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Tax cuts: close-mindedness from the left

Moderate Right said:
So, you are also admitting that as long as the 2 trillion dollars would help the poor, you're perfectly fine with adding 2 trillion dollars to the national debt. That's all I'm asking. Don't hypocritically blame Republicans for adding 2 trillion dollars onto the national debt when you would be perfectly fine with doing it yourself. You need to make it a rich vs poor thing instead of complaining about adding 2 trillion dollars onto the debt, which you would be OK with.
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I never said that -- but thanks for putting words in my mouth. What I was saying, was that doing nothing at all, eliminates that extra $1.5 trillion the Republicans think is fine to add to the national credit card to give rich people tax cuts. In other words, if this bill fails, the nation wouldn't be adding that $1.5 trillion to debt; the middle class would pay lower taxes than with this GOP plan and the rich would have the same tax-rates they have now, which aren't so high in the scheme of things.
 
JasperL said:
Just so we're clear, if someone accepts deficits in Situation A or favors deficit-increasing Spending Bill X, or Tax Bill Y, the only "honest" position for that person in the future is to support deficits in all cases, and to support every spending and tax proposal, if those proposals increase the deficit! It is in fact "disingenuous" to use the brain God gave us to judge individual bills on the merits, and the only honest approach to evaluating policy is to adopt black and white rules, such as "I will oppose any budget, any tax or spending proposal, that adds $1 to the deficit."

That. Is. BRILLIANT!

And I'm sure you've incorporated this simple yet effectively brain dead strategy throughout your own life as well as in your approach to politics. So if you oppose going into debt to 1) pay for an Alaskan cruise, then you must therefore oppose going into debt to 2) buy a house, or 3) pay for college to get an advanced degree necessary for your career. If going into debt is bad in situation 1, it is, therefore, bad in ALL situations. Q.E.D.!

Of course the flip side applies here as well. So if you borrow money to start a business, then you are a hypocrite and disingenuous if you oppose your daughter's desire to buy a new BMW merely because the family would have to incur debt, but as she might point out, less debt than you assumed to buy the business! The rule must be more debt is ALWAYS good.
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JasperL, admit it, you are just a hypocrite. You drive your car and step on the break. Then, you take the exact opposite position -- you step on the gas. Who cares that in the first case the traffic light turned red and then it turned green. You need to take the same action regardless of circumstances.
 
JasperL said:
What I said was I'm not dumb enough to commit to support or oppose your unknown plan to do unknown things for the unknown poor, etc.

I'll just leave this topic with a quote from Emerson that for some reason comes to mind here.....

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
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I wasn't talking about "A" plan. I was talking about if JasperL could make his own plan, you would be hypocritically fine with adding 2 trillion dollars dollars onto the debt as long as it helped poor people. It is kind of disgusting though that you would use the phrase "unknown poor". That sounds just like something you would have hammered the other side for if they had used the term. Yet another example of left wing hypocrisy, which knows no bounds.
 
MTAtech said:
I never said that -- but thanks for putting words in my mouth. What I was saying, was that doing nothing at all, eliminates that extra $1.5 trillion the Republicans think is fine to add to the national credit card to give rich people tax cuts. In other words, if this bill fails, the nation wouldn't be adding that $1.5 trillion to debt; the middle class would pay lower taxes than with this GOP plan and the rich would have the same tax-rates they have now, which aren't so high in the scheme of things.
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So, it's time to go on the record that if there was a tax plan that added 2 trillion dollars onto the debt to help the poor then you would be against it. Is that really so hard to say? This GOP plan has the huge majority of the middle class getting tax cuts. Why do you have to lie and say they will be paying more when only a very small percentage will pay more? People don't believe anything you say when you lie. Why not be honest?
 
Fletch said:
Wait, I thought Obamas deficits saved us from the great recession. Now you are saying that those deficits were the republicans doing. So does that mean the republicans saved us from the great recession and not Obama?

