When Bush put the tax cut in that went to the top, was it voluntary? When he started 2 wars and did not pay for them, did he suggest we could send money in to help the war effort? Did he wave a bond drive? hell no. His intent was to bankrupt the country so social programs could be flushed down the toilet.
If the Bush tax cuts only went to the top why the resistance to getting rid of all of the Bush tax cuts? Why the arbitrary $250k/year or more stipulation? I mean, if it only helped the rich, then effectively getting rid of the Bush tax cuts completely should be the same as getting rid of them for only those making $250k/year, right?
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
I-DE-AAAAAA!
[/QUOTE]
Shouldn’t it be ‘LIIGGHT BUULB!’?? 
-XT
I don’t think people are suggesting it only went to the rich. It mostly went to the rich.
The reason you wouldn’t want to remove it for the non-rich is that in the recovery those people are spending all their money. Making them have less money would lower consumer demand.
A rich person, who got the majority of the cuts, is (generally) sitting on his money. A tax cut to him just adds to his bank account, it doesn’t go into the economy.
Volunteerism is great. I am all for it.
If it works out and the work needing to be done gets done with volunteers then GREAT!
So let’s go with the OP’s idea.
However, what happens if it doesn’t work? If the people with money do not volunteer more. If they fail to rise to the volunteer challenge then we raise taxes on them, right?
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
I don’t think people are suggesting it only went to the rich. It mostly went to the rich.
[/QUOTE]
I think a lot of people ARE saying (or implying at least) that it all went to ‘the rich’. But if most of it went to the rich, with only a bit going to the poor and middle class, then I still don’t see the problem with letting them all expire. I mean, if the poor/middle class got a few bucks out of it, then it wasn’t worth keeping if the intent was to get rid of the things to increase revenue.
Of course, we all know that the reason the Dems didn’t vote to let them all expire (when they had the chance to do so) is because everyone would notice that the Bush tax cuts were a bit more wide spread than simply cuts for ‘the rich’.
Still, ISTM that if getting rid of that tax cut is a good idea for ‘the rich’ then it would be more so for getting rid of the whole thing. The country is in a bind. We’ve been hearing for years about how much revenue the government is losing through these horrible tax cuts, and how they are the cornerstone of fixing the deficit problem, etc etc, so lets get rid of all of them and watch the trillions flow back in.
Even leaving my slightly sarcastic hyperbole aside, I actually do think this is what we should do. Get rid of the Bush tax cuts completely, lock stock and barrel, and make meaningful and substantial cuts in spending across the board.
Why? If the tax cuts on the non-‘rich’ were token then it really isn’t meaningful enough to bother with, right? I’m not talking about raising taxes on the poor or middle class, just getting rid of the Bush tax cuts, which I’ve been assured isn’t the same thing. If getting rid of them on folks who make $250k/year or more won’t stifle demand then I don’t see why getting rid of them for everyone would, since you just said that the $250k/year got the lions share of the cuts…and everyone knows that taxing ‘the rich’ doesn’t effect demand or capital.
So, let’s get rid of them all and go back to the rates we had pre-Bush…which everyone around here seems to agree were a step in the right direction.
Seriously? What do you think money sitting in a ‘bank account’ (which isn’t where most rich people keep the majority of their investments) does? What do banks do with money?
Regardless though, if only the rich got major benefit from the tax cuts then getting rid of all of them will mostly just effect ‘the rich’, right? So it shouldn’t have any effect on the economy, since ‘the rich’ tax cuts don’t go into the economy…right?
I don’t understand this resistance to getting rid