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Obama budget resurrects rejected tax increases

Catawba said:
You didn't acually read more than the headline of your article did you? It goes on to say:

"Neither one of those ideas is true. They rely on a cleverly selective reading of the facts. So does the 47 percent number."

"The 47 percent number is not wrong. The stimulus programs of the last two years — the first one signed by President George W. Bush, the second and larger one by President Obama — have increased the number of households that receive enough of a tax credit to wipe out their federal income tax liability.

But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and investment taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47."
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Wrong 38% according to one of your favorite sources


FactCheck.org: Do 40 percent of Americans pay no taxes?


About 38 percent of households have zero or negative income tax liability, but they pay other federal taxes.
 
ptif219 said:
Tell me what percent of income should all people pay?
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I think it would be fair to tax everyone an equal percentage of all their income, with no deductions or loopholes, and that includes the SS/Medicaid caps.
 
Catawba said:
"The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined. From 1983 through 1985, with a Republican Senate, the debt was increasing at over 17% per year. While Mr. Reagan was in office this nation’s debt went from just under 1 trillion dollars to over 2.6 trillion dollars, a 200% increase. The sad part about this increase is that it was not to educate our children, or to improve our infrastructure, or to help the poor, or even to finance a war. Reagan’s enormous increase in the national debt was not to pay for any noble cause at all; his primary unapologetic goal was to pad the pockets of the rich. The huge national debt we have today is a living legacy to his failed Neo-Conservative economic policies. Reagan’s legacy is a heavy financial weight that continues to apply an unrelenting drag on this nation’s economic resources."

"debt has been on a steady incline ever since the Reagan presidency."

"If you look at the 60+ year record of debt since the end of WWII, starting with Truman’s term, the difference between the two parties’ contributions to our national debt level change considerably. Since 1946, Democratic presidents increased the national debt an average of only 3.2% per year. The Republican presidents stay at an average increase of 9.2% per year. Republican Presidents out borrowed and spent Democratic presidents by a three to one ratio. Putting that in very real terms; for every dollar a Democratic president has raised the national debt in the past 63 years Republican presidents have raised the debt by $2.84"

United Stated National Debt
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All done with the spend crazy democrat congress. Remember Reagan built up a military and fixed what Carter screwed up

I notice you ignore the debt before Reagan






Ronald Reagan's Military Buildup




ESR | July 30, 2001 | Jimmy Carter: Friend to America's enemies, enemy to America's friends


The Carter Administration, 1977-1980, as a matter of routine, sold out our allies and aided our enemies. His actions condemned nations to left-wing tyranny, Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship, and war. His policies hurt America's economy, weakened our military, and encouraged the "malaise" that he famously referred to. With the election of Ronald Reagan, America rejected the malaise and began to pull itself out from the rubble. Following is a brief revisiting of the Carter foreign policy.
 
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Catawba said:
I think it would be fair to tax everyone an equal percentage of all their income, with no deductions or loopholes, and that includes the SS/Medicaid caps.
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How much and what should it be limited to?
 
ptif219 said:
All done with the spend crazy democrat congress.
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Nope, it was done with the spend crazy Republican Congress that was in power for his first 6 years when most of it occurred.

Remember Reagan built up a military.
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Yes, he increased spending to build up the military which didn't need building up and provided tax cuts for the rich all by adding it to the debt! I thought the conservative goal was to reduce spending rather than increasing debt?

I notice you ignore the debt before Reagan.
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I didn't ignore it, in fact I added bold emphasis. Here it is again, "The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined."
 
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ptif219 said:
How much and what should it be limited to?
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I don't understand what you are asking. Do you mean what percentage? The process should be to cut the waste from spending as the two parties can agree on and then set tax rates equitably so there is enough revenue to begin paying down the National Debt while still having enough left to pay the bills.

Don't know what you mean by, "limited to"?
 
Catawba said:
Nope, it was done with the spend crazy Republican Congress that was in power for his first 6 years when most of it occurred.



Yes, he increased spending to build up the military which didn't need building up and provided tax cuts for the rich all by adding it to the debt! I thought the conservative goal was to reduce spending rather than increasing debt?



I didn't ignore it, in fact I added bold emphasis. Here it is again, "The increase in total debt during Reagan’s two terms was larger than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents before him combined."
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You ignore Reagans tax hikes

Taxes: What people forget about Reagan - Sep. 8, 2010

Reagan was certainly a tax cutter legislatively, emotionally and ideologically. But for a variety of political reasons, it was hard for him to ignore the cost of his tax cuts," said tax historian Joseph Thorndike.

Two bills passed in 1982 and 1984 together "constituted the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime," Thorndike said.
 
Catawba said:
I don't understand what you are asking. Do you mean what percentage? The process should be to cut the waste from spending as the two parties can agree on and then set tax rates equitably so there is enough revenue to begin paying down the National Debt while still having enough left to pay the bills.