Obama added $10 trillion to the US debt over his term and not only did liberals not complain, many said he didn't spend enough. Now, all of the sudden, we are expected to believe that liberals are all concerned over a $2 trillion debt over the next ten years. Sorry, not buying it. The deficit for Obamas final year in office was $666 billion. Was there a single peep out of anyone on the left about how historically high that number was considering how deep into an economic recovery we were? Not that I heard.
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Assuming that "liberals" means "Democrats," of course the "liberals" didn't complain, as there was a Democrat in the White House. Now that there's a Republican in the White House, it's the Democrats turn to point fingers of alarm at the debt. When there is once again a Democrat in the White House, it will once again be the Republicans' turn to rail about the debt.

But, neither party is willing to actually cut back spending, only talk about it when they aren't in power.

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Assuming that "liberals" means "Democrats," of course the "liberals" didn't complain, as there was a Democrat in the White House. Now that there's a Republican in the White House, it's the Democrats turn to point fingers of alarm at the debt. When there is once again a Democrat in the White House, it will once again be the Republicans' turn to rail about the debt.

But, neither party is willing to actually cut back spending, only talk about it when they aren't in power.

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.
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Agreed. There seems to be virtually no one looking to cut spending and virtually no one is all that is all that concerned about debt any more. Look at last years deficit--$666 billion. There is really no excuse for a deficit that high in a growing economy that is basically at full employment. One can only imagine what that number will explode into when the next recession hits
 
Fletch said:
Agreed. There seems to be virtually no one looking to cut spending and virtually no one is all that is all that concerned about debt any more. Look at last years deficit--$666 billion. There is really no excuse for a deficit that high in a growing economy that is basically at full employment. One can only imagine what that number will explode into when the next recession hits
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Exactly, or when the party in power decides to cut taxes without cutting spending.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Assuming that "liberals" means "Democrats," of course the "liberals" didn't complain, as there was a Democrat in the White House. Now that there's a Republican in the White House, it's the Democrats turn to point fingers of alarm at the debt. When there is once again a Democrat in the White House, it will once again be the Republicans' turn to rail about the debt.

But, neither party is willing to actually cut back spending, only talk about it when they aren't in power.

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.
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Fletch said:
Agreed. There seems to be virtually no one looking to cut spending and virtually no one is all that is all that concerned about debt any more. Look at last years deficit--$666 billion. There is really no excuse for a deficit that high in a growing economy that is basically at full employment. One can only imagine what that number will explode into when the next recession hits
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Dittohead not! said:
Exactly, or when the party in power decides to cut taxes without cutting spending.
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Agreed. Deficits and debt are only used to attack the political opposition, rather than actually doing something about it.

Since we have so many (people, programs, corporations, foreign countries, etc. etc.) suckling on the US federal government teat the question becomes who's willing to take the political hit cutting any one of them off. It's like mission impossible for a politician, he wants all their votes and support all the time.

Politics of austerity? Yeah, austerity for everyone else and everything else, just don't touch mine.
 
Fletch said:
Agreed. There seems to be virtually no one looking to cut spending and virtually no one is all that is all that concerned about debt any more. Look at last years deficit--$666 billion. There is really no excuse for a deficit that high in a growing economy that is basically at full employment. One can only imagine what that number will explode into when the next recession hits
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Yep. And when the next recession hits, the way out will be deficit spending.
 
eohrnberger said:
Agreed. Deficits and debt are only used to attack the political opposition, rather than actually doing something about it.

Since we have so many (people, programs, corporations, foreign countries, etc. etc.) suckling on the US federal government teat the question becomes who's willing to take the political hit cutting any one of them off. It's like mission impossible for a politician, he wants all their votes and support all the time.

Politics of austerity? Yeah, austerity for everyone else and everything else, just don't touch mine.
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Republicans are often willing to talk about it but then when they get elected they don't want to be the ones who actually do it. Democrats don't talk about it and don't do anything about it either.
 
Moderate Right said:
Republicans are often willing to talk about it but then when they get elected they don't want to be the ones who actually do it. Democrats don't talk about it and don't do anything about it either.
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True that.
 
radcen said:
Tax cuts: close-mindedness from the left

Just perception, based on observation, but... I suspect that the right could come up with the most awesome tax cut and reform that would be of great benefit to the middle class and the poor, give them virtually everything they want and need, and yet the left would still complain if by chance the wealthy someone got some small benefit, too.

