Bush taxed the poor and redistributed the income to the wealth classes. If that is what you want, at least call it that. It was REDISTRIBUTION.
Cite?
Oh, forget it. You won’t anyway. The fact is, in 2007 the top 5% of Americans pay over half of all income taxes, and yet they don’t consume anywhere half of all government services. The bottom 50% of the population eans 13% of all income, but pays only 3% of all income taxes, not including social security and medicare taxes (which presumably go back to them as benefits anyway).
Calling a system like this a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich is obscene.
Here is a good cite showing the progression of taxes as a percentage paid from 1999 through 2007. It goes from basically 36.18% in 1999 to 37.42% in 2000, then it drops to 33.89% in 2001 and then climbs steadily back up to 40.42% in 2007. As of somewhere around 2005-2006 the top 1% pay more than the bottom 95% combine. Strangely, this doesn’t seem to backup gonzo’s claim, but I’m sure he’ll be along soon with a cite from one of his sources clearly showing…um…something.
(In fairness, the top 1% pay so much because there are more of them today than ever before, and because they also have a large percentage of the wealth in the country as well. I think The Master did an article on this subject before and it hasn’t really changed that much since he did it)
Here is another site with some interesting info on it as well, for anyone interested.
Check out table 1 (I can’t embed it for some reason so you’ll have to go look for yourselves), which shows some interesting stats on the breakdown.
-XT
Income taxes are paid on all incomes, however social security is only paid on the bottom 90% of wages. Only focusing on federal income tax is a very selective way to talk about taxes.
Social security runs a surplus. So that surplus (which is paid by the poor, working class, middle class and upper class) was mixed into the general budget and used to fund Bush’s supply side tax cuts which went to the wealthiest 10%.
Also federal income taxes only make up about 1/3 of all tax revenue collected. Other taxes are more regressive.
But from that perspective the social security surplus of $150 billion a year is about equal to the size of Bush’s supply side tax cuts. So you tax people making $1-102,000 a year until you have a budget surplus, and use that money to fund supply side tax cuts.
Hi, Sam. Glad to see you’re still posting.
I thought we had covered this umpteen million times during the nonsensical ranting and raving of the 2008 Presidential election. But apparently not.
Tables 5 and 7 (scrolled down from top) show the share of income taxes paid by each income group, and the average tax rate experienced by each income group.
http://taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/23408.html
Data is to 2007. If you want to call the 2000-2007 years the ‘Bush Years’, you can clearly see that the share of income taxes paid for by the 26-50th percentile and the 50th-100th percentile (where 100th is the poorest) as well as their effective rate went down, whilst the amount paid for by the richest went up.
Now back to the Board’s regularly scheduled ranting and raving about the evil, insidious George Bush. Sorry to confuse the issue with some facts.
Yes, putting soc sec into the mix muddies the waters. Soc sec has been running with surpluses for years, and is just now running at a deficit in terms of taxes vs outlay, but interest in the trust fund still makes it run at a surplus.
And it’s beyond unfair to the point of disingenuous to include soc sec in the analysis of outlays and then focus on income tax paid, ignoring the soc sec taxes which are not-progressive. For many poor people, their soc sec taxes are larger than their income taxes.
The same applies to MediCare, which also is funded (partially?) by separate taxes.
The real question is how do we balance the rest of the budget taht is not funded by dedicated taxes. That’s where the deficit is.
Income for middle-class Americans decreased in the Bush years while income for the wealthy rose, so it’s hardly surprising that the percentage of the income tax paid by the wealthy rose as well.
Since taxpayers cover the veterans health care benefits because of their service, I think it should fall under the DOD’s actual total budget. It helps show the true costs better, I think. I would love to see the actual breakdown of every dollar and where it goes including how much of the DOD budget is healthcare.
I’m afraid following the money of what is exactly spent, and the time to do a very thorough investigation would be a far greater task than I could carry out. I’m not sure how valid that one site is, but am curious if others can shed more light upon this.
I’ve never said anything that could reasonable be interpreted as “despising leeches.” I think certain things are within the legitimate activities of government and certain things are not. Your bias is showing.
Also, it is very doubtful that I will get back “far” more than I put in. Investment return in SS is running around 2% I think.
Cut the military WAY down. They should be heavily defending the southern border and the two coasts… and not much beyond that. We don’t need any troops in Fiji.
Cut social security and let people invest and keep their own money.
Medicaid and Education are probably needed, but more of this should be at the state level. We could also pair down lots of bureaucracy in the Dept of Energy, Commerce, Agriculture etc. I would also say that Congressmen and Senators should not be able to vote on anything that directly and principally affects only their state/district.
