Taxe cuts: an inconvenient truth

[Naeeldar]

Didn't say that but more and more are falling below the poverty line as well as the federal tax paying line. Declining real wages...but don't mind that. No correlation at all that the decade of the 2000's was the first FULL decade that both college and high school graduates had lower real wages at the end than when they started. Also first decade in US history that featured a decline in manufacturing jobs into any "recovery" period.

Just whistle while you work......making fries...welcome to WalMart...mowing grass. :whiste::whiste:

But none of that could possibly be because the world is changing and the US GOVT and it's peopel didn't adapt now did they?

The funny thing is skill labor jobs like electricians, carpenters etc are more valued right now than in some of the more recent years because those skills are more rare.

I'm not saying there aren't issues out there but it's our job to adapt not whine about how jobs that require no education/skill are more rare now. This whole process started ages ago with the first assembly line. It's even more true today with electronics/robots.

Manufacturing will never have the value it once did. THat will never again be the case. you can whine about it or deal with reality and look for other methods.

Please don't bring up college again either. I'll grant that it's helpful for getting your foot in the door but it's hardly necessary in order to make a good living.

 

[Craig234]

"73% of nothing is nothing" ~Andrew Mellon.

The bad economic times is why the income tax revenues fell. It's kind of hard to have a lot of revenue when unemployment is at 10%, especially compared to 2000.

The other thing is that the study fails to mention that the bottom 98% received the largest tax cut, not the top 2%. If the Clinton tax rates were restored, then 300B would be recaptured from the bottom 98%, while only 70B would be recaptured from the top 2%.

I'm sucked into replying to an Anarchist post. Oh boy.

The 'bad economic times' aren't supposed to happen with 'low taxes' according to their ideology.

Our big debt has horrible consequences later, but should be 'buying good times now'.

With that statistic about 'per capita income taxes the lowest since Truman' and other statistics comparing our personal income taxes to the rest of the indusrial world, we're low.

So, maybe the 'bad economic times' have nothing to do with the tax rates, and we're mistaking correlation and causation.

Except we're not. I won't bother to say much on it but one point: the low tax rates disproprtionately for the rich created a massive wealth bubble at the top that had a role in fueling an investment bubble that has distorted the price for commodities (in the derivatives market raising prices for everyone contributing to the bad economic times) and helped create the demand for the reckless speculation by Wall Street that led to the crash (combined with the corruption of the political system from this money to deregulate).

No, 'low tax rates' have all kinds of causes for 'bad economic times'.

They prevent the nation from investing in things that lead to better economic times (e.g., education, moon landing technology, etc.) They can lead to massive debt that hurts us later, with even now after decades the interest on the debt being a huge and growing part of our budget - as well as bankrupting things like the Social Security 'trust fund'.

And they fuel speculation on Wall Street when there is too much free cash at the top looking for a good return - speculation that has a history of crashing the economy.

The simple fact is, these right-wing policies have one relevant characteristic - they make the rich richer. Period. But because of that, there's an army of propagandists creating convincing lies to advocate them, of con men to sell them to the public and get them votes, to rip the American people off and destroy the economy for most Americans so that a few can get really rich at their expense, which is exactly what is happening. But you will find many sweet-sounding lies about the policies, because there is a propaganda campaign.

Toss in the usual propaganda - 'greedy unions' you should hate, the secret desire straw man of all liberals to socialize all business in the US into government ownership, etc.

Ironically, the right-wing policy to slash education helps them have more idiots who fall for their lies.

Anarchist, you posted a lie - I don't think you meant to. When you talk about who got the most benefit from the Bush tax cuts, you don't compare the aggregate totals - 2% of Americans who get $70 billion versus the other 98% who get $300 billion - that's pointless, like saying the bill should give me personally $10 billion, because the rest of America still benefits more. You look at things like the relative percentages affected - compare 'per capita'. The rich got the lion's share, more than their 'proportional share', of the money.

That's bad - but it's even worse when they are already skyrocketing in income compared to everyone else, with the bottom 80% getting nothing (or less) for 30 years after inflaiton while the increase are a higher percent the higher on the list - with the top 0.1% making hundreds of percent more.

