What effect have the Bush tax cuts had so far on the U.S. economy/deficit/goverenment effectiveness/things in general?
As a membr of the Middle Class, I will answer your question with a question - What tax cuts? I haven’t noticed any that pertain to me (?)
The rich are richer, we’re in more debt, the surplus is gone, and I think our children will spit on our graves for putting him in - twice. I’m glad I don’t have children; they will inherit the disaster Bush has laid up for this country.
The tax cuts stimulated the economy, as all tax cuts do. They helped to make the recession one of the mildest on record.
They put more money into workers pockets with higher paychecks. Cuts on capital gains allowed record numbers of Americans to buy homes and fueled the housing market. Increases in the limits of retirement contribution amounts help workers save for retirement.
Because the cuts weren’t paired with cuts in spending, they have contributed to the deficit.
This is not what most workers actually say about them, though. Like SteveG1, the majority of Americans haven’t seen “more money” as a result of the cuts. According to a recent study,
This is partly because the huge tax-cut deficits meant cuts in federal funding to states, which were offset in many cases by state and local tax increases:
But the cuts were widely acknowledged as not effective as a quick stimulis. Other methods would have had a much larger stimulis role.
The average worker’s take home pay was hardly effected, and any gains have been wiped out by medical and fuel increases.
You are mistaking low interest rates for tax cuts. The fed was responsible for that. And there were no capital gains reductions for first time home buyers that drove the record number of home buyers. CG taxes effect wealthy or established home buyers, that’s not what drove the market here.
Mushroomed the defecit.
Kin y’all stop your harping on the “surplus?” It’s not like there was ever that much of it anyway. The total surplus over the 4 years we had one, was only about 2/3 of the deficit of Clinton’s first years. I will agree that Bush’s profligate spending (even tho’ Congress is complicit) is troublesome. But it’s hardly gonna be the “disaster” you make it out to be. IBush’s spending ain’t terribly different than the SOP for our gov’t.
Most American’s can’t locate North Korea on a map. That doesn’t mean North Korea isn’t there. The left has done so much work at complaining about how the tax cuts only affect the rich, it doesn’t surprise me that many people believe that. However, it’s not true. Peoples taxes were cut across the board. They are lower now.
This isn’t Bush’s fault. He’s at the federal level. He cut federal taxes. Good for him. People at the state and local levels should be cutting taxes also, but we can’t blame Bush for them not doing this.
Actually, spending increases under Bush are significantly larger than we’ve seen in the recent past. I can dig up the OMB numbers if you don’t believe it. IIRC, spending increases under Bush have been in the 6-7% range, while they were in the 3% range under Clinton.
Bush is a big spender, no ifs ands or buts about it.
What recession??? I kept hearing glurge about how everything was going great and there was NO recession. When did the story change?
I don’t think this is really true, over the long run (of course, it depends on how you define “terribly”). The current percentage of on-budget deficit spending (i.e., the percentage of non-SS federal spending billed to the future) is higher than it has been since the record-deficit years of Reagan and Bush I:
This “complicit” Congress, of course, is the Congress that Bush worked very hard to get:
Well, he got one. And he’s been working with them all the way to $8 trillion in debt.
Not true. Any economist that isn’t a partisan hack would aknowledge that lowering taxes stimulates the economy.
Heck, I guess you are right. We should cut taxes some more!
I’m not mistaking anything. Under the republicans, you can now sell your house and not pay capital gains under $500K if you’ve lived in it for two of the past five years. This has been huge for the housing market. It frees people up to move and sell without being penalized by taxes. I’ve personally built three condo’s since Bush has been in office because of these laws. If you think that CG taxes don’t effect “driving the market” then your just flat out wrong.
Nope. Bush’s cuts contributed to the deficit, but they’re hardly the largest thing in play. The overall effect of the economy has a much larger role.
By all means, provide us a cite for how much money ended up in the hands of the middle and lower classes.
Really ? Clinton raises taxes on the rich, the economy improves. Taxes on the rich were much higher in the 50’s; the economy was strong. Every time the Republicans can, they cut taxes, and the economy gets worse - especially for normal people. Do you have any evidence that cutting taxes helps the economy ?
As far as I can tell, taxing the rich boosts the economy, cutting taxes screws it. Why would letting money be sent to offshore accounts or sit in a bank account help the economy ?
Yes, please do. Also, some of us do know where North Korea is. We also know where many other countries are.
Sure, I’m not denying that the official marginal tax rates for all taxpayers have been lowered from what they were when Bush took office. (Lowering the official tax rates is kind of the definition of “tax cut”, actually.)
But what the OP asked was not “Did Bush cut taxes?” (which wouldn’t make much of a debate), but rather “What have been the effects of Bush’s tax cuts?” And if the vast majority of Americans haven’t even detected a perceptible decrease in their tax burden, it means that your claim that the cuts put “more money in their pockets” isn’t true to any significant extent.
Or are you suggesting that that feckless, geography-impaired 80% of the US population has simply failed to notice their hefty surge in after-tax income? “Huh, I seem to have a lot more money than I used to, but my masters in the liberal media tell me I don’t, so that’s what I’ll say on the poll questionnaire!” Uh-huh. Right.
But for the average non-wealthy person, he cut them by such a small amount that it was swallowed up in the increased tax costs of paying for state services due to decreased federal funding. As a consequence, they didn’t really have the “effect” of putting significantly “more money in workers’ pockets”.
CNN archive article re: tax cuts
Taxes were cut for everyone. They were cut most for the poor, but everyone got cuts. The rich got a larger dollar amount of cuts, of course, because they pay a much larger amount of taxes.
Maybe you aren’t, but other people do seem to be.
It’s not that far fetched at all. People routinely poll on things very different from what the actual reality is. Why depend on a poll of what people think their tax rate is? Why not just look at the actual rate?
People are paying less in federal taxes now. That’s true whether 80% of people believe it or not.
Are you saying Bush’s tax cut was small? I thought it was always referred to as “massive” and “huge”. 
I’d certainly agree that he could have and should have cut taxes more across the board, though!
Like I said before, Bush doesn’t control state and local spending. It’s not fair to pu this on him. I also doubt that increases here have an effect that can offset the federal cuts. Here in MA (where I work) and NH (where I live) there haven’t been any increases in tax rates that I can recall. We’re still paying the same 5.3% income tax that we were before.
You’re ignoring the gradual elimination of the estate tax, a move which benefits only the wealthy.
Or cuts in capital gains taxes, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy. Or proposed elimination of tax on dividends, which would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
It appears to me that the Republicans are trying to shift the tax burden of the nation from the wealthy to the middle class.
Like I said, I didn’t notice any reduction.
That seems to agree with my observations.
So if the cuts are delayed for several years, who is seeing them now, and how?
So the tax cuts will cause more people to pay more tax in reality, while still giving the very rich a way out?