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Poll: Don’t Extend Bush Cuts for Wealthy

You know, that's an interesting question. What is the proportion of money we send overseas to finance our debt v. say, to import oil from the middle east?
 
cpwill said:
Agreed. If nominal tax increases did that, then I would grudgingly accept them after spending cuts were firmly in place.

Unfortunately, however, higher tax rates do not correspond to higher revenues, and the experience of the States is that they can easily correspond to lower revenues.

If you want more revenues, the way to get them is to increase growth.
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I disagree. Easiest way to increase revenues is to increase the tax base.
 
Samhain said:
I disagree. Easiest way to increase revenues is to increase the tax base.
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Tax revenue has been incredibly stable compared to tax rates:

tax_rates_graph_ranson.jpg
 
TurtleDude said:
well when half of the country doesn't pay income taxes its rather silly

but the poll should read-do you want your taxes hiked

see what you get then
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The part of the "Bush" tax cuts that "everyone" likes is that their own rate has been decresed (greed?), the part that they oppose is that someone making MORE than they do got a break too (envy?). What is totally ignored in this "debate" is that the reduction in taxation rates only "cost" the federal gov't 1% of GDP, but everyone that pays taxes got a break.

What most favor, is not returning to the "Clinton" tax rates "accross the board" but, only taxing some anonymous "rich guys" more. The net effect, of ending these tax cuts, would be a POSSIBLE reduction of the federal deficit from the current 40% to about 38%, hardly a "cure" for the out of control federal spending, yet a step in the WRONG direction, as it sends the message to the morons in DC that their overspending is fine, we just need some more taxation. USA, USA, USA...
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
What is totally ignored in this "debate" is that the reduction in taxation rates only "cost" the federal gov't 1% of GDP,
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You have a cite for that?
 
Samhain said:
I'm not talking about the rates, but number of affected taxpayers.
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You would have to increase rates in order to do so (within the context of the income tax). How do you intend to get the people who aren't currently paying taxes to do so.

Certainly the low and middle income earners are less mobile, and therefore less able to minimize their tax exposure, but I would like to see how you plan on going about putting more of them on the "paying" and less on the "taking" side of the divide.
 
trying to fix the economy by firing people is a dumb austerity method. a better one would be to return all tax brackets back to 1990s levels and use the extra money to hire people or at least to keep existing workers employed.
 
Helix said:
trying to fix the economy by firing people is a dumb austerity method. a better one would be to return all tax brackets back to 1990s levels and use the extra money to hire people or at least to keep existing workers employed.
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Ultimately, that model only grows the public sector "busywork" while shrinking the private sector and "productive" work. In reality, it is simply pushing to problem to tomorrow.

So instead of plans to grow the public sector, we need to focus on growing the private sector. American's have lost 40% of their wealth, and the current method will not bring back their previous standard of living.

We have the option of short term tough pain and long term growth vs. long term medium level pain and long term mediocre growth.

This might interest you:
Austerity Works | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary
 
Bigfoot 88 said:
Ultimately, that model only grows the public sector "busywork" while shrinking the private sector and "productive" work. In reality, it is simply pushing to problem to tomorrow.

So instead of plans to grow the public sector, we need to focus on growing the private sector. American's have lost 40% of their wealth, and the current method will not bring back their previous standard of living.

We have the option of short term tough pain and long term growth vs. long term medium level pain and long term mediocre growth.

This might interest you:
Austerity Works | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary
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i'm ok with short term economic pain for long term economic growth, but it's my opinion that it should be the other way around : a return to 1990s tax rates, using that money to grow our infrastructure and energy / domestic energy development sectors. it's hardly make work, and i believe that we should be devoting more resources to our future energy strategy.
personally, i'd like to see a national initiative to expand our electrical grid both privately and publicly. i would also enjoy seeing the roads and bridges in my state brought into the 21st century.

the advantage to inserting employment dollars into middle and lower socioeconomic classes is that these classes spend what they earn. the investment of wealthier classes is also very important, but it can't carry a consumer spending-based economy by itself.
 
pbrauer said:
This poll suggests that ending the Bush cuts favor Obama and are bad news for Romney and the Republicans.

