Report: 1/3 of tax cuts benefit top 1% of Americans...

squinney wrote:

I'm confused, Baldimo. Are you going to school, trying to become a police officer, or serving in Iraq?

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=839017&highlight=#839017

I never said I was in Iraq I said I joined so that I could serve in Iraq. I don't know if you have ever heard of the Reservers but that is who I am with. So I can do 2 things at once. I can serve my country and improve the lives of my family at the same time without having to put my life on hold. I will end up in Iraq but it looks like I will end up in Afghanistan due to the type of work that I do.

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Quote:

It doesn't matter how many you buy or if you buy one at all, it is their money and they earned it.

Who says they earned it? They do. CEOs and other top executives in this country overpay themselves in comparison to their counterparts around the world by a factor of 300%. The average salary for a Honda executive is 26 times the average factory floor worker, at Ford it's almost 600 times the worker's wage. Earned it? More like swiped it.

But what the heck, we all have health care protection, plenty of vacation time and lots of job security down here in the trenchs. Right?
Joe

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No, Bush dident claim that he was going to take from the rich and give to the poor. But he is takeing from the middle class and giveing to the rich.

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Remember--poverty tends to increase crime. That means if there is less poverty there is less money spent on fighting crime.
Also, to the comment that the rich use the government less, the fact is that in no other country--first world or not--could a person get as rich as people do here (see previous post on difference in pay between execs/workers in US vs. Japan), so if they miss out on a tiny bit too bad. Why are so many in our country, the richest in the world, without health care? Because the gap between the rich and the poor is so great. Personally, I don't like the healthcare systems the governments of countries like Canada use, which tend to be inefficient (like the Post Office, though it technically is at least somewhat independent). However, the fact is this. The playing field will never be fair--Marx was too much of an idealist (Jesus too for that matter :wink: ). Nonetheless, we can try to ensure that every child won't remain in poverty if they give it their best. So I ask, where is your American spirit Laughing

? In all seriousness, get more money to the poor and middle class and they more likely will spend it on necessities than luxury items which benefit far fewer.

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rabel22 wrote:

No, Bush dident claim that he was going to take from the rich and give to the poor. But he is takeing from the middle class and giveing to the rich.

No, you are wrong, and not only that, but wrong about something tremendously obvious.

If everyone were given 10% tax cut, someone who paid $10,000 in taxes would pay $1000 less. Those who paid $1,000 in taxes would pay $100 less. The rich get more tax money back because they pay more tax, not because anyone is showing favoritism to them. In fact, the tax cut is slightly biased in favor of people in lower income brackets.

From: http://www.american-partisan.com/cols/2001/ey/qtr1/0308.htm

Quote:

President Bush's tax plan actually provides larger percentage cuts to those that have a lower income in our nation. A couple making $20,000 per year will have their taxes cut by 41 percent from $990 per year to $580 per year. Furthermore, a couple with two children and an income of $55,000 would get a 56 percent cut in taxes. Finally, that same couple making $400,000 per year would have their income taxes lowered from $104,877 to $91,424 or a 13 percent reduction.

So please stop this mindless repetition of a blatant falsehood.

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Year-by-Year Analysis of the Bush Tax Cuts Shows Growing Tilt to the Very Rich

http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm

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Brandon9000 wrote:

If everyone were given 10% tax cut, someone who paid $10,000 in taxes would pay $1000 less. Those who paid $1,000 in taxes would pay $100 less. The rich get more tax money back because they pay more tax, not because anyone is showing favoritism to them.

Did the Bush tax cuts consist of an across-the-board decrease in tax rates, as you describe?

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"If everyone were given" is a hypothetical, not based of real figures on how the law is written.

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LW
Unfortunately the legislation is based on the hypothetical as well. Truth and reality never entered the picture. At least half of the congressmen never read the entire text of the bill. I doubt they would understand it if they did. It's like most of the legislation passing thru congress. Partisan politics. Follow the leader, you Vill sign!!

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Bush Sr. called it Voodoo Economics but nevertheless proceeded to get out the needles and make his own stuffed dolls.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
If everyone were given 10% tax cut, someone who paid $10,000 in taxes would pay $1000 less. Those who paid $1,000 in taxes would pay $100 less. The rich get more tax money back because they pay more tax, not because anyone is showing favoritism to them.

Did the Bush tax cuts consist of an across-the-board decrease in tax rates, as you describe?

No, it is not a single percentage reduction, but the mere fact that the rich are getting more money back is being used as evidence that the cut favors the rich. As per my most recent post above, the percentages actually favor the lower income brackets somewhat.

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au1929 wrote:

Year-by-Year Analysis of the Bush Tax Cuts Shows Growing Tilt to the Very Rich

http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm

This citation refers almost exclusively to dollar amounts returned. Obviously, in a fair tax cut, those who pay more taxes get a larger dollar amount back.

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Brandon
The tax cut if it is to do the economy and of course the people who need it most any good the benefits should fall to the middle class and below. Yes, of course those who pay more will get more if we are dealing in percentages. The question is really whether the Government is concerned with the needs of the many and the economy or the bank accounts of the few. This tax legislation answers the question. The bank accounts of the few.

