under Clinton ==> 3,960,000 due for taxes
Tax Rate: 35% under Bush ==> $3,500,000 due for taxes
Net change: $460,000

Let's say this guy spends $2,000,000/year cuz he lives in gold.
His take home income under Clinton would be: 4,040,000
His take home income under bush would be 4,500,000
What % change is this?

A 500% increase implies that if your after tax income was 1 million, it jumped to 6 million. That means a cut of 4% in taxes caused his income to jump 5 million. How's that even possible?

What PJ has said before and I agree with his point is that you can't look at % increase only because its DECEPTIVE. When you're at the bottom of the bottom, a lot of people pay no taxes already. There's not much to cut for them unless we start handing out money to them which we already do. How much % can you increase their after-tax income if they pay nothing already? Ok, what about the guys who pay some, but very little. Even if you strip off their $500 tax, you can't expect a 139% increase in after-tax income. Come on. You know as well as I do that by cutting taxes on the low income the best you can do is give them 0 liability. When you're THAT LOW already there's nothing to cut. You can't expect a huge increase. When you're up at the top, it's NATURAL for a cut to be felt biggest there.

Is the 500% number somewhere or is it a number you pulled out of your ass?