The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article that compares the tax cut plans of Bush vs Gore. The article is long enough that posting it here would certainly violate decorum and probably violate several laws. However, the story leads with this paragraph:
If fairness means the most number of people ought to get their own money back, then Governor Bush’s proposal wins. If fairness means that the lowest income people ought to get the biggest tax cut, then Mr. Bush’s proposal wins. If fairness means that the highest income people ought to get the smallest tax cut, then Mr. Bush’s proposal wins. And if fairness means that people should not have to jump through government-approved hoops to receive any tax cut at all, then Mr. Bush’s proposal wins.
Would anyone that’s read the article care to comment? For anyone that wants to read it and is a WSJ subscriber, the link is:
When the going gets tough,
The tough get duct-tape!
Of course Bush has the fairest tax cut. He is a compassionate conservative.
Gore’s “targeted” tax cuts are more Government trying to tell people how they should live their lifes.
Gore also continually lies and says Bush intends to spend all the surplus on tax cuts. This is false even if you excuse the disingenuous use of the word “spend.”
Gee jmullaney, how is it that when Gore refers to republicans using government funds its “spending” and when they abus…err…excuse me…use funds its called “investing”?
What is Bush’s tax cut plan, when I heard him explain it, he said this:
My tax cut plan is 40 trillion, wait billion, no zillion 28, wait, (3,7), no, ummmm… 5% of pi, to the weathiest, wait needyiest, 22, no, 199, I mean 44%, to the square root of -1, divided by, wait multiplied by 9.7*10^8, and then use y=mx+b to find the slope of my IQ over the years.
If you could provide a link to Bush’s tax cut I would appriciate this rather than you saying Bush’s is fair in yadda yadda, wa wa wa wa wa wa.
The only link that I have at this time is the one posted above. Unfortunately you must be a Wall Street Journal subscriber to get to it, and their subscriptions aren’t cheap.
Here’s the high points:
[ul]
[li]The current progressive rate scale of 15-28-31-36-39.6% is replaced with 10-15-25-33%. That means every single one of the 94 million taxpayers in the country will get relief.[/li][li]Nearly 30 million people file returns every year and wind up paying nothing due to their small incomes. Governor Bush’s plan is to return perhaps 2-to-3 percentage points of payroll taxes for individual investment accounts. Since payroll taxes are now 12.4%, this represents a significant tax cut to the lowest income families and forces deferred benefit savings that will reduce the burden on Social Security in the “out” years.[/li][li]Standard deductions are raised. The 6 million “typical” families of four earning $35,000 will pay no income tax. Families earning $40,000 to $50,000 will see a 55% reduction in their net tax.[/li][/ul]
There are many more examples of how this affects other brackets and other filing groups, but I’m certainly impressed that third bullet.
Well, neither “tax cut” will cut my taxes any. I do not like either. I think we should spend every nickle of the “surplus” to pay down the nat’l debt. Now Bushes 'cuts" help only the rich, and don’t leave anything to pay down the debt. Gores “cuts” are frankly more stupid social engineering with the tax code, BUT leave a good amount to pay down the debt. Look, this 'surplus" may very well be very much smaller if the economy goes back down, so lets spend it ALL on the debt. That includes the social security “trust fund”, which is being used to INCREASE the freakin debt!
So, pinned between 2 bad choices, Gores is the "least bad’
But don’t we still have a rather substantial national debt? I would prefer to continue paying taxes at my current rate until 2013 (the projected year when the public share of the national debt is payed off) than take a $1.6 trillion dollar tax cut now. It seems irresponsible to spend our money before we really have it. . .
I don’t remember if it was Time or Newsweek that compared the two plans a couple weeks ago… no matter (I’ll try to dig it up, but in this house, two weeks might as well be an eternity). The article finished up the comparisons by stating that we don’t know exactly how much of a surplus we have, and chances are that we’ll only wind up getting a fraction of the current projection. Meaning neither plan stands much of a chance of actually being put into practice.
I do agree that we should try to get rid of the debt, but I sure wish the candidates would keep a more realistic view of what they can or can’t do.