Lower/middle class get what it needs, left's response is: " :2mad: ZOMG! More tax cuts for the wealthy! This is so unfair!"
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You delusional if you believe its only the liberals who oppose these tax cuts, but if it makes you feel better about your skewed political leaning, be my guest.
 
Moderate Right said:
I wasn't talking about "A" plan. I was talking about if JasperL could make his own plan, you would be hypocritically fine with adding 2 trillion dollars dollars onto the debt as long as it helped poor people.
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What I said was I DO NOT KNOW if I'd support whatever straw man you've conjured up in your own head. It depends on a series of factors. What does the plan do? Who does it help? How many does it help? Are there any other ways to help those people? How is the economy doing? What's the unemployment rate? What's the budget look like before the program? What are current borrowing rates? What will Congress support? Etc........................................................................................................................................


It is kind of disgusting though that you would use the phrase "unknown poor". That sounds just like something you would have hammered the other side for if they had used the term. Yet another example of left wing hypocrisy, which knows no bounds.
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It would be a truly extraordinary program that helped every single poor person in this country. In fact, my guess is a program that somehow helped every single person we could describe as "poor" might be unique in all of world history, something never seen before in the history of mankind! So my assumption it would help some segment of the broader population of "poor" people, but since you've made up the plan in your own head and haven't shared details with me or anyone else, who that is, how many, etc. I do not know, hence, "unknown."
 
Fletch said:
Wait, I thought Obamas deficits saved us from the great recession. Now you are saying that those deficits were the republicans doing. So does that mean the republicans saved us from the great recession and not Obama?
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You're aware that the Obama stimulus bill was passed in early 2009 when Democrats had the House and Senate. I pointed out that the GOP had the House after 2010, which is AFTER 2009 and the passing of the stimulus bill.

Obama added $10 trillion to the US debt over his term and not only did liberals not complain, many said he didn't spend enough. Now, all of the sudden, we are expected to believe that liberals are all concerned over a $2 trillion debt over the next ten years. Sorry, not buying it. The deficit for Obamas final year in office was $666 billion. Was there a single peep out of anyone on the left about how historically high that number was considering how deep into an economic recovery we were? Not that I heard.
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The CBO projects that before the tax bill - or under current law - deficits will total $10 trillion over the next decade. The tax bill will add $2T to that.

I know it's hard for you guys to defend the POS tax bill up for debate, or to justify the cost of it, but that's no excuse for the ONLY defense that I've seen which is BUTWHATABOUTOBAMA!!!???
 
JasperL said:
What I said was I DO NOT KNOW if I'd support whatever straw man you've conjured up in your own head. It depends on a series of factors. What does the plan do? Who does it help? How many does it help? Are there any other ways to help those people? How is the economy doing? What's the unemployment rate? What's the budget look like before the program? What are current borrowing rates? What will Congress support? Etc........................................................................................................................................




It would be a truly extraordinary program that helped every single poor person in this country. In fact, my guess is a program that somehow helped every single person we could describe as "poor" might be unique in all of world history, something never seen before in the history of mankind! So my assumption it would help some segment of the broader population of "poor" people, but since you've made up the plan in your own head and haven't shared details with me or anyone else, who that is, how many, etc. I do not know, hence, "unknown."
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You must have a reading disability. I said if you, Jasper, made up YOUR own plan, you would be fine with it adding 2 trillion dollars onto the debt, which is pretty much what you just said in your second paragraph. I'm not talking about a hypothetical plan.
 
Moderate Right said:
You must have a reading disability. I said if you, Jasper, made up YOUR own plan, you would be fine with it adding 2 trillion dollars onto the debt, which is pretty much what you just said in your second paragraph. I'm not talking about a hypothetical plan.
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If I made up my own plan in this alternate reality of yours, I'd pay for it with higher taxes or cuts to some other program or programs.
 
apdst said:
The Left's opposition to this tax plan stems from the abolition of the state/local tax deduction. That's going to sting the bluest of the blue high tax states when the citizens of those states don't get reimbursed for the state/local taxes.
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Even though unless you are horrendously wealthy, your expanded standard deduction will more than cover your state taxes.
 