 

[Craig234]

This is a great article, making clear the ability to lie to the American people for decades based on the money to pay for the lies. See my sig for the author.

When I say there is a big propaganda effort in the US to push policies good for the rich and bad for the rest of the country, the four top propaganda machines I list are AEI, Hoover, Heritage and Cato. Funny enough, in one point the article quickly mentions three of the four.

These agencies were largely created in response to 'the Powell Memo' by Lewis Powell shortly before Nixon put him on the Supreme Court, saying that the rich were tired of the American society's political movements being about things that were 'good for the people' like the environment, and it was hight time the rich form organiations to grow 'astro turf' (modern phrase, not in the memo) movements to use the politics to create public acceptance of the policies for the rich.

Large donations by a handful of wealthy radical right-wing tycoons led to the creation of the propaganda tanks above - names like Coors, Scaife, Koch, Olin. There was nothing on 'the other side' to point out the lies, except for some groups with a small fraction of the budgets - one think tank, Brookings - and lacking the money for the propaganda distribution. The right built armies of easily available 'pundits' to join any talk show, to write articles for any editorial page, to spread their lies.

And that is what Johnston is debunking.

Save234

 

[umbrella39]

No need to fear the TRUTH. WE THE PEOPLE are fully alert now, wide awake with eyes WIDE OPEN in a state of readiness to stop these fucking marxists in their tracks before they can do more to harm America.

Bad parody is bad. You're not the best salesman, just saying.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Didn't say that but more and more are falling below the poverty line as well as the federal tax paying line. Declining real wages...but don't mind that. No correlation at all that the decade of the 2000's was the first FULL decade that both college and high school graduates had lower real wages at the end than when they started. Also first decade in US history that featured a decline in manufacturing jobs into any "recovery" period. US needs bubble after bubble after bubble to keep moving forward now. Next up: education bubble....where we have an oversupply of college educated people who will be working at Walmart (largest employer in the world - selling stuff instead of value added making stuff).

Just whistle while you work......making fries...welcome to WalMart...mowing grass. :whiste::whiste:

Even without outsourcing manufacturing is screwed in the long run. I share your concern for the ability of a service based economy to provide enough middle class jobs but manufacturing is dead end even if you implemented protectionist policies which come with huge trade offs.

 

[Acanthus]

"73% of nothing is nothing" ~Andrew Mellon.

The bad economic times is why the income tax revenues fell. It's kind of hard to have a lot of revenue when unemployment is at 10%, especially compared to 2000.

The other thing is that the study fails to mention that the bottom 98% received the largest tax cut, not the top 2%. If the Clinton tax rates were restored, then 300B would be recaptured from the bottom 98%, while only 70B would be recaptured from the top 2%.

It is kind of ironic that you state an idea up at the top there, and then smash your idea like a mosquito on a windshield seconds later.

What is a greater amount of money? 5% of $20,000 or 2% of $10,000,000?

Also, most people wanted Clinton tax rates on the top bracket only.

Also, your stats choose the bottom 98% for the 300B figure; What if we used a less stupid figure, like the bottom 4 quintiles?

 

[IGBT]

taxes are income confiscation. It's not your money. Your income is your personal property. Compensation for time out of your life.

 

[Jhhnn]

The funny thing is skill labor jobs like electricians, carpenters etc are more valued right now than in some of the more recent years because those skills are more rare.

You apparently haven't noticed that construction is in the toilet, and all the construction trades along with it.

Your disconnect from reality is profound, and typical of the Right.

 

[Double Trouble]

The article is complete crap. As others have pointed out, the choice of years is completely absurd, as is the jumping to conclusions not supported by the data and obviously not understanding the subject matter very well.

Obviously just an ideology piece rather than actual analysis.

 

[Jhhnn]

The article is complete crap. As others have pointed out, the choice of years is completely absurd, as is the jumping to conclusions not supported by the data and obviously not understanding the subject matter very well.

Obviously just an ideology piece rather than actual analysis.