Don't know what you mean by, "limited to"?
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What should be the highest percent of income one should have to pay
 
Catawba said:
I think it would be fair to tax everyone an equal percentage of all their income, with no deductions or loopholes, and that includes the SS/Medicaid caps.
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That is actually not very practical. Are you suggesting that you tax the gross receipts of small business owners? That isn't fair. So if you don't, you bring deductions to the table.

This is actually the most regressive way to do this, as believe it or not, in the current tax schema exempt income (deductions, credits, and exemptions) is a much higher percentage of income amongst lower income tax payers than higher income tax payers.

The current progressive tax system is fundamentally designed to tax discretionary income. The reason 47% of the people pay no federal income taxes (aside from the fact that they pay a much higher percentage of their income than the wealthy on other taxes) is that 47% of the US population have little to no discretionary income.
 
ptif219 said:
You ignore Reagans tax hikes

Taxes: What people forget about Reagan - Sep. 8, 2010

Reagan was certainly a tax cutter legislatively, emotionally and ideologically. But for a variety of political reasons, it was hard for him to ignore the cost of his tax cuts," said tax historian Joseph Thorndike.

Two bills passed in 1982 and 1984 together "constituted the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime," Thorndike said.
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Excellent information on your site there Ptif that you once again did not read. Your article documents that: Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70% to 28% in addition to providing more business deductions. Then he raised the SS tax, which is more of a hardship for the middle class because of a cap for the rich. And even still he spent far more than he raised taxes for the middle class. Look at the charts there on the site you linked. Higher spending than revenues equals debt, and Reagan hit the historic high mark in debt.

So you pay more taxes thanks to Reagan/Bush tax policy and the super rich people pay less.
 
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ptif219 said:
What should be the highest percent of income one should have to pay
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It should be proportional to your total net worth. The exact percentage can only be accurately determined after wasteful spending is cut to determine the revenue needed to pay our bills. Otherwise, you get the mammoth debt that Reagan and Bush brought us.
 
upsideguy said:
That is actually not very practical. Are you suggesting that you tax the gross receipts of small business owners? That isn't fair. So if you don't, you bring deductions to the table.
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Possibly, but here is how I see it. If everyone was taxed proportionally to their total income and no one had deductions or loopholes the far greater revenues would allow the effective tax rate to be lower than was obtained through deductions.

This is actually the most regressive way to do this, as believe it or not, in the current tax schema exempt income (deductions, credits, and exemptions) is a much higher percentage of income amongst lower income tax payers than higher income tax payers.
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I don't see the regressive aspect as the taxes would be proportional to net worth. So the tax class that own 80% of the wealth would pay 80% of the taxes. How is that regressive?

The current progressive tax system is fundamentally designed to tax discretionary income.
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I was responding to Ptifs hypothetical quesion of what I thought would be fair.

The reason 47% of the people pay no federal income taxes (aside from the fact that they pay a much higher percentage of their income than the wealthy on other taxes) is that 47% of the US population have little to no discretionary income.
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According to the OMB, the tax records show the percentage of people who pay no federal taxes is 10%. By my system that portion of people, since they have little to no income, would pay little to no taxes.
 
Catawba said:
Excellent information on your site there Ptif that you once again did not read. Your article documents that: Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70% to 28% in addition to providing more business deductions. Then he raised the SS tax, which is more of a hardship for the middle class because of a cap for the rich. And even still he spent far more than he raised taxes for the middle class. Look at the charts there on the site you linked. Higher spending than revenues equals debt, and Reagan hit the historic high mark in debt.

So you pay more taxes thanks to Reagan/Bush tax policy and the super rich people pay less.
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Nice to ignore the highest tax increase in peacetime was Reagan. Say what you want but he fixed lots of what Carter screwed up and put people back to work.

Today we have a big spender and he has not put people back to work
 
Catawba said:
It should be proportional to your total net worth. The exact percentage can only be accurately determined after wasteful spending is cut to determine the revenue needed to pay our bills. Otherwise, you get the mammoth debt that Reagan and Bush brought us.
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So cutting spending does not matter to you just make the rich pay until they are broke
 
ptif219 said:
So cutting spending does not matter to you just make the rich pay until they are broke
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What part of, "after wasteful spending is cut," do you not understand?
 
Catawba said:
It should be proportional to your total net worth. The exact percentage can only be accurately determined after wasteful spending is cut to determine the revenue needed to pay our bills. Otherwise, you get the mammoth debt that Reagan and Bush brought us.
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You say that, as if Obama hasn't spent more money than all the other presidents in history...combined.
 
apdst said:
You say that, as if Obama hasn't spent more money than all the other presidents in history...combined.
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So did Bush before him. I agree we are spending too much and big cuts need to be made. But that is only part of the problem. We are still in recovery from one of the worst recessions in history, and we continue to reduce our revenue by continuing to provide the tax cuts to the wealthy. Same mistake Reagan and Bush made. Unless you have enough revenue to pay your bills you are always going to have debt.

Reagan and Bush both increased spending and reduced revenues. Obama has proposed reducing the percentage of spending back to the days of Eisenhower, and increasing revenue by eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy. That makes more sense to me if the goal is to reduce our National debt.
 
