People are anticipating a tax raise to pay down the debt. Since that is the only way to pay it down, they are right. Eventually it will have to be done. You can not cut your way out of this fiscal mess.
It would be the adult thing to do.
Yes, there is a time and a place for bravado. It would be now. I think the hesitation comes from the rabid wackiness that ensues when The Right tilts against windmills. Give them something to get genuinely defensive about and I could see the aversion to instigating that kind of messiness.
Because there was no Obama tax cut.
What he implimented was a change in the withholding tables that put a few extra dollars onto the net paycheck. The tax tables used to calculate the amount you owe at the end of the year did not change at all. In order for there to be a tax cut, the tax tables would need to be lowered.
Read the article again, it is the withholding rates that were changed, not the tax rate.
From the article linked in the OP:
The average Joe gets to the end of the year and the usual big refund he is used to becomes a much smaller refund, or the small tax check he had to write the IRS is now a much bigger check.
Changing the withholding rates while leaving the actual tax schedule the same is a disingenious slight of hand first started by Poppy Bush. We’ll put more money into the taxpayer’s hands now, and then take it all back at the end of the year.
Giving me more money on my monthly pay check while leaving the yearly tax burden the same is not a tax cut.
No, your wrong. Withholdings were lower because peoples yearly tax bill was lower. This was different then the Stimulus passed by Bush, where peoples taxes were lower but witholdings were kept the same and the difference was added to peoples rebate. But in both cases, the total taxes paid by people was less then would have otherwise been the case.
Largest total amount of money cut from tax revenues per year. Of course it only lasted for a year or two, so integrated over time its considerably smaller then, say the Bush tax cuts or earlier tax cuts that didn’t sunset at all. But if your going to compare the size of tax-cuts, you have to pick some sort of time frame, so per-year makes about as much sense as anything else.
You are correct that the tax rate was not changed. However, the Making Work Pay tax credit allows people to claim a $400 or $800 tax credit. The withholding tables were changed to lower the withholdings and the Making Work Pay tax credit allows tax payers to keep the extra money without changing the tax rates.
So you got about halfway there before failing miserably.
No wonder people don’t understand this. Especially since there are quite a few categories of people for whom the MWP tax credit doesn’t apply.
From your IRS link, bolding added:
There are big differences between a change in withholding rates, a new tax credit that many people will not qualify for, and an actual tax rate reduction by changing the tax tables.
I am not going to try to educated people who do not seem to understand that withholding rates are not tax rates.
The NYT has really been pushing this “poor, sweet Obama” schtick lately. The Obama article in the NYT magazine last Sunday made me puke in my brain a little bit (a phrase I totally stole from another doper). The tenor of the article was that Obama is working his ass off to make our lives better but dammit, people just don’t realize it.
Also, it’s a little (or maybe a lot) disingenuous to talk about the MWP tax credit as a tax cut for reasons others have pointed out. What pushes the discussion over to the ridiculous territory is when you combine it with the increased government programs Obama has enacted or pushed–this temporary “tax cut” is very very temporary indeed.
Since this is so obvious as to be assumed by you, perhaps you’d do me a favor and identify these “increased government programs,” and cite for us the CBO projections about how much these programs will increase the debt over the long-term compared to doing nothing. Thanks. (And no, you don’t need to subtract out the various cuts to government programs, such as the F-22; I don’t want you to strain yourself.)
Where you guys got that from what i said I have no idea. I never implied that, I never even hinted at it.
And the truth is, who could afford to save that money anyway? This country has not had a net savings rate in recent memory. Give the money to one of the nearly 10% unemployed and it goes out the door just as soon as it comes in. There is a very small percentage of people who could afford to save the money, and if they were in a position to do that they need not bother saving it.
This is only true for taxpayers that don’t qualify for the Making Work Pay tax credit. According to the IRS, the tax credit doesn’t apply to:[ul]
[li]Joint filers whose modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is $190,000 or more.[/li][li]Other taxpayers whose MAGI is $95,000 or more.[/li][li]Anyone who can be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return.[/li][li]A taxpayer who doesn’t have a valid social security number.[/li][li]Joint filers, if neither spouse has a valid Social Security number.[/li][li]Nonresident aliens.[/li][/ul]
It also only applies to earned income, and not Social Security income. The people who don’t qualify for the credit are the only ones who fit in your “Average Joe” scenario.
The hypocrisy of pretending a parallel between an objective newspaper (perhaps the finest in the world), and the liars at Fox who’ve stolen our Democracy reminds me why I started this thread in BBQ Pit. Please apologize and retract the misleading implication here, or I may choose to label you a s***** h******** or worse.
So, even after we link to a N.Y. Times article to “fight your ignorance”, you insist that the Biggest Tax Cut Ever doesn’t exist at all. :smack: Wow. Just wow.
I will type slowly so you can understand.
The tax rates that will be used to determine the tax you will pay at the end of the year were not lowered.
The amount of the withholding from your paycheck was lowered by about $400 per person.
So less than usual was withheld to cover the same amount of taxes owed.
If you file schedule M and qualify you may get a tax break that offsets the $400 that was not withheld.
Well - gee - I think you’ve convinced me. I now believe you’re right that reducing withholdings does NOT equal a tax cut, all things equal (thanks to your slow typing). Although . . . . on review, I see that not one single person has argued that. I’m quite confident that everyone here understands that withholding rates are not the same as tax rates. But you keep arguing that, and maybe you’ll find someone who disagrees with you.
Similarly, if tax rates stay the same, all things equal, then that does not constitute a tax cut either. Again - you’ve convinced me. Luckily, I already knew that, as did everyone else in this thread.
Here’s what you either are missing or don’t want to acknowledge - if tax rates stay the same, but most people get a $400 or $800 rebate at the end of the year - that DOES constitute a tax cut (at least for those people getting the rebate). Here’s the thing - in the end, it doesn’t matter what the rates are (tax rates, withholding rates), what matters is how much people PAY in taxes.
Here’s the thing. If you design a program so that most people don’t realize they’ve had a tax cut until AFTER the election, then you shouldn’t be surprised that the tax cut doesn’t affect their vote.
The Republicans have many, many flaws. What they know how to do RIGHT is running effective campaigns. Case in point: George W. Bush, a very weak candidate by anybody’s measure, beat a sitting Vice-President (Al Gore) who followed a successful, moderate Democratic President. He should have been a shoe-in. Only the Democrats could have screwed it up, and they didn’t surprise me.
Lately, the Democrats only win when the voters are so sick of Republicans that they’d vote for their aunt’s Poodle over the incumbents.
Until Democrats learn how to manage campaigns, you’ll always have threads like this.
Another thing lots of people don’t realize is that Democrats are fighting for continuation of [del]Bush tax cuts for the rich[/del] essential tax cuts for working people, which Republicans are threatening by demanding that all of the cuts be made permanent.
The GOP’s stubbornness in insisting that the wealthiest two percent of taxpayers get continued tax relief would add 700 billion dollars to the national debt in the next ten years not to mention the 3.8 trillion dollars piled on by extending the cuts for everybody.
If only more people realized this.
Tax cuts add to the national debt? You sure about that? Isn’t there something in the middle there you are not mentioning?
Nope, sounds like you groked it in one. Good job.
Dude you claim you typed slowly, but it seems you typed fastly. It just does.