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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
Uh, Tax Rates At Their Lowest Point In 60 Years Is A Problem...?
Saturday, April 17, 2010 7:07 AM
NIKI2
Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...
Quote:64 percent of Tea Party supporters think the administration has raised taxes -- a finding that might leave Democrats banging their heads against their desks.
Quote:"Taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution. "The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous,” Gale told Hotsheet. “The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand.”
Quote:It’s Tax Day, and every partisan Dem wants to get in their shots at the ignoramuses on the right, so it’s natural that they would highlight this report. But it kind of reveals a larger problem: “The American people need to be reminded that 98 percent of Americans got a tax cut last year,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday. Reid was referring to the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus — essentially, the only Obama policy to really impact people’s 2009 tax returns. In fact, tax refunds reached an all-time high this year in part because of the stimulus, the president said in his weekly address on Saturday. Meanwhile, taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution. “The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous,” Gale told Hotsheet. “The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand.” Tax rates are at a historically low level not because the burden has been taken completely off the poor and the middle class, people. It’s because taxes have been ridiculously low for the wealthy since the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, and nothing has been done to promote greater equality by rolling back those cuts. In fact, more cuts got thrown on top of them. Yes, the median family has seen lower tax rates as well, but that’s mostly due to one-time tax credits as part of the stimulus, not systemic protection of great wealth. While we need to run greater deficits now, over the long term we do lose money in interest payments and debt service by running deficits (I don’t subscribe to the Cheneyite “deficits don’t matter” approach), and they can be largely attributed to the fact that the rich and corporations aren’t coming close to paying their fair share. There’s also the little matter of unfunded wars, but tax rates too low to fund critical services plays the starring role. And of course, the simpletons being led by the nose to scream about being overtaxed aren’t really talking about today’s tax hikes, but tomorrow’s. They’re setting the environment to make it toxic to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Democrats for years have vowed to let the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers expire as scheduled after this year, but election-year politics and the economy’s fragility could complicate matters in Congress. One thing seems certain, both parties agree: The 2001 income tax cuts will be extended for everyone else — that is, for the roughly 98 percent of households in which couples have less than $250,000 in annual income or individuals earn less than $200,000.... For all of the talk from President Obama and his party of ending the Bush tax cuts, letting that happen could be harder for some Democratic lawmakers from Republican-leaning districts or states. Republicans already are reviving what has sometimes proven an effective, if disputed, argument in the past: that rich taxpayers include many small businesses whose owners pay income taxes as individuals. Returning the tax rates to the Clinton years, a time of historic prosperity, would bring $2.6 trillion dollars back into the government, which can roll back out in services in a highly progressive fashion. It saves the government money in the long-term and would allow the funding base for all kinds of programs that promote economic equality. It could also allow for immediate spending to arrest the jobs crisis, and the kind of larger deficit that we need immediately, with the funding rolling in down the road. I know it’s tempting to go “Nyah nyah” at the teabaggers and inform them that the Obama White House has cut taxes and not raised them, but the phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” comes to mind. The mentality is that Democrats and Republicans can only cut tax rates, which is after all the very premise of the conservative “drown the government in the bathtub” strategy. Why liberals would participate in that is a mystery.
Saturday, April 17, 2010 7:36 AM
AURAPTOR
America loves a winner!
Saturday, April 17, 2010 7:46 AM
WHOZIT
Saturday, April 17, 2010 7:56 AM
Monday, April 19, 2010 1:42 AM
KWICKO
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: Cap and Tax Sunsetting Bush Tax Cuts ObamaCare Social Security & Medicare in the red VAT on the horizon Trillion dollar debt..... The most disingenuous position to come from the Left since..... what time is it ? Oh, never mind.
