AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

No, the rich got no tax cuts as those on your side seem to be defining 'cuts'. Had you read the article, you would have seen that. Bush/Congress reduced the tax RATE which resulted in the rich paying substantially more in taxes than they had been paying previously. Admittedly the increase in tax payments was mostly voluntary, which no doubt offends some leftists who don't want to appreciate how government policy affects human behavior, but only in the liberal world is more taxes collected called giving the rich an unfair tax cut. But then only in the liberal world is a reduction in the rate of increase of spending called a spending cut.

According to the article, the rich got tax cuts. According to the article, the were paying less in taxes than they had been paying previously.

You're really just making this up as you go along, don't you?

See, the point the article was making is that after the Bush tax cuts, the rich were paying a bigger share of total taxes than before. But that's really kind of irrelevant.

Let's look at an example. Let's say there's a tiny nation, with only two tax payers. One rich tax payer who pays $1,000 per year. One poor tax payer who pays $100 per year. The total amount of taxes raised is $1,100. The rich tax payer pays 10 times as much as the poor tax payer.
Now the new government cuts taxes. The tax cuts are 5% for the rich, and 10% for the poor. The rich tax payer now pays $950 per year, and the poor tax payer pays $90 per year. The total amount of taxes raised has gone down to $1,040. The rich tax payer now pays $50 less than before. The poor tax payer now pays $10 less than before. The rich tax payer now pays 10.56 times as much as the poor tax payer.

3 Replies

@old europe,

Foxie is good at "misinterpretation." Her views are usually based on her own perceptions of what really is.

oe, I like the way you present it in such an elementary way, most everyone will understand it. But with Foxie, that's a big question mark. LOL

0 Replies

@old europe,

But that isn't the way it works OE. History is pretty reliable to show that if you change the tax structure, you change people's behavior.

Before the tax cut, the rich guy paid taxes on the $1000 but he also had half his money tied up in tax shelters and real estate where the tax man couldn't touch it. So when the tax rates went down, the little guy paid a little less in taxes, but the rich guy could now make more money putting his sheltered stuff into play and now was paying taxes on $2000 instead of $1000, but the lower tax RATE still allowed him to realize a bigger return on his money even with the extra taxes.

And he could afford to give a raise or extra benefits to the poor guy who worked for him. The poor guy had to be working for him since there wasn't anybody else to give the poor man a job. Raise the taxes on the rich guy too much though, and he stops putting money into play where it can be taxed as easily and the poor guy's job could go away.

Poor people don't create jobs. Richer people do.

Those who think the rich should pay more or shouldn't get benefit with more gross savings with tax cuts than little guy figure on everything staying the same. It won't.

So if the ONLY reason to raise taxes on the rich is the satisfaction of punishing the rich by those who are plagued with class envy, you're only biting off your nose to spite your face.

If your goal is to help the poor and increase treasury revenues, you won't get very good results by significantly raising taxes on the rich.

2 Replies

A gem from today's e-mail:

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” "Margaret Thatcher.

(If she didn't actually say that, I can imagine it as being something she would say.)

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Gee, can you beat that? The rich guy gives the poor guy a raise and extra benefits. Interesting how the middle class and poor hardly kept up with inflation during Bush's presidency. LOL

0 Replies

@Foxfyre,

Well, you can argue about the effects of tax cuts as long as you want, but that doesn't make your statement true. You claimed that the rich didn't get any tax cuts - which is not true, and even contradicted by the article you posted. You claimed that rich had to pay more in taxes than they had been paying previously - which is not true, and even contradicted by the article you posted.

I'm not making any kind of argument here whether taxes should be cut or raised. I'm merely pointing out that the article said exactly the opposite of what you're claiming it said.

1 Reply

@old europe,

old europe wrote:

Let's look at an example. Let's say there's a tiny nation, with only two tax payers. One rich tax payer who pays $1,000 per year. One poor tax payer who pays $100 per year. The total amount of taxes raised is $1,100. The rich tax payer pays 10 times as much as the poor tax payer.
Now the new government cuts taxes. The tax cuts are 5% for the rich, and 10% for the poor. The rich tax payer now pays $950 per year, and the poor tax payer pays $90 per year. The total amount of taxes raised has gone down to $1,040. The rich tax payer now pays $50 less than before. The poor tax payer now pays $10 less than before. The rich tax payer now pays 10.56 times as much as the poor tax payer.

To add my two cents worth, using your example oe, which I think is a good one, liberals would claim the rich got a bigger tax cut than the poor. Conservatives point out that the poor got a bigger reduction, and not only that, the rich now pay a higher share of the taxes. I think this is what has been happening, but Obama and other liberals claim the rich have been given all the breaks.

The whole point of the argument centers around the desire of liberals to claim the poor are being unduly punished with taxes while they continue to pay less and less tax, in fact they mostly pay no tax whatsoever. So I simply fail to see the logic that the rich are getting richer on the backs of the poor. I think taxes are not doing this, it is something else going on, the reduction of the industries in this country that supported the poor to middle class. The factors driving that cannot be attributed to taxation. For example, it is simply unrealistic to expect to become wealthy by working mundane jobs that require no education or skill, and that is what some people seem to wish to expect, and it is simply unrealistic.

