Tax Cuts...... For the Wealthy

[corplinx]

Tax Cuts...... For the Wealthy


I have to admit that when I hear this phrase I get jostled as much as when I hear some person say the earth is 6000 years old. This sort of blatant deceit is the reason this athiest usually votes for GOP candidates (yeah, they lie too sometimes).

 

[corplinx]

Yeah, i mispelled "live" in option 3. Maybe some mod can fix that.

 

[specious_reasons]

Tax Cuts...... For the Wealthy

I have to admit that when I hear this phrase I get jostled as much as when I hear some person say the earth is 6000 years old. This sort of blatant deceit is the reason this athiest usually votes for GOP candidates (yeah, they lie too sometimes).

I may be tired and confused, but how doesn't the latest tax cut benefit the wealthy more?

Our media is a sad thing. Public discourse on commercial media is essentially dead. Still, it's the Democratic Party's fault for letting "Tax Cuts for the wealthy" be the soundbite that got through.

 

[DavidJames]

The value of the cuts clearly increase as wealth increases by any measure. You may not like the sound of it, but it's reality, deal with it.

This is different than arguing that since the wealthy pay more they should get more cuts, an argument you are not making here.

Oh, and your poll choices would make JK proud, so I didn't vote.

 

[WildCat]

Re: Re: Tax Cuts...... For the Wealthy

I may be tired and confused, but how doesn't the latest tax cut benefit the wealthy more?

Our media is a sad thing. Public discourse on commercial media is essentially dead. Still, it's the Democratic Party's fault for letting "Tax Cuts for the wealthy" be the soundbite that got through.

"Tax cut for the wealthy" is a red herring in that a high-income person will get more tax relief in any across-the-board tax cut simply because they pay more taxes to begin with.
I hear many Dems complaining that the tax cut does not give any tax relief to the lowest income people, but how can you offer tax relief to someone who pays no taxes?
I'm not in favor of this tax cut, but only because it doesn't address what I see the real tax issue, which is the ridiculously complex tens-of-thousands of pages long tax code that serves nobody well except tax accountants.

 

[corplinx]

I see some people drink the koolaid. If you have a 5 percent across the board cut, it benefits everyone equally. Everyone gets 5 percent back. However, the rhetoric kings look at the raw dollar amount and say, "this guy got 10 dollars, this guy got 100, thats not fair." Of course, fairness is subjective and flawd term. In actuality, both men got 5 percent according to what they paid, so there is no inequity.

Using raw figures versus adjusted is a an age-old woo woo trick.

 

[Malachi151]

Tax Cuts...... For the Wealthy


I have to admit that when I hear this phrase I get jostled as much as when I hear some person say the earth is 6000 years old. This sort of blatant deceit is the reason this athiest usually votes for GOP candidates (yeah, they lie too sometimes).

So what are you saying, that this done not costitute a tax cut for the wealthy?

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/bushplan.html

Bush did a nice trick and made it so that on paper the very poor get the highest cut, but in reality those people are not even paying taxes, they are on assistance if they are making under $12,000 as a married couple, so the figures for that really high spike on the chart are meaningless.

So, what you see is that the cut starts out at the lowset point for the poor tax payers, stays low for the middle class, and then shoots up about $100,000 a year, dips slightly, and then just gest higher and higher after that.

It IS a tax cut for the rich, its a fact.

Let's look at single filers with no kids, like me.

Between $25,000 a year and $70,000 a year the cut is less then a 10% tax savings.

For those making $2,000,000 a year the cut is a 16% tax savings.

Please prove to me that this is not a tax cut for the wealthy.

I personally will save an estimated ~$900 next year from this tax cut.

Someone making $2,000,000 a year will save about $123,000 next year from this cut.

The fact is that it IS a tax cut for the wealthy.

Again for married joint filing:

Those making between $0 and $12,000 get a 5% income tax rate reduction, except the fact that they dont pay taxes at all anyway, they are on assistance most likely.

Those making between $12,000 and $45,200 get no income tax rate reduction at all.

Those making between $45,200 and $109,250 get a 3% income tax rate reduction.

Those making between $109,250 and $166,500 get a 6% tax rate reduction.