First and foremost I think our culture needs to change. The reality is that mandatory social programs that have been discussed -Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are eating up an increasing large amount of our budget with no relief in site. I’m a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. For the longest time I was torn because socially I liked the democrats, but the republicans were fiscally conservative. But they gained control of Congress and climbed into the fiscal trough too. So as a fiscal conservative, no one speaks to me.
So we need a culture change. The problem is that if a politician advocates cutting services, he’s voted out. I think we need a long term freeze or reduction of services that gradually reduces our dependence on government. Say program inflation is reduced to 1.5% below inflation, with taxpayers knowing that they will have to increasingly pick up their own tabs.
Two other points on all programs. Making programs more efficient, or cutting admin is a pipedream. There have been pressure on government for quite a while now. I can
think of all the studies and savings measures that have taken place over the last 10 years. That’s just on the margins now.
DoD. DoD as a percentage of GDP is actually lower now than it’s been in the past. Buy that measure, it’s not a large as many make it out to be. And it’s growing less that Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.
The U.S. certainly has a global reach and as such acts as a bit of a global policeman for Europe and Japan. Since WWII, this has been the case. We can certainly alter that model. China is going to rule the world at some point anyway, perhaps letting them take over sooner isn’t that big a deal. But if that happens, the west will take a back seat to the east for the first time in anyone’s memory. Not sure how happy we’ll all be about that when it happens. I’ve travel extensively to Africa which is the latest battlefield for the world’s natural resources. The Chinese are EVERYWHERE down there, and they are cleaning our clocks.
So DoD is expensive. The majority is parts and fuel (Operations and Maintenance), second is labor. Also, DoD supports some of the industrial base that would be in peril if DoD wasn’t spending money, such as portions of the aircraft industry, and certainly ship building. And while defense is expensive, our capability is taking a hit due to the lack of funding, believe it or not.
Social Security appears to be running at a deficit (cite), so you going to have to cut an awful lot. And I think you are going to have trouble with the Democrats even if Obama steals Bush’s ideas.
I would remove the limit on earnings subject to Social Security tax, freeze all spending (ALL spending - no, we aren’t going to implement UHC, no Medicare increases no matter what, no COLAs for anything government-related) and hope that the Republicans take over Congress and create gridlock. But I doubt they will.
Regards,
Shodan
America’s military is plenty big enough to defend its own country, and nuclear weapons are also a deterrent. At some point, money can only do so much. It’s impossible to guard against every conceivable terrorist attack, e.g…
Our private citizens also have a fairly large stockpile of weapons themselves which in a smaller role could also be used for defense in a limited way in our homeland, and would certainly be a cost effective measure. Don’t know how much private citizens have in firepower, but it wouldn’t suprise me if this stockpile is over 100 billion.
Yes, some in America sort of equates itself with John Wayne and likes that role of playing cowboy hero that takes care of not only itself, but all of it’s allies too, and they know we will come to their rescue if there is any kind of a threat which is what NATO is for. Either much of Europe can start increasing their military spending, or start giving the US money to protect them for the massive amounts we are spending on this, or we seriously need to cut our military by a huge margin over time. America outspends the top 15 countries military spending combined, with 12 of them being our allies if that one cite I used is correct. American taxpayers don’t need to be footing this large of a bill. Our allies can certainly do a larger role here if this large of a military is really required. Europe evidently doesn’t think it is required and feels safe enough, I suppose. They certainly don’t think it is required as long as America is spending this kind of money and they are a part of NATO. Can’t really blame them, I wouldn’t spend that much on it either, and maybe they don’t think it is necessary even if America wasn’t spending this kind of money.
Razncain,
While the basic goal of America’s military is the protection of the borders, in practice, it’s been about power projection and the protection of it’s allies for for the last 50+ years. So the 9mm in my top drawer isn’t really part of the solution.
I thought you were Canadian, why would raising the SS retirement age affect you personally?
Social security really isn’t a problem from what I understand. Something as simple as raising the tax rate from 12.4% up to 14.2% would keep it 100% solvent until 2075. And that is without changing the cap, increasing the retirement age or decreasing benefits. Something like increasing the cap to 95% of wages (up from 90%), raising the tax rate to 13.2% and raising retirement age to 68 would probably be enough to keep it solvent until the 22nd century, or at least near.
Health care is again the big problem. Of the 70 trillion-ish in unfunded liabilities on the horizon, at least 50 trillion are medicaid and medicare.