0 Replies

@old europe,

old europe wrote:

Well, you can argue about the effects of tax cuts as long as you want, but that doesn't make your statement true. You claimed that the rich didn't get any tax cuts - which is not true, and even contradicted by the article you posted. You claimed that rich had to pay more in taxes than they had been paying previously - which is not true, and even contradicted by the article you posted.

I'm not making any kind of argument here whether taxes should be cut or raised. I'm merely pointing out that the article said exactly the opposite of what you're claiming it said.

Its a problem with semantics. The rich got a reduction in tax rate but the net effect due to incentive to change their behavior was for them to pay substantially more in taxes. I will concede that the tax rates were cut for the rich, but I'm trying to make a point here so okay, if that is a problem for those who can't think outside of the box, I will amend my statement and call it a tax cut. Where I have a difficult reconciling the term with the reality, however, is how do you qualify a substantial increase in taxes paid as a 'tax cut'?

But okay, I'll concede. It's a tax cut.

At the same time, almost all of the the working poor were dropped from the tax rolls altogether. Now that was truly a tax cut.

So let's go back to your example.

The guy making $1,000 pays $100 in taxes. When the tax rates are reduced by 10%, he pays $90 in taxes. With the $10 he saves, he is able to give the poor guy a $1 raise and invests the rest to generate more income on which he eventually pays taxes more than $10 tax reduction he received.

The poor guy making $100 pays $1 in taxes. When the tax rates are reduced for the rich guy, his taxes are forgiven completely and he pays nothing but he gets a $1 raise plus he pays no taxes so he is ahead $2 and perhaps can realize a lot more as the rich man grows the business.

I say this is a win-win situation for the rich guy, the poor guy, and the national treasury.

But you seem to only see that the rich guy got to pay $10 less in taxes while the poor guy only got to pay $1 less in taxes.

1 Reply

http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Rob/bloodyguy.png

T
K
O

2 Replies

@Diest TKO,

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Are you saying, DIest TKO, that the figure with theknife is Hamas? Please elaborate.

0 Replies

@old europe,

I sent that o a friend like a day or two ago. I love it.

T
K
O

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

Do you love it because it is incomprehensible or because it is poorly drawn?

Is the Yellow Figure supposed to be Treasury Secretary Geithner?

0 Replies

Quote:

http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TablePrint.asp?FirstYear=1965&LastYear=2008&Freq=Year&SelectedTable=5&ViewSeries=NO&Java=no&MaxValue=14412.8&MaxChars=8&Request3Place=N&3Place=N&FromView=YES&Legal=&Land=
Bureau of Economic Analysis
National Income and Product Accounts Table
Table 1.1.5. Gross Domestic Product
[Billions of dollars]
Today is: 2/9/2009 Last Revised on January 30, 2009 Next Release Date February 27, 2009

1976 " 1,825.3 --
1977 -- 2,030.9
1978 -- 2,294.7
1979 -- 2,563.3
1980 -- 2,789.5 -- +52.8
1981 "- 3,128.4
1982 "- 3,255.0
1983 "- 3,536.7
1984 "- 3,933.2 -- +41.0
1985 "- 4,220.3
1986 "- 4,462.8
1987 "- 4,739.5
1988 "- 5,103.8 -- +29.8
1989 "- 5,484.4
1990 "- 5,803.1
1991 "- 5,995.9
1992 "- 6,337.7 -- +24.2
1993 "- 6,657.4
1994 "- 7,072.2
1995 "- 7,397.7
1996 "- 7,816.9 -- +23.3
1997 "- 8,304.3
1998 "- 8,747.0
1999 "- 9,268.4
2000 "- 9,817.0 " +12.8
2001 "- 10,128.0
2002 "- 10,469.6
2003 "- 10,960.8
2004 "- 11,685.9 -- +19.0
2005 "- 12,421.9
2006 "- 13,178.4 -- +12.8(over 2 years)
2007 "- 13,807.5
2008 "- 14,208.7 -- +21.6(over 4 years)
...

2 Replies

@ican711nm,

What do you think is going to happen within Obama's first term ???

I think GPD growth will be zero.

I think GPD recession will be at least 10%.

MALs go celebrate!

MACs go fight now!

0 Replies

Sounds as though Ican has discovered that cleaning up the filthy mess the conservatives have left Obama will take some doing...and some time.

Well that is progress.

Ya gotta wonder why it took this long...but...

0 Replies

Gee. Who would have thought that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and the sheep who do their bidding are conservatives? They had substantial majorities in Congress for the past two years and could have easily put policies and fixes into the system that would have headed off this whole thing or at least greatly blunted its negative effect. They didn't.

That doesn't absolve the GOP from culpability as they were not hollering bloody murder from the rooftops, but at least some were sounding the alarm even while Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were in front of the cameras saying that everything was just fine.

Making self righteous and sanctimonious proclamations of blame, however, don't fix the problems do they. If they did, we would have Utopia by now.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Quote:

A gem from today's e-mail:

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” "Margaret Thatcher.

(If she didn't actually say that, I can imagine it as being something she would say.)

Oh, the cognitive dissonance! Talk about a one track mind. Foxy, you can only see black or white at one point in time.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Just as you take any opportunity for an ad hominem pot shot at somebody saying something with which you disagree, JTT. But I have never seen you do that to anybody on your side. Or to yourself for that matter.

Pot - kettle

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

We all know now that those GDP figures were built on a house of cards that has now collapsed from the buildup since 2001.

All thanks to Bush and company.

1 Reply

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know