Those making between $166,500 and $297,350 get a 3% tax rate reduction.

Those over $$297,350 get a 6.6% tax rate cut, which is also the largest tax cut.

Tell me how this is not a tax cut for the rich?

This is not a flat cut across the board, its not like EVERYONE gets a 5% tax cut, no, the rich get about a 15% tax cut, the middle gets about a 8% tax cut, the poor, get about a 10% tax cut, the very poor show a 33% ax cut on paper, but they aren't paying taxes so that is just for looks.

Why did Bush even create a 10% tax bracket? Its useless, its just for looks to be deceptive those people pay no taxes.

Of course I'm sure that the "liberal media" expailns this all as clearly as I have here, which is of course why are you so "clear" on the facts in the first place.

 

[crackmonkey]

The tables refer to taxable income, not gross income. Those who make too little money to pay income tax therefore have no taxable income.

 

[Malachi151]

The tables refer to taxable income, not gross income. Those who make too little money to pay income tax therefore have no taxable income.

Thats for pointing that out (seriously), but the point remains the same. The big income tax cut for the poor is for those with under $6,000 of taxable income, which amounts to a $300 savings at most.

Money is money, granted, but a 33% tax rate cut on less than $6,000 still does not amount to much. There is no issue with that cut, however it does nothing to change the fact that from $6,000 and up to $65,000 is the lowest part of the tax cut. and the highest part iis for over $2 million.

 

[Kodiak]

Thats for pointing that out (seriously), but the point remains the same. The big income tax cut for the poor is for those with under $6,000 of taxable income, which amounts to a $300 savings at most.

Money is money, granted, but a 33% tax rate cut on less than $6,000 still does not amount to much. There is no issue with that cut, however it does nothing to change the fact that from $6,000 and up to $65,000 is the lowest part of the tax cut. and the highest part iis for over $2 million.

Quit your crying.

If either of your liberal candidates had won the election (Gore or Nader), we'd be paying a tax increase.

The fact remains that the wealthy are taxed at a higher rate than the working class. Why punish them again by not giving them a refund at a higher rate as well?

 

[Malachi151]

Quit your crying.

If either of your liberal candidates had won the election (Gore or Nader), we'd be paying a tax increase.

The fact remains that the wealthy are taxed at a higher rate than the working class. Why punish them again by not giving them a refund at a higher rate as well?

Gore did win the election.

And, why do you think there would be a tax increase? Last I looked Gore was proposing a tax cut for the poor and middle class and leaving the taxes the same on the top bracket.

Its not like taxes have to go up or down together you know. Taxes need to be raised slightly on those making over a million dollars a year and lowered for the rest of us.

 

[Kodiak]

Gore did win the election.

You might want to add the company that sold you your alarm clock to your list of worst company's because your still dreaming! Bush won the election and would've won even with the two proposed recounts.

Get over it.

Learn to live with the disappointment.

And, why do you think there would be a tax increase? Last I looked Gore was proposing a tax cut for the poor and middle class and leaving the taxes the same on the top bracket.

Gore tried the same trick that Clinton used -- "Campaign to the right", then "slide back to the left" once you're in office. Clinton also promised a middle class tax cut while he was running for office and later "forgot" all about it once he was in office.

 

[Dancing David]

I voted three , it seems to be the Planet X option.

Liberal way lefist that I am I support taxing all income at a flat rate like five percent, no deductions , no loopholes, no nothing, everybody pays five percent across the board, including churches and 'not for profits'. Self employeed people would probably loose unedr this system, you pay on income, even if you don't break even.

 

[Kodiak]

I voted three , it seems to be the Planet X option.

Liberal way lefist that I am I support taxing all income at a flat rate like five percent, no deductions , no loopholes, no nothing, everybody pays five percent across the board, including churches and 'not for profits'. Self employeed people would probably loose unedr this system, you pay on income, even if you don't break even.

I'm a conservative/libertarian and have no problem with a flat tax...

 

[Malachi151]

You might want to add the company that sold you your alarm clock to your list of worst company's because your still dreaming! Bush won the election and would've won even with the two proposed recounts.

Get over it.

Learn to live with the disappointment.