Poll: Don?t Extend Bush Cuts for Wealthy - Shane Goldmacher - NationalJournal.com
As President Obama navigates a choppy economy in his reelection bid, he can rely on one comforting fact: Americans continue to strongly embrace his opposition to extending tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 a year.

​
A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows that only 26 percent of the public wants to see all of the tax breaks created during the George W. Bush administration, which are set to expire at year’s end, extended for at least another year. And only 18 percent want the tax breaks across all income levels made permanent, the position taken by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. [...]​
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Why don't we create tax breaks for tax payers, and load up on government spending breaks, instead?
 
....why wouldn't we want to tax the 1%?....they have all the (our) money....want money?....tax the 1%.

....we need a 1%er payroll-like transaction tax, a wholesome 'get-their-money-before-they-do-tax' aimed at the thieves on wall-street....I'm getting excited just thinking about it....

....letting the gamblers on wall-street slide without having them pay their fair share, would be rewarding them too much for wrecking our economy....
 
I'm going to be strictly honest here. To hell with what people think.

I am in the 10% bracket atm. IE I'm poor. I sure as hell couldn't afford to have my taxes raised. HOWEVER I know that if that does happen then I will get most of my taxes back come Feburary/March when I file for my tax return. As such in the long run it wouldn't hurt me..but in the short term it definitely will. But since I am poor I have to think about the short term more than the long term. Otherwise I may not have a place to live or insurance on my car to get to work. As such I am against tax hikes for the poor.

As far as the Rich are concerned. :shrug: tax em. What do I care? It's not like they can't afford it and they use our government services also. Hell, in all the bailouts they've recieved more help from the government than I ever would on a lifetime of foodstamps. And thats just counting the bailouts. Sure as hell not counting all the other tax breaks they recieve.

Oh wait...was that suppose to be mentioned? Do the rich really want people to know that a single rich person gets more help from the government than a single poor person?
 
John Tucker said:
Listen, go ahead and raise the taxes on the "rich" by 100% and you come no where near balancing the budget, paying off the national debt NOR for covering the NEW spending that Obama is proposing. Propaganda after propaganda after propaganda coming from the left. The left can't WIN on solutions, they can't win on plans for the future, they can't win on DIRECTIOn for the country, so they are just going to demonize, spin and try to divide the country by class, race, gender, sexual preference and nationality.

Obama comes out for gay marriage, illegals, women's issues, and the attack on the "rich," all as a way to round up the ultra liberal crowd that will vote for the guy DESPITE THE FACT that he has failed to come anywhere near balancing the budget, he has added $5 trillion to the national debit, unemployment is horrible ESPECIALLY in the minority areas which vote heavily democratic and business owners are growing weary of Obama altogether.

Bill Clinton was the last "CONSERVATIVE" President we had, Obama is nothing but the 3rd term of GW Bush, who was a Liberal in Republican clothing. Clinton was willing to work with the conservatives, move to the center and govern from the center-right which CAUSED the balancing of the budget, the surpluses, and the extended confidence in the economy as we rolled into a low unemployment and high growth rate.

For the life of me, we need this back, and for the life of me this can be DONE if these idiots that are running this country would just get the hell out of the way. Let's start with Obama, who isn't running on ANYTHING he would DO for a 2nd term, instead he's just running on attacks, class warfare and other attempts to divide the country in "liberal" and "conservative" blocks so he can just try to get out "enough" liberals to vote so he can get re-elected. It's sickening!
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Thanks for your rant... it has contributed a great deal to this discussion, especially all of the off topic items.

This idea that you since you can not solve the budget deficit by taxing 100% of the income of the high earners you should not raise taxes on high earners is about as silly an argument that has ever come from Fox News. No one has ever suggested that raising taxes on high earners solves everything. On the flip side, almost all economists and others that have looked at this issue with seriousness, will tell you that you can not solve the deficit problems by simply cutting budgets (much less adding in tax cuts, which is beyond absurd). Instead, the serious folk will consistently tell you that its a multiple discipline approach of tax increases, spending cuts and patience (as everyone will also tell you it will take at least a decade to work thought this).
 
Then almost all economists have an agenda. Cutting spending is the simplest way of solving the deficit problems. You don't need revenue for money you aren't spending.

A wall street transaction tax would be nice. Make it 2% until they have paid for the mess they made, then 1% once we are on solid ground.