So cite a study using actual figures rather than ideological balderdash to counter it.

 

[Zebo]

The real problem is not less taxes...it's the fact that we're going to soon have a generation of people who are making less wages than the previous one. It's already happened for the 2000-2009 decade. Those "high paying" service jobs should be kicking in any day now and turn that trend around. Surely, those tax cut trickle downs will work soon.....

This hard to pay teachers when parents make low wage service jobs.

Hard to pay anything we we refuse to tax those offshoring and inshoring at least as much as W2 earners.

 

[Darwin333]

So cite a study using actual figures rather than ideological balderdash to counter it.

You really want to argue that those two years weren't cherrypicked?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Wow, the claim of the article is even more apparent as a percentage of GDP, with clear trends pre and post- Bush 43 tax cuts. Thanks for posting that graph.

 

[hal2kilo]

Are we sure this isn't spidey? I mean really sure?

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[matt0611]

Is this the best the liberals can come up with, 2 cherry picked dates?

Ahahahahaha.

Wow, now I know I feel even more confident that they're wrong about this if this is all they have. Thanks!

 

[Jhhnn]

Pick any year from 1993 to 2000 as a baseline. Subtract for the false prosperity of the housing bubble, and the Author's conclusions hold true. Tax cuts, unsurprisingly, reduce govt revenues, particularly tax cuts at the top where the majority of income occurs. That is, of course, part of the ongoing process of income concentration at the top that been occurring all through the Reaganomics period of the last 30 years. The Bush years simply accelerated the process.

Make your own study from this-

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

See table 5. Notice that the income share of the households above the 95th percentile increased dramatically, while the share of those below the 90th percentile fell, particularly those in the bottom 50%.

Had the perpetrators of economic fraud not convinced the govt to engage in massive deficit spending as cover, those differences would be even more profound.

 

[Double Trouble]

So cite a study using actual figures rather than ideological balderdash to counter it.

The OP (and the author of the article) made flawed assertions based on flawed data and a flawed study. It's not up to me to provide some counter argument, I just pointed out that it's drivel and why.

 

[Double Trouble]

Pick any year from 1993 to 2000 as a baseline. Subtract for the false prosperity of the housing bubble, and the Author's conclusions hold true. Tax cuts, unsurprisingly, reduce govt revenues, particularly tax cuts at the top where the majority of income occurs. That is, of course, part of the ongoing process of income concentration at the top that been occurring all through the Reaganomics period of the last 30 years. The Bush years simply accelerated the process.

Make your own study from this-

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

See table 5. Notice that the income share of the households above the 95th percentile increased dramatically, while the share of those below the 90th percentile fell, particularly those in the bottom 50%.

Had the perpetrators of economic fraud not convinced the govt to engage in massive deficit spending as cover, those differences would be even more profound.

I just have to laugh when I see nonsense like "Subtract for the false prosperity of the housing bubble". Do you have any clue how hard (impossible) it would be to actually somehow isolate the exact effects of one particular part of the economy and "subtract" it?

Funny stuff. You guys are just searching and grasping for anything to help confirm your established belief about tax cuts.

Personally I'm not for tax cuts because they pay for themselves. Regardless of whether they do or not, I'm for any tax cuts as long as they go along with spending reductions. The nature of government and waste is to always keep growing. Anything that can reduce that growth is a good thing. Reducing taxes while not reducing (or hell, even increasing) spending is stupid, as is constantly increasing taxes to fund the ever expanding government. The only correct answer is to cut taxes and spending.

 

[Jhhnn]

The OP (and the author of the article) made flawed assertions based on flawed data and a flawed study. It's not up to me to provide some counter argument, I just pointed out that it's drivel and why.

Merely your opinion w/o some sort of corroboration, right?

 

[Jhhnn]

I just have to laugh when I see nonsense like "Subtract for the false prosperity of the housing bubble". Do you have any clue how hard (impossible) it would be to actually somehow isolate the exact effects of one particular part of the economy and "subtract" it?

Funny stuff. You guys are just searching and grasping for anything to help confirm your established belief about tax cuts.