What an idiot. First of all, I'm not disappointed, I was never a Gore fan, but he would be better then Bush. Secondly we all knwo that Gore got over half a million ore votes in the popular count, so more Americans wanted Gore. Thirdly we have addressed the election in a different thread. There were a large number of issues asside from the proposed recount in Florida that gave the election away to Bush. I'm suprized people like to see liberty and honesty trampled so easily.

Gore tried the same trick that Clinton used -- "Campaign to the right", then "slide back to the left" once you're in office. Clinton also promised a middle class tax cut while he was running for office and later "forgot" all about it once he was in office.

So? Who said I was a Clinton fan either or liked his policies? Clinton was not liberal enough. I've posted by ideas on taxes here several times, it includes a large tax cut for eveyone making under $500,000 a year and a tax increase on those making more then that with the top tax bracket on income of $4 million a year or more. There's no doubt that everyone would benefit, even the wealthy as more people had money to spend which would make the rich richer even with the rich paying a slightly higher tax rate.

Now for some data:

Real growth has gone realtively unchanged since the 1950s.

The top marginal rate has come way down from 98% to its low of 28%. Growth is still not as high as it was in the 1960s though with teh top rate of 70%. Tax cutting does pur growth to a point, but when you are all done cutting taxes as low as you can cut them, growth levels off, starts to trop, and then what? You have nowhere to go with tax cuts anymore. Now you need a new trick. Now we have GDP growth declining, and lowering taxes at the same time, in a way that is still supply-side, not really demand side as some analysts have claimed, yet we are awash in supply and demand is not growing. Demand is not really growing beause we don't have a lot of need for new ◊◊◊◊ anymore, I mean how much crap are we all supposed to buy, a new car every year while the used car market is flooding? All the old tricks are played out. Bush is trying to follow in the steps of Reagan, but the situation is not the same, the result will be failure and a tanking of the economy as the international market picks up. However, the only people poised to take advantage of the international market are the giant corporations, not local businessmen. So, we willl see those few continue to get rich by supplying demand in other countries, while 95% of Americans sit at home rotting away, prisons keep growing, teachers keep getting poorer and poorer, classrooms keep overfilling, but hey we keep stockpiling weapons to kill people, so that's good.

If I want to make money I can invest in RJ Ryenolds because they own like a thousand companies and because they are still growing strong internationally using marketing techniques there that are illigal here. So, for the coming years if I want to invest and make money, where can I go? The weapons industry, the oil industry, the junk food industry, and cigarettes. Wee, what a lovely world we live in. The largest growth in is the industries that are the worst for us.

The rich are richer in America then they have ever been in the history of the country, they own more property then every before, the average person has less control over thier own life and over government then ever before. Giving the world away to the rich is not going to make the majority more free. All it does is increase private ownership of everything by a very few people who then have control, reducing the freedom of the majority.

Perhaps you don't understand the tradeoffs of freedom.

See, when America was founded, in the name of freedom they said that people should be free to own slaves if they wanted to, afterall why should the "government" be able to tell people what to do? In support of private interprize and private rights, people were allowed to own slaves, because aferall that IS freedom right? The freedom to do what you want, which includes owning people as property if you have the ability to do it.

So, what is freedom? The freedom to take people's jobs away? The freedom to put people out of business, the freedom destroy the environment for profit while it harms us all? How about the freedom to create the Federal Reserve, which intentially keeps people unemployed to keep wages low so that the wealthy can get higher profits? I just love how the free-market has become a religion this country. Its why I'll probably leave, because I think enough people are so clueless about economics here that you will eventually get your wish, which is a more free-market economy, the new Bush tax is virtually a flat tax as it is. And when you unleash the free-market I'll be happy to leave and watch the country go down the tubes and turn into apartide South Africa with a small number of super rich and 90% of the population in economic chains.

 

[Cain]

The pain of these benefit cuts will fall on the middle class and the poor, while the tax cuts overwhelmingly favor the rich. For example, the tax cut passed last week will raise the after-tax income of most people by less than 1 percent — not nearly enough to compensate them for the loss of benefits. But people with incomes over $1 million per year will, on average, see their after-tax income rise 4.4 percent.