Catawba said:
So did Bush before him. I agree we are spending too much and big cuts need to be made. But that is only part of the problem. We are still in recovery from one of the worst recessions in history, and we continue to reduce our revenue by continuing to provide the tax cuts to the wealthy. Same mistake Reagan and Bush made. Unless you have enough revenue to pay your bills you are always going to have debt.

Reagan and Bush both increased spending and reduced revenues. Obama has proposed reducing the percentage of spending back to the days of Eisenhower, and increasing revenue by eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy. That makes more sense to me if the goal is to reduce our National debt.
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No doubt. Conservatives seem to forget that spending and income are tied together. You can decrease spending all you want, but if your revenues come up short, it doesn't really matter. Increasing revenue is so easy and would have little to no affect on 95% of Americans.

The bigger question: Why do poor republicans defend overpaid and undertaxed jobs? I have gotten them to admit there are many over paid jobs (grossly overpaid). I gotten them to admit that the tax rate on them is around 17% (not including the nontaxable hidden income)! So they cannot deny that there are people out there who make far too much money and then get too keep too much of it.

How much extra revenue could be attained from these people? I am not sure a number could be put on it, since it would likely be extremely high and it would include these hidden monies (in derivatives and off shore accounts).

Of course, if we tax those people... bad things might happen? I think that's the gist of the republican argument.
 
whysoserious said:
No doubt. Conservatives seem to forget that spending and income are tied together. You can decrease spending all you want, but if your revenues come up short, it doesn't really matter. Increasing revenue is so easy and would have little to no affect on 95% of Americans.

The bigger question: Why do poor republicans defend overpaid and undertaxed jobs? I have gotten them to admit there are many over paid jobs (grossly overpaid). I gotten them to admit that the tax rate on them is around 17% (not including the nontaxable hidden income)! So they cannot deny that there are people out there who make far too much money and then get too keep too much of it.

How much extra revenue could be attained from these people? I am not sure a number could be put on it, since it would likely be extremely high and it would include these hidden monies (in derivatives and off shore accounts).

Of course, if we tax those people... bad things might happen? I think that's the gist of the republican argument.
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Yes, that phenomonon has always been a mystery to me as well. In Virginia there is a term for it however, trailer park Republican.

trailerparkrepublican.jpg
 
Catawba said:
So did Bush before him. I agree we are spending too much and big cuts need to be made. But that is only part of the problem. We are still in recovery from one of the worst recessions in history, and we continue to reduce our revenue by continuing to provide the tax cuts to the wealthy. Same mistake Reagan and Bush made. Unless you have enough revenue to pay your bills you are always going to have debt.

Reagan and Bush both increased spending and reduced revenues. Obama has proposed reducing the percentage of spending back to the days of Eisenhower, and increasing revenue by eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy. That makes more sense to me if the goal is to reduce our National debt.
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If Obama would stop killing jobs, there would be more tax revenue.
 
whysoserious said:
No doubt. Conservatives seem to forget that spending and income are tied together. You can decrease spending all you want, but if your revenues come up short, it doesn't really matter. Increasing revenue is so easy and would have little to no affect on 95% of Americans.

The bigger question: Why do poor republicans defend overpaid and undertaxed jobs? I have gotten them to admit there are many over paid jobs (grossly overpaid). I gotten them to admit that the tax rate on them is around 17% (not including the nontaxable hidden income)! So they cannot deny that there are people out there who make far too much money and then get too keep too much of it.

How much extra revenue could be attained from these people? I am not sure a number could be put on it, since it would likely be extremely high and it would include these hidden monies (in derivatives and off shore accounts).

Of course, if we tax those people... bad things might happen? I think that's the gist of the republican argument.
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How do you figure that?
 
Catawba said:
Yes, that phenomonon has always been a mystery to me as well. In Virginia there is a term for it however, trailer park Republican.

trailerparkrepublican.jpg
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What if this guy gets his big break in a few years and wants to leave his fortune to his children, so they don't have to live in a trailer park, anymore? I know, it's not likely to happen with Obama in office, but, what if it did?

Or another possible scenario: this guy lived in a trailer his whole life, so he could put money back every week and managed to save up a couple hundred thousand dollars that he wants to give to his grand children?

I think your post exhibits a certain amount of bigotry.
 
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apdst said:
What if this guy gets his big break in a few years and wants to leave his fortune to his children, so they don't have to live in a trailer park, anymore? I know, it's not likely to happen with Obama in office, but, what if it did?

Or another possible scenario: this guy lived in a trailer his whole life, so he could put money back every week and managed to save up a couple hundred thousand dollars that he wants to give to his grand children?

I think your post exhibits a certain amount of bigotry.
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Each to their own opinions. I think your post exhibits a certain amount of idiocy.
 
Catawba said:
Yes, that is what is being discussed, whether the taxes should be proportioned to according to wealth or whether the middle class should subsidize the wealthy.

Which are you for?
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If we define wealthy as Obama does then I would love the middle class to sudsidize me. They can even come over and wash my Jag.
 
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