JasperL said:
Just so we're clear....
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We are clear. You defend giant deficits from Democrats, and pretend to be upset by them from Republicans.

Because you don't actually care about it per session, but rather its usefulness (or not) as a partisan tool.
 
radcen said:
Tax cuts: close-mindedness from the left

Just perception, based on observation, but... I suspect that the right could come up with the most awesome tax cut and reform that would be of great benefit to the middle class and the poor, give them virtually everything they want and need, and yet the left would still complain if by chance the wealthy someone got some small benefit, too.

Lower/middle class get what it needs, left's response is: " :2mad: ZOMG! More tax cuts for the wealthy! This is so unfair!"
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That's complete bull****. My assessment is based on what policy i expect to succeed at making our nation more prosperous. I don't care if we do it through "negative income tax" or "basic income": the only meaningful difference between the two is the name.

But you want to know the truth? Because of right wing stupidity, we've been hiding cash handouts in the tax code for decades. The political undesirability of being seen as a spendthrift, "wasting" money by spending it on things that everyone needs like healthcare or bridges, is frowned upon. The general cynicism of government has forced us to complicate the ****ing tax code in order to get things done because we're scared of actual social spending.

If we could be honest, we could target the spending areas that would be most productive, which would actually save us money overall. Instead, we have to give $150,000 to a rich guy before we can hand $10 to the poor. It's so ****ing wasteful, and we've been repeating this same costly mistake over and over, and then complaining about the predictable deficits that result.
 
cpwill said:
We are clear. You defend giant deficits from Democrats, and pretend to be upset by them from Republicans.

Because you don't actually care about it per session, but rather its usefulness (or not) as a partisan tool.
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It's hackery to clip comments like that. And your comment is straw man stupidity. Good job all around.

If you'd like to discuss policy versus dutifully repeating right wing lemming talking points, I'd be glad to participate. FWIW, there is nothing "pretend" about my opinion that the tax bill is reckless, and is bad policy. It's interesting that the right wing lemmings have no real defense for the merits of the bill, and so are nearly all resorting to crap, intellectually dishonest defenses like yours.
 
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Moderate Right said:
The period of time would be identical to the Republican plan. But, if you can't say no then you are saying yes. For the record though, I am against the Republican plan as is but I'm not against it due to liberal reasons. I'm sick of the poor paying for nothing and the rich expected to take care of them and then the left turning right around and yet still saying that the rich aren't paying their fair share after they are already paying the lion's share. I am against the new plan for conservative reasons and I really hate it when both parties put crap in a bill that has nothing to do with the bill itself (taxes). I am going to call out liberals though for supposedly being against it because it adds 2 trillion dollars to the debt when liberals would actually be fine with adding 2 trillion dollars to the debt.
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Is it impossible for you to understand that someone may be opposed to the manner in which that $2T is added, and not simply the fact that $2T is added?
 
chuckiechan said:
Even though unless you are horrendously wealthy, your expanded standard deduction will more than cover your state taxes.
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If you itemized before, and will be unable to under the new bills, that will INCREASE the amount of income subject to tax. That's the point - expanding the standard deduction is, on a stand alone basis, a tax increase because at the same time the bills take a $4,050 exemption per person under current law to $0.

Combined, the expanded standard deduction (-737), plus the zeroing out of exemptions (+1,221) and the repeal of certain itemized deductions (+978) are a tax increase of about $1.5T over 10 years. Taxes go down for most families because of the expanded child tax credits (that expire after 2025) and small reductions in the tax rates.
 
Critter7r said:
Is it impossible for you to understand that someone may be opposed to the manner in which that $2T is added, and not simply the fact that $2T is added?
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I totally understand that. But, that's not what we are talking about here. Lefties are criticizing the Republican plan because it adds 2T to the debt when they themselves would be perfectly fine with adding 2T to the debt. It's like the left criticizing Republicans for not repealing and replacing Obamacare when the left really doesn't want Obamacare repealed and replaced. If the left want to quit being called hypocrites then they should quit being hypocrites.
 