Paul Krugman, NYT, "Stating the Obvious"

There are plenty of other types of taxes, mostly regressive, besides the Federal income taxes. In fact, most people pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes.

Why not just cut taxes for all but the highest marginal tax brackets? Everyone benefits that way.

 

[Malachi151]

Paul Krugman, NYT, "Stating the Obvious"

There are plenty of other types of taxes, mostly regressive, besides the Federal income taxes. In fact, most people pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes.

Why not just cut taxes for all but the highest marginal tax brackets? Everyone benefits that way.

Exactly, at the very least. At the least the top tax bracket should have stayed unchanged. HOw anyone can rationalize that the people in the top tax bracket are somehow negatively affected makes no sense when that bracket has seen the largest growth in history of the country.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/this_w3.gif

In fact, the highest degree of change has occurred in the top 1%, but the Census Bureau does not readily publish that data so I could not graph it here. An important fact to point out here is that this graph depicts Household Income, not Individual Income. Between 1965 and 2001 the number of multi-worker households has increased dramatically. In fact the slight increase in income that is shown for the 1st through 4th quintiles (a quintile represents 1/5th of the population) is primarily attributed to an increase in the number of households with two or more workers supporting the household. Individual male income for the 1st through 4th quintiles has actually gone down since the 1980s when adjusted for inflation.

In 1965 27% of the full time workforce was female, by 2001 that number had risen to 41%. What has allowed the average American household to continue to maintain a good standard of living is an increase in multi-worker households and a decrease in the number of children that families have.

The issue is that the economic policies of the Reagan administration were designed to primarily benefit wealthy Americans. At the time a lot of smoke and mirrors were used to convince average Americans that these policies would help them as well. A similar set of lies has been used by those, like Steve Forbes, who promote a flat tax system.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/this_w4.gif

 

[Ed]

Would someone please define "rich"

 

[corplinx]

Exactly, at the very least. At the least the top tax bracket should have stayed unchanged. HOw anyone can rationalize that the people in the top tax bracket are somehow negatively affected makes no sense when that bracket has seen the largest growth in history of the country.

I guess that whole equal treatment thing means nothing? Mind you, we live far from that perfection. Rich people can afford better lawyers and circumvent justice in some cases. However, jsut because the system isn't always equal doesn't mean we have to be unequal in taxation.

I don't see how anyone can rationalize anything other than a flat tax rate since we are to be equally treated.

 

[Malachi151]

I guess that whole equal treatment thing means nothing? Mind you, we live far from that perfection. Rich people can afford better lawyers and circumvent justice in some cases. However, jsut because the system isn't always equal doesn't mean we have to be unequal in taxation.

I don't see how anyone can rationalize anything other than a flat tax rate since we are to be equally treated.

Which comes from a fundmanetal lack of understanding of capitalism. The leverage of capital is in itself an element of inequality. The more money that one has the easier it is to make more money.

I really don't care anymore. If people want a flat tax, that's fine, the country wil be a third world country within 20 years fo going to a flat tax ssytem. People today have been so poorly educated on econmics, and have been fed so much bulls**t proiganda by the conservatives that they have no idea how economics works. We now have been through over 20 years of propiganda from the right telling people that the wealthiest people in America are somehow being disadvantaged, despite the fact that they keep getting richer exponentially.

Its f**king brain washing.

But, hey, you know what, fine I hope America gets a flat tax one day I really do. I want this country to get it so that all the people who begged for it will get what they deserved. I'll be happy to move away and watch the country crumble under its own stupidity. The country has endured 50 years of propiganda from fascist leaders, who are now in control of our government. If people want to cheer these fascists on then they can have it, keep waving the flags, goign to church, praising God, the President, and the corporations that are robbing you blind. You can keep inventing evil enemies to divert focus and keep blaming the every growing poor popualiton that will surely be produced for the country's problems and just keep giving more advantages to the rich who everyone can worship like royalty. Fine, I'm outta here though, off to whatever country is next to be persecuted by American leaders and bullied into submision for corproate interests.

I mean the problem is already obviously out of control, yet still over the half the contry is cheering the thieves on, talk about blind stupidity.