Although I am of the opinion that taxing production is absurd.
 
Aberration said:
Then almost all economists have an agenda. Cutting spending is the simplest way of solving the deficit problems. You don't need revenue for money you aren't spending.

A wall street transaction tax would be nice. Make it 2% until they have paid for the mess they made, then 1% once we are on solid ground.

Although I am of the opinion that taxing production is absurd.
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Exactly. We need to cut spending and layoff as many government workers as possible.
 
lpast said:
How much the bush tax cuts cost....

Calculating the cost of the Bush tax cuts - The Washington Post
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problem is your source speciffically says its froma progressive think tank and doesnt mention how it got its results.

cbo hasnt been consistent but atleast admits its wrong,cbo has changed its projections on the bush tax cuts many times.i believe the initial cuts were projected at 3.3 tril over ten years at clinton level gdp.most current projections among many calculations show a total of less than 800 bil over ten years.

for your source to get its numbers it did,it would have had to base it off of clinton level or higher gdp,not actual current gdp.the bush tax cuts cost nearly nothing for the fact gdp tanked after the dot com burst and the housing burst.i have seen average under actual gdp per year by cbo come to 800 bil over a decade for the cost of bush tax cuts in whole,obama wastes that in less than a year!!!!

i think people should look at gdp and not rates for revenue,look at gdp vs revenue,obamas deficit skyrocketed in 09 right as gdp tanked,bushed budget skyrocketed in 08 and the gdp tanked,surprised????no its simpple math,no matter how high a % is it goes off income,and after a certain point even 100% of almost nothing equals almost nothing.taxing the rich has never once solved our budget woes,only increasing the tax base as a whole and increasing gdp will solve our budget problems!!!
 
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Aberration said:
Then almost all economists have an agenda. Cutting spending is the simplest way of solving the deficit problems. You don't need revenue for money you aren't spending.

A wall street transaction tax would be nice. Make it 2% until they have paid for the mess they made, then 1% once we are on solid ground.

Although I am of the opinion that taxing production is absurd.
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johnny_rebson said:
Exactly. We need to cut spending and layoff as many government workers as possible.
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You realize, of course, that cutting government spending automatically cuts revenue. The money spend by the government works its way through the economy, has a multiply effect and a large portion (a percentage of the original cut) returns to the government in the form of tax revenue. On the simplest level, if you lay off a government employee, his $60,000 salary is a reduction in expenditure, but his $5,000 in income taxes also goes away, as does his $4200 payment to the government version of FICA. Of course, the government will also continue to pay him unemployment benefits of $15,000. So, in the simplest form, the government may save $35,000..... but, now this guy is not spending money, so the grocery store down the street suffers (and pays less taxes), he doesn't buy that new car he was planing on, so there is one less Ford sold in town and the dealership suffers (pays less taxes)... of course, you layoff a bunch of government workers, they all live in concentrated communities, so whole towns suffer with declining real estate values, lower tax bases and increased community burdens (crime, welfare, food stamps, etc.).

A $1 cut from the budget IS NOT a $1 saved. At the very least, you need to raise taxes to return the money to the treasury to cover the tax effect of lost spending.
 
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cpwill said:
Agreed. If nominal tax increases did that, then I would grudgingly accept them after spending cuts were firmly in place.

Unfortunately, however, higher tax rates do not correspond to higher revenues, and the experience of the States is that they can easily correspond to lower revenues.

If you want more revenues, the way to get them is to increase growth.
Click to expand...

Typically we get a bait and switch on spending cuts from the left. If the right seldom cuts spending, you know the left won't cut any in a million years. And spending cuts are never spending cuts anyway, they are cuts in spending increases; but increases nonetheless. Net result will be tax increases only. Every soul on the left knows that's how it works; so to them it's always a win.
 
American said:
Typically we get a bait and switch on spending cuts from the left. If the right seldom cuts spending, you know the left won't cut any in a million years. And spending cuts are never spending cuts anyway, they are cuts in spending increases; but increases nonetheless. Net result will be tax increases only. Every soul on the left knows that's how it works; so to them it's always a win.
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well that's why the trade for effective tax rate increases (in the context of a tax code simplification that lowers nominal rates) has to be entitlement reform. That's the only kind of spending cut that is likely to actually occur.
 
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