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Brandon must be fabulously wealthy or is satisfied with the paltry annual amount of money he's getting back.

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When people start useing percentages to prove a point instead of dollar figures you can usually bet money they have a weak argument.

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LW
Could be but I doubt it. He must be one of those Floridians who also believe they run free elections in his state.

Brandon, I hope you and all Floridian members were not affected by the recent storm.

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This is nothing but sophistry. In a fair tax cut, the percentages will be equal in the various income brackets. Any attempt to portray that as favoritism is specious. In fact the result of this tax cut is that the wealthiest are left with a slightly higher fraction of the burden than before.

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The Bush Tax: How Much Is It Costing You?

Rather than take responsibility for our common future, Bush has shifted costs to states and communities, who then pass them on to you. Across the country, people are seeing their property taxes skyrocket. State college tuition at 4-year schools has increased this year by an average of $579 nationwide. Half a million children have been deprived of health coverage. States and local government have cut vital services, and we’re all having to pay more for less. That’s the Bush Tax.

Bush is largely to blame for the fiscal crisis that has forced states and communities to raise taxes and slash services. According to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), “A conservative estimate suggests that federal policies are costing states and localities about $185 billion over the four-year course of the state fiscal crisis.” Bush has shifted health costs to states and forced states to pay for unfunded mandates for homeland security, election reform, and No Child Left Behind. As a result, states and communities have had no choice but to raise taxes and cut services. That’s the Bush Tax. (For details, see the link below to the CBPP report.)

Our children and grandchildren will be paying the Bush Tax. Bush promised, "I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." Yet as a direct consequence of his tax policy, over six years an American family of four will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt. That’s the Bush Tax.

How is Bush paying for his tax cuts? To pay for his tax program, Bush raided Social Security Trust Funds and made off with $500 billion, eroding our protections for the elderly. Then he borrowed another $500 billion from foreigners, putting our future in their hands. For every $100 you got back in tax cuts, $40 was borrowed from foreigners, $20 was borrowed from Americans, and $40 was taken from Social Security.

The Bush Tax is huge – many times greater than most people’s income tax cut under Bush. For the bottom 60 percent of Americans, the average tax cut was just $304. The median tax cut for all Americans was only $470. In contrast, the average tax cut for those making over $1 million a year was $112,925.

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au1929 wrote:

For the bottom 60 percent of Americans, the average tax cut was just $304. The median tax cut for all Americans was only $470. In contrast, the average tax cut for those making over $1 million a year was $112,925.

This is so stupid as to verge on the supernatural. I am dealing with people who think that if someone paying $100,000 a year in taxes get back $10,000, that means that someone paying $5,000 a year in taxes should also get back $10,000.

The percentages in the Bush taxt cut are actually skewed slightly against the highest tax brackets.

From: http://www.american-partisan.com/cols/2001/ey/qtr1/0308.htm

Quote:

President Bush's tax plan actually provides larger percentage cuts to those that have a lower income in our nation. A couple making $20,000 per year will have their taxes cut by 41 percent from $990 per year to $580 per year. Furthermore, a couple with two children and an income of $55,000 would get a 56 percent cut in taxes. Finally, that same couple making $400,000 per year would have their income taxes lowered from $104,877 to $91,424 or a 13 percent reduction.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

No, it is not a single percentage reduction, but the mere fact that the rich are getting more money back is being used as evidence that the cut favors the rich. As per my most recent post above, the percentages actually favor the lower income brackets somewhat.

I agree that one cannot determine the "fairness" of a tax cut merely on the dollar amounts involved. But then one cannot determine the "fairness" of those cuts merely on the percentages involved either. Indeed, one cannot determine the "fairness" of any kind of tax policy unless one settles on a definition of "fairness."

Brandon9000 wrote:

This is nothing but sophistry. In a fair tax cut, the percentages will be equal in the various income brackets. Any attempt to portray that as favoritism is specious. In fact the result of this tax cut is that the wealthiest are left with a slightly higher fraction of the burden than before.

There is, I think, a natural inclination to view an across-the-board cut in percentages as being somehow "fair." According to this naive view, a 5% tax cut for everyone is much fairer than, say, a 1% cut for the wealthy and a 10% cut for everyone else.

But this is the fairness of Procrustes, not of the laws. The income tax rates are already progressive, so we've already decided that this kind of equality is not fair. Rather, our income tax code recognizes that people earning more should not only pay more taxes, as measured in absolute dollars, but they should also pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes. To say, then, that an across-the-board tax cut is "fair" contradicts the notion of "fairness" that underlies the entire tax system.

Now, of course, you could argue that a progressive income tax system is not fair -- that the only fair system is a flat tax that puts everyone in the same tax bracket. That's a worthwhile argument, and one that deserves some consideration. But it's not an argument that the Bush administration is making, and it's not an argument that was made in conjunction with the Bush tax cuts.

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Report: 1/3 of tax cuts benefit top 1% of Americans...

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