parados wrote:Nothing like 10 vague statements with nothing to support any of them.
Myth #1.
What historical average? Since 1789? Or since post WW2?
Fact, the average tax revenue as a % of GDP from 2003 is NOT above the average revenue as % of GDP since 1947. Yes, 2 of Bush's years have had revenues above the average but the total is NOT and 4 of his 6 years were NOT above the average.
http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf
table 1.2
The average revenue as % of GDP from 1946-2007 is 17.9
Bush's revenue as % of GDP is 16.5, 16.4, 17.6, 18.5, 18.8, 17.6
Tax revenues in 2006 were 18.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which is actually above the 20-year, 40-year, and 60-year historical averages. The historical averages range between 17.9 percent and 18.3 percent of GDP, depending on the time horizon.
The inflation-adjusted 20 percent tax revenue increase between 2004 and 2006 represents the largest two-year revenue surge [url=The historical averages range between 17.9 percent and 18.3 percent of GDP, depending on the time horizon.
]since 1965-1967.[/url] Claims that Americans are undertaxed by historical standards are patently false.
Some critics of President George W. Bush's tax policies concede that tax revenues exceed the historical average yet assert that revenues are historically low for economies in the fourth year of an expansion. Setting aside that some of these tax policies are partly responsible for that economic expansion, the numbers simply do not support this claim.
Comparing tax revenues in the fourth fiscal year after the end of each of the past three recessions shows nearly equal tax revenues of:
18.4 percent of GDP in 1987,
18.5 percent of GDP in 1995, and
18.4 percent of GDP in 2006.
While revenues as a percentage of GDP have not fully returned to pre-recession levels (20.9 percent in 2000), it is now clear that the pre-recession level was a major historical anomaly caused by a temporary stock market bubble.
Quote:Myth #2
Why does this only deal with 2006? When were the tax cuts passed?
Because the myths were written in 2006.
Quote:Myth # 10 I love this one.
Fact. Since the Bush tax cuts the % of Revenues for the federal government that comes from income taxes has decreased dramatically. The truth is that a larger share of the Federal revenue is now coming from FICA taxes than it was before the Bush tax cuts. In 2000 the Federal government took in 1 trillion in income taxes and 652 billion in FICA. IN 2006, 1.04 trillion in income taxes and 837 billion in FICA. Anyone that tells you that the rich pay more of the FICA is telling you a large fib. The attempt to refute by only including income taxes is an outright deception.
historical tables from above. Table 2.1
You should check the facts McG before you post something that is so obviously inaccurate.
If more money is coming in through FICA, then more people are working. The tax cuts being discussed are income taxes though.
In 2000, the top 60 percent of taxpayers paid 100 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 40 percent collectively paid no income taxes. Lawmakers writing the 2001 tax cuts faced quite a challenge in giving the bulk of the income tax savings to a population that was already paying no income taxes.
Rather than exclude these Americans, lawmakers used the tax code to subsidize them. (Some economists would say this made that group's collective tax burden negative.)First, lawmakers lowered the initial tax brackets from 15 percent to 10 percent and then expanded the refundable child tax credit, which, along with the refundable earned income tax credit (EITC), reduced the typical low-income tax burden to well below zero. As a result, the U.S. Treasury now mails tax "refunds" to a large proportion of these Americans that exceed the amounts of tax that they actually paid.
All in all, the number of tax filers with zero or negative income tax liability rose from 30 million to 40 million, or about 30 percent of all tax filers. The remaining 70 percent of tax filers received lower income tax rates, lower investment taxes, and lower estate taxes from the 2001 legislation.
Consequently, from 2000 to 2004, the share of all individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40 percent dropped from zero percent to -4 percent, meaning that the average family in those quintiles received a subsidy from the IRS. By contrast, the share paid by the top quintile of households (by income) increased from 81 percent to 85 percent.
Expanding the data to include all federal taxes, the share paid by the top quintile edged up from 66.6 percent in 2000 to 67.1 percent in 2004, while the bottom 40 percent's share dipped from 5.9 percent to 5.4 percent. Clearly, the tax cuts have led to the rich shouldering more of the income tax burden and the poor shouldering less.
My facts are better then your facts.