I resent the hell out of being called “rich”. I am middle class…and Bush’s plan returns a nice percentage to be used by MY family not possibly wasted by some damn politician who is merely trying to rebuy the votes of his/her constiuates with some inefficient giveaway program.I firmly do not mind that there are some individuals who may recieve a substatial amount back because that means they are PAYING a substantial amount of what has become a socialistic tax structure. If you are gonna give a tax break, give it to the people who are actually PAYING the DAMN TAX.
Spoofe: i did not read the entire article, just that quote. Now it is possible that Bush has changed his tax cuts since i heard them, but the big 2 were: No more Estate tax, and cutting the top tax bracket. If you feel some part of Bushes plan will cut taxes for the middle class, well, then post a cite for that section, and show how it helps the wage-earners. Now, he has posted some general thoughts on what he MIGHT do with the ‘surplus’, but those are so radical that NOBODY thinks they gov’t can afford them. The only tax cuts his party has tried to pass- help the rich, and families only, and mostly the rich.
The below thoughts are based on what Southern posted: Some of these are new to me.
The tax bracket cuts do not nessesarily cut middle class taxes at all, unless the cut-off for the brackets remain the same. They DO mean a HUGE tax cut for the rich, and by 'rich" i mean folks in the top current tax bracket, ie TAXABLE income of 278K +. Yes, the increase in the std deduction would certainly cut taxes for those families that currently do not itemize. However, again, those are just “pie-in-the-sky” promises, that he can’t afford, and won’t do. The only concrete tax cuts actually passed by his party (and vetoed, or not made it out) were the estate tax, the top-rate cut, and the anti “amrriage penalty” cut.
The 'return" of 2% of your fica is not a “tax cut”.
If the tax bracket cut was feasable, it would be very nice for all, but paying off the debt would be better in the long run, more fiscally sound, and not based on super-optomistic estimates.
Those people that scream, “use the surplus to pay off the national debt”, need to realize that it ain’t gonna happen. Bush proposes cutting taxes to give the bulk of the surplus back to those from whom it was taken, and Gore proposes spending it. If the surplus is eliminated by tax cuts, later raising the rates returns us to “now”. If the surplus is eliminated by additional spending, raising the rates means paying MORE.
If there is a net change of zero to the national debt, the debt is, in effect, reduced in overall value by the inflation rate. Paying 1% of the debt in “cash”, about $50B coupled with a 3% inflation rate reduces the debts impact by about 4%.
Daniel, if the tax cut won’t reduce your tax burden you’re not paying any taxes. Pure and simple. All of the brackets are being restructured so the IF you pay taxes your taxable rate will decline. Plus standard deductions are to be increased.
Excuse me??? FICA IS a tax. And the most regressive form of tax in that if you have income you pay it. Reduce the “Income Tax” portion of your tax burden to zero and you STILL must pay FICA. Returning it to the taxpayer IS a tax cut.
And Daniel, please explain again how Gore’s fiscal policy is the least bad.
Phil_15 said: *Bush’s plan returns a nice percentage to be used by MY family not possibly wasted by some damn politician who is merely trying to rebuy the votes of his/her constiuates * [sic].
Regardless of the comparative merits of the two plans, do you imagine that Bush is proposing these cuts for any other reason than “trying to rebuy the votes of his constituents”? If you think that all other “damn politicians” promise financial benefits simply as a shameless attempt to buy popularity, then so does this one.
First thing is that there likely won’t be nearly as much surplus to play with as either Bush or Gore claim.
In yesterday’s Washington Post, David Broder succinctly explains why the CBO-projected $2.2 trillion surplus for the next decade is likely to be more like $700 billion. This is not assuming anything different about the economy; this is merely pointing out that CBO projections are based on Congress’ promises to cut spending and let tax credits lapse in ways it won’t come through on, and that Congress will likely spend to insure that Social Security and Medicare don’t tank.
And then, who knows, the remarkable run our economy has enjoyed for the past several years might actually come to an end sometime. That could wipe out $70 billion a year in revenue real fast.
In short, the string of huge surpluses, on which both candidates’ plans are based, isn’t necessarily going to happen.