Monday, April 19, 2010 12:06 PM
Quote:Sounds like the Republicans are running on the fear ticket once again
Monday, April 19, 2010 12:14 PM
STORYMARK
Monday, April 19, 2010 1:10 PM
Monday, April 19, 2010 1:11 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: Quote:Sounds like the Republicans are running on the fear ticket once againUhhhhh, Mike: when did they stop? I must have missed that...damn!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 7:35 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 7:57 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 8:06 AM
HERO
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: the Obama Administration has CUT taxes to 98% of the American working class...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 8:24 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 8:29 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hero: Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: the Obama Administration has CUT taxes to 98% of the American working class... First of all "98% of the working class" is what...a handfull of folks at best. Actually lots of people enjoyed tax cuts. Why anyone who does not own a business or shop at a business or own property, or buy goods and services, or do anything with the exception of breathing (until 2014) got a tax cut. Everyone else saw their taxes go up or the cost of increased taxes passed on to them in higher costs, lost income, or a lost job. H "Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 8:38 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hero: Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: the Obama Administration has CUT taxes to 98% of the American working class... Actually lots of people enjoyed tax cuts. Why anyone who does not own a business or shop at a business or own property, or buy goods and services, or do anything with the exception of breathing (until 2014) got a tax cut. Everyone else saw their taxes go up or the cost of increased taxes passed on to them in higher costs, lost income, or a lost job. H "Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
Quote: First of all "98% of the working class" is what...a handfull [sic] of folks at best.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:02 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2:Given Dumbya's infamous tax cuts affected the RICH, not the rest of us, that's a wonderfully disingenuous remark.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:26 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:35 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: 98% of the working class is now just a "handfull" [sic]?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:43 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: 98% of the working class is a handful of folks? Wow, that's news to me! Can you back that up??
Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: Boy o boy, you got that right. "Crazy concept" is the mildest thing you could say! So the "rich" pay more than their fair share. With help from Dumbya, they pay far LESS than they did before, which of course is "fair". Their companies in some cases pay MINUS taxes (did you see the post with details?), and many of them don't pay their fair share because the money is off-shore and/or they know how to use every tax dodge and loophole in the book.
Quote: What do you define as "poor"?? People with two jobs each who can't afford health care? Actually, people with ANY job, because any job takes SSI taxes out of your salary, and you gotta be DAMNED poor not to pay taxes at all.
Quote: So. A married couple earning no more than $16,750 pays 10% in federal income tax; an unmarried individual earning no morethan $8,375 also pays 10%. And those people, who are unquestionably "poor", don't deserve a tax cut. Try living on those amounts, then take 10% off and see how well YOU survive! Sick. You represent precisely the "I've got mine, screw you" mentality of the Tea Partiers and wingnuts who think they suffer from too much taxes already.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:18 AM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: Married couple making less than $16,750 ? I doubt they pay any income taxes. A single making an ANNUAL income of less than 10k ? No income taxes. No, they don't get a tax cut, because they don't OWE any income tax to begin with.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:34 AM
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:37 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hero: Quote:Originally posted by Niki2: 98% of the working class is a handful of folks? Wow, that's news to me! Can you back that up?? Sure. 98% of the working class got a tax cut was the assertion. That means your cutting out the rich, most govt workers, middle class white collar workers, the unemployed, kids, elderly, the military, folks in prison, and the poor (who might be working class, but pay not taxes). That leaves blue collar workers who make to much to be poor and to little to be rich. Out of 300 million, your talking about a minority, all of whom paid higher taxes and many of whom suffered the effects of higher taxes paid by others. H "Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:45 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:50 AM
Quote:Taxable income: Individuals Up to $8,350 pay 10% of every dollar Married filing jointly: Up to $16,700 pay 10% of every dollar
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 11:16 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Storymark: Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised? Obviously they can't and don't have the balls to admit it, so you get these verbal loop-de-loops from Hero, and petulant non-facts from Rappy. "I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 11:30 AM
FIVVER
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:35 PM
FREMDFIRMA
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:43 PM
Quote: Who Pays the Most Income Tax? Higher income earners pay the most, Treasury says By Robert Longley, About.com Guide The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share. Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total. Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush's tax cuts with shifting a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit, marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise. The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent. The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from 32.3 percent to 33.7 percent. The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27 percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1 percent. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:46 PM
Quote:Originally posted by fivver: Uh Niki, what part of TAXABLE income don't you understand? A person making $8350 gets to claim a $5700 standard deduction and a $3690 personal examption. That brings their taxable income down to $-1000. That person pays no income taxes and probably qualifies for the EITC.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 12:53 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Storymark: Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised? Obviously they can't and don't have the balls to admit it, so you get these verbal loop-de-loops from Hero, and petulant non-facts from Rappy
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 1:32 PM