We need to do what Taiwan did in the 1990s. After rapidly industrializing, they realized their health care system wasn’t able to keep up, so they rebuilt it from the bottom up using the best ideas from around the world. The result is a system that covers everyone for 8% of GDP. Administration in Taiwan takes up 2% of health care cost (vs. close to 31% in the US). Peter Orszag claims around $800 billion in health spending in the US does nothing to improve health. And I’m sure we could cut even more if we worked at improving efficiency. But as it stands, too many powerful interests have too much to lose from radical changes to the health system.
I don’t know tons about it, but I am under the impression that education works like medicare. Some areas have 2x+ more spending, but the results are the same.
Why do you feel you need uniform federal standards, and that state standards do not suffice?
I’d like to see a voucher system, because my understanding is a good part of why real estate has become so unaffordable is because parents want to send their kids to a good school. The real estate bubble just collapsed and destroyed trillions in wealth as well as dragged the global economy down.
Other things like physical exercise, proper nutrition, musical training, adequate sleep, etc. can all improve academic performance and test scores. Those seem like they can be implemented on the cheap.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26207599/
http://www.sboh.wa.gov/Meetings/2003/10_15/documents/pmTab08-Factsheet.pdf
I suppose I’m not a “real” fiscal conservative, but I do believe in sustainable & balanced (over time) budgets.
I’d bring back the sort of progressive taxes used in the 1950’s to pay off previous administrations’ war debt, at least long enough to get out the hole. And I’d denounce anyone opposed to it as not only selfish, but unpatriotic & a traitor, because that’s how you get things your way in today’s USA.
Paying off the last administration’s war debt won’t bring you anywhere close to being out of the hole. The CBO says that the entire cost of the war in Iraq was about 675 billion dollars up until 2009. The entire cost of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan combined is just over a trillion dollars. That’s about what the Obama administration spent on the stimulus package alone.
George Bush increased the gross debt by about 5.1 trillion dollars (that includes the Social Security and Medicare liabilities). That’s outrageous and indefensible. However, Obama will surpass that total in his first two and a half years, based on current projections. Right now, the projection for the gross debt at the end of Obama’s s first term is right around 17 trillion dollars. The entire Iraq war debt accounts for about 4% of that amount.
If you want to do anything serious about that debt, you aren’t going to get there by taxing the rich more - they don’t have that much money. You could tax 100% of all taxable income of everyone making over $500,000 per year in the U.S., and still not even be able to balance the budget.
You have exactly two choices if you want to eliminate the deficit and pay down the debt - serious entitlement reform (major reductions in the cost of medicare and medicade and social security), or a broad-based tax on the entire economy (a 10% VAT, for example). Obama has been promising to fund everything on the backs of the rich (no tax hikes on anyone making under $250,000). This is voodoo economics. It can’t be done.
From IRS Data, you will find that the entire taxable income of everyone in the U.S. making over $200,000 is only 2.155 trillion dollars. The number for over $500,000 is 1.45 trillion. If you took ALL of the income of that group, you couldn’t balance the budget. And of course, long before you got a tax rate of 100%, you’d find that those rich incomes would plummet.
If you want to get an idea of how big a hole the U.S. is digging, consider that the entire taxable income of everyone in the United States is about 5.5 trillion dollars. This year’s deficit is about 30% of the entire taxable income of the whole population.
Or perhaps an even scarier number: The entire income tax collected in 2006 in the U.S. was 1.02 trillion dollars. That means the U.S. is now borrowing more than it collects in income tax. In fact, the fy 2009 deficit was about 1.6 trillion dollars. You could DOUBLE the taxes on the rich, and still not even balance that budget. The projected deficit for 2011 is 1.3 trillion. Not much better.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The official CBO projection of 9 trillion added to the debt over the next 10 years stops just as the big whammy hits - the massive retirement bubble caused by the baby boom leaving the work force and demanding their entitlements. Medicaid and Medicare alone are expected to double in cost by 2035, at which time they will be consuming over 10% of GDP. Social Security has a total shortfall of about 11 trillion dollars, which will start coming due very soon.
And if the economy doesn’t recover robustly, which the CBO’s numbers assume, it will be much worse.
That is such a puerile argument. If you have a millionaire and 4 poor people. The millionaire will pay a vast portion of the taxes. He will get a mere 800 thou to himself. But doggone the poor guy pays such a horrible proportion of taxes. He is obviously getting cheated. Again you are dancing without music.
IMO, the federal government has no business being in the education and medical business; those things should be left to the states. So to answer your question, I would eliminate Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and the Department of Education. While I’m at it, I would eliminate the Department of Labor and the Department of Commerce.