For a left-winger, I’m very much a fiscal conservative. We shouldn’t make long-term commitments that we don’t know whether we can fulfill. We got ourselves in a lot of trouble bck in the '50s and '60s by promising increases in Social Security benefits every fifteen minutes, and in the '80s we had to raise the payroll tax on employers and employees to 6.2% apiece on the first, what, $68,000? in each worker’s earnings in order to pay for those commitments.
Same now - tax cuts are also long-term commitments; one can’t expect to be able to repeal them if the need arises. If we’re a bit more sure of long-term conditions in a couple of years, we can cut taxes then. Meanwhile, we should see if there’s any roofs that should be fixed now, while the economic sun shines. Doing that, and maybe even paying down some of the debt we built up during the Reagan-Bush years, would be the best thing all around, IMO.
After all, 11% of the Federal budget still goes to debt service. That’s paying for a previous generation of tax cuts; maybe we should get that squared away before embarking on another round.
Not being a WSJ subscriber, I didn’t read the comparison of the two tax cuts, but apparently Bush’s campaign staff thinks it’s hardly a gimme that their tax plan benefits more folks than Gore’s. You know the real-life families they trot out as examples? Apparently Bush’s staff has all sorts of conditions on what their tax status has to be. See this story in yesterday’s Washington Post.
I’ll admit, economics is not my strong point, however, one question comes to mind. How long will this tax-cut, that Bush wants to give us, last? Is it for only 1 year? 2 years? 4 years?
In other words, will my taxes for FY 2001 (assuming Bush is elected in November) be lower than FY 2000’s? And will they continue to be lower? For FY 2002, FY 2003 & 2004? When will taxes be raised again?
The statement from the WSJ was unambiguous. If you pay taxes, you WILL pay less next year under the Bush plan.
I read the Post article you mentioned. Nothing in there strikes me as alarming. Bush is trying to find people in a certain demographic that he feels best illustrate his side of the story. Gore has done the same. The only difference that I see in the way the two illustrations are being generated is that someone has printed a copy of a Republican e-mail. Then again, Mr. Gore DOES have more experience at hiding e-mail, doesn’t he?
It’s not a cut, as it is not returned to YOU. You have to invest it, just like the Gov’t is doing for you now. Now, maybe you can invest it better, but it is not a cut.
The "surplus’ is, according to most economists, mostly illusionary, and based upon very optomistic projections. Once a big tax cut is in place, it is hard to reverse it. However, if we pay down the nat’l debt to 0, then that portion of the Budget that is interest would be 0, thus we could ALL have a "free’ tax cut of some 20%. And, this would still be fiscally sound, even if those “pie-in-the-sky” estimates were wrong.
Bushes "tax cuts’ are so patently ridiculous, and clearly “election promises”, that one can’t even discuss “which is better” in a rational fashion. Which is better: Streets paved with Gold, or an end to world hunger? Neither, as neither is going to happen, no matter how often promised.
Gore’s has some shred of reality, but is still based upon those bogus projections of the “surplus”.
Daniel, the sentence ‘you have to invest it, just like the Government is doing…’ already contains a contradiction. You would not invest it just like the government. Anything you would do with it would make you better off than what the government would do.
To the OP, sadly I think both Gore and Bush are just making noise and going for ‘the average working man’ with their tax cut plans, but it’s all nonsence. The way our Governement handles money I’ll be surprised to see any real tax cut, even though we have paid in a ‘surplus’. The numbers are so tortured by the time they are presented to us, we can never hope to truly understand what happens to the Trillions of dollars they take in.
The taxes we pay certainly go toward necessary services, but so many dollars also go to subsidize various industries, and we will never see any of that info from any politician. It’s seems like an unwritten code, they don’t bring it up to cover each other. Add to that the incredible waste, the inability of many government agencies to account for their own funds, and you have a huge chunk which is lost to the taxpayer. They throw smoke screens at us, like these tax cut plans, and the bickering between the two major parties just serves to distract us from the real issues.
Bah!
(As far as comparing Gore and Bush, it’s just much more obvious that the demorcats believe the average man does not know what’s good for him, so they are much more open about saying that the Government should take care of things…)
I really have a hard time understanding why liberals seem to think it’s such a bad thing for me to keep more of the money I’ve worked for. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see Government redistribution of wealth as a good thing.