Moderate Right said:
I totally understand that. But, that's not what we are talking about here. Lefties are criticizing the Republican plan because it adds 2T to the debt when they themselves would be perfectly fine with adding 2T to the debt. It's like the left criticizing Republicans for not repealing and replacing Obamacare when the left really doesn't want Obamacare repealed and replaced. If the left want to quit being called hypocrites then they should quit being hypocrites.
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You have no idea what "lefties" think. Speaking for said lefties, we don't think it is either sensible or moral to give tax-cuts to rich people and finance it by borrowing $2 trillion. There are certain things worth adding to the debt, like financing a war of survival, but not giving rich people tax-cuts, while also raising taxes on the middle class. Let me also add that Democrats, when in power, find funding sources for their programs. Both Medicare and Social Security have dedicated taxes. The ACA has special taxes also. We don't add these programs to the debt.

Then, we have the blatant lying. Trump et al, are claiming their plan is a middle class tax-cut. Estimates that middle-class taxes will go up come from credible sources -- the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's own nonpartisan scorekeeper. Republicans, like Paul Ryan, pretend to be helping the middle class by using sleight of hand budget gimmicks: Both the House and Senate tax-cut bills do contain some middle-class tax breaks -- but only for the first few years. Then they expire, leaving the middle-class worse off than when they started.

Republicans can't even get their lies straight. Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, keeps asserting that tax cuts will pay for themselves, going so far as to claim (falsely) that Treasury has released a study showing this, while Mick Mulvaney, the budget director, cheerfully acknowledges that they're using gimmicks to pass a bill that permanently cuts taxes on corporations, and not to worry. It's the spaghetti method -- throw it against the wall and use whatever sticks.
 
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MTAtech said:
You have no idea what "lefties" think. Speaking for said lefties, we don't think it is either sensible or moral to give tax-cuts to rich people and finance it by borrowing $2 trillion. There are certain things worth adding to the debt, like financing a war of survival, but not giving rich people tax-cuts, while also raising taxes on the middle class. Let me also add that Democrats, when in power, find funding sources for their programs. Both Medicare and Social Security have dedicated taxes. The ACA has special taxes also. We don't add these programs to the debt.

Then, we have the blatant lying. Trump et al, are claiming their plan is a middle class tax-cut. Estimates that middle-class taxes will go up come from credible sources -- the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's own nonpartisan scorekeeper. Republicans, like Paul Ryan, pretend to be helping the middle class by using sleight of hand budget gimmicks: Both the House and Senate tax-cut bills do contain some middle-class tax breaks -- but only for the first few years. Then they expire, leaving the middle-class worse off than when they started.

Republicans can't even get their lies straight. Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, keeps asserting that tax cuts will pay for themselves, going so far as to claim (falsely) that Treasury has released a study showing this, while Mick Mulvaney, the budget director, cheerfully acknowledges that they're using gimmicks to pass a bill that permanently cuts taxes on corporations, and not to worry. It's the spaghetti method -- throw it against the wall and use whatever sticks.
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Yeah, the "dynamic" score by Treasury going missing so far is getting curiouser and curiouser by the day. If it was me, and the dynamic scoring we've heard all about from the GOP made my case, I'd push my people relentlessly to get it out and into the public. Could it be that dynamic scoring doesn't magically show all this Laffer Curve increase in revenues because of this massive additional growth?

That's my bet, because all the dynamic scores by independent parties show the dynamic affect is 10% or so of the nominal tax cut, in the short term, and will maybe cost more than a dollar per nominal dollar of tax cut in the long term.

We can add "The Magic of Dynamic Scoring" to the long list of lies by the GOP on the merits of tax cuts. It was never going to show what they claimed it would, and every informed economist knew it.

Tax rate cuts reduce revenues. In other shocking news, Thanksgiving is this week!
 
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