Personally I'm not for tax cuts because they pay for themselves. Regardless of whether they do or not, I'm for any tax cuts as long as they go along with spending reductions. The nature of government and waste is to always keep growing. Anything that can reduce that growth is a good thing. Reducing taxes while not reducing (or hell, even increasing) spending is stupid, as is constantly increasing taxes to fund the ever expanding government. The only correct answer is to cut taxes and spending.

Well, your Republican heroes have been cutting taxes and regulations for decades, even as they've grown the govt as much as or more than their political adversaries. And, of course, everybody wants to cut spending, or say they do, except when it comes down to actually doing it. What makes you think that their promises of doing so are any more meaningful than the false promises of Reaganomics?

 

[matt0611]

Well, your Republican heroes have been cutting taxes and regulations for decades, even as they've grown the govt as much as or more than their political adversaries. And, of course, everybody wants to cut spending, or say they do, except when it comes down to actually doing it. What makes you think that their promises of doing so are any more meaningful than the false promises of Reaganomics?

You call this cutting taxes? In real terms, we are paying much more per person than we did decades ago, not like this has been going down at all.

And what was deregulated specifically? Not arguing, its just I hear people say that but I never know precisely what they are referring to when they say this.

 

[sweetca]

so many brilliant people here....

 

[Jhhnn]

You call this cutting taxes? In real terms, we are paying much more per person than we did decades ago, not like this has been going down at all.

And what was deregulated specifically? Not arguing, its just I hear people say that but I never know precisely what they are referring to when they say this.

Heh. Compare it to this chart. Tell me what you see. Inflation adjusted GDP increased 150% and inflation adjusted govt revenue increased by only 50%. Income distribution shifted radically to the top at the same time, even as top earners' tax rates plummeted. Federal debt has grown explosively since 1980, other than during the Clinton years.

http://www.supportingevidence.com/Government/US_GDP_over_time.html

Can't figure it out? You're not supposed to. Just keep on listening to the pundits and prognosticators of the Right- they'll tell you what you want to hear.

 

[matt0611]

Heh. Compare it to this chart. Tell me what you see. Inflation adjusted GDP increased 150% and inflation adjusted govt revenue increased by only 50%. Income distribution shifted radically to the top at the same time, even as top earners' tax rates plummeted. Federal debt has grown explosively since 1980, other than during the Clinton years.

http://www.supportingevidence.com/Government/US_GDP_over_time.html

Can't figure it out? You're not supposed to. Just keep on listening to the pundits and prognosticators of the Right- they'll tell you what you want to hear.

Again, why do taxes need to be raised with GDP to satisfy you?
They have been going up steadily in real terms per capita over the decades.

The government has been gaining more real resources per person over the years. How does this translate to taxes being cut?

Of course, all of this hides the hidden tax of inflation that secretly taxes all of us every year as the government spends more money than it takes in and prints some to help make up the shortfall.

 

[Double Trouble]

Merely your opinion w/o some sort of corroboration, right?

I believe in my post I mentioned several reasons why it's drivel. Try viewing things through logic instead of a partisan position and you'll agree.

Well, your Republican heroes

Huh? I guess I didn't get the memo to let me know that I'm supposed to be a republican or that they are somehow my heroes.

have been cutting taxes and regulations for decades, even as they've grown the govt as much as or more than their political adversaries. And, of course, everybody wants to cut spending, or say they do, except when it comes down to actually doing it. What makes you think that their promises of doing so are any more meaningful than the false promises of Reaganomics?

You're under the mistaken assumption that I believe the promises of *any* politician. I don't trust any of them, and I damn sure have never been happy with how the party of supposed small government has managed to increase it's size dramatically. Of course the democrats have managed to make any previous deficit seem paltry in comparison. Two sides of a sucky coin. One side wants to tax less while spending more, the other wants to tax more and spend into oblivion.

As I stated already, I believe in tax cuts but only as long as they go with equal spending cuts. Balanced budgets are a must in terms of long term fiscal planning. I also think we need a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, so idiot politicians can't spend us into the ground, but that's a whole other story.....