Quote:Originally posted by AURaptor: Quote:Originally posted by Storymark: Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised? Obviously they can't and don't have the balls to admit it, so you get these verbal loop-de-loops from Hero, and petulant non-facts from Rappy You're clearly in all out denial or simply too stupid to comprehend the damage Obama has inflicted on this country. The debt ratio to GDP is 3x's what Bush's was at its height, and for one year, with 2 wars going on at once. Obama has to pay for all of his goodies some how. Sunsetting the Bush tax cuts will be one tax increase. ObamaCare will be another, same goes w/ increase taxes on SSI. If the VAT and Cap & Trade see the light of day, that'll be more taxes.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 1:33 PM
Quote: From the Wall Street Journal's "Market Watch" In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data. Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group's share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income. The figures are from the IRS's income-statistics division and were posted on the agency's Web site last week. The 2006 data are the most recent available.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:10 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised? Last time I checked, there were no federal property taxes for homeowners, so if "Hero" wants to whine about property taxes going up, that's between him and his city council, who sets those rates.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:19 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: You have a very, very strange notion of the "working class". You conveniently leave out the vast chunk of those who fit into that class - white collar workers, government employees, kids, elderly, military... You don't consider ANY of those people to be workers, even if they're working?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:57 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hero: Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: Again, can ANY of you show me WHICH federal taxes Obama raised? Last time I checked, there were no federal property taxes for homeowners, so if "Hero" wants to whine about property taxes going up, that's between him and his city council, who sets those rates. State and local taxes going up are a direct result of unfunded Federal mandates. As for specfic tax increases, we saw them in most of Obama's legislation, including Health Care. While many of those taxes are on the rich and businesses, those tax increases are passed along to consumers through higher prices, to workers who face layoffs and cuts to salary and benefits, and to the unemployed who find a less open job market. Thats why when Obama taxes a business the tax is payed by those who own the business, work for the business, or purchase products from the business regardless of their relative ability to pay. Nothing the govt does can stop businesses from passing the new taxes along to everyone else. H "Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 6:32 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Hero: Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: You have a very, very strange notion of the "working class". You conveniently leave out the vast chunk of those who fit into that class - white collar workers, government employees, kids, elderly, military... You don't consider ANY of those people to be workers, even if they're working? Actually the accepted definition of 'working class' is what I told you. 'Blue collar' is another word for them. They traditionally don't include kids (because they don't work full time) farm workers (because they are exempt from many labor rules), the elderly (most not full time and income supplemented by retirement and SS), the military (because they are a special class, etc. It used to include govt employees, but now folks like police, fire, and teachers make more money then the average person in their communities and more then many 'white collar' workers (at least those outside a specialized field). So when you hear 'working class' on TV they're generally talking about folks 18-65 years of age in generally 'blue collar' industries making money that puts them income wise into the upper-lower class (above the poverty line) to just below upper-middle class with some exceptions (such as full time college students, the insane, felons, etc.). H "Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
Quote:It used to include govt employees, but now folks like police, fire, and teachers make more money then the average person in their communities and more then many 'white collar' workers (at least those outside a specialized field).
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 7:06 AM
Quote:When Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt stood at $995 billion. Twelve years later, by the end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, it had exploded to $4 trillion. Bill Clinton reversed Reagan's course, raising taxes on the wealthy, and lowering them for the working and middle classes. This produced the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. Importantly, it also produced budgetary surpluses allowing the government to begin paying down the crippling debt begun under Reagan. In 2000, Clinton's last year, the surplus amounted to $236 billion. The forecast ten year surplus stood at $5.6 trillion. It was the last black ink America would see for decades, perhaps forever. George W. Bush immediately reversed Clinton's policy in order to revive Reagan's, once again showering an embarrassment of riches on the already most embarrassingly rich. He ladled out some $630 billion in tax cuts to the top 1% of income earners. But the cost to the public has been a return to the exploding deficits of the Reagan years. Bush blew through Clinton's surplus in his first year. The 2004 deficit reached $415 billion, a record. Still, its real size is masked by the fact that Bush shifted $150 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to make the shortfall look smaller. It's like pretending you're richer when you move money from one pocket to another. Both sums have to be repaid, so the real amount borrowed is the $415 billion "nominal" deficit plus the $150 billion from Social Security, or $565 billion. This shell game with federal trust funds tainted all official forecasts about Bush's deficits going forward. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Bush's cumulative ten year deficit at $2.3 trillion, to be sure, a breathtaking shortfall from the $5.6 trillion surplus he inherited from Clinton. But as with the yearly number, this one ignores the trust fund sleight of hand, an omission of some $2.4 trillion. When this is added back in, Bush's ten-year deficit leaps to $4.7 trillion, $10.3 trillion short of Clinton's number.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 7:47 AM
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 8:02 AM
Friday, April 23, 2010 8:00 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko: The way you use the term, it sounds like you meant it in a derogatory way, implying that "work" is only for lower classes.
Quote: I'd take issue with this claim: Quote:It used to include govt employees, but now folks like police, fire, and teachers make more money then the average person in their communities and more then many 'white collar' workers (at least those outside a specialized field). I'm blue collar, yet make more than a beat cop, fireman, or teacher here. Does that mean they're working class and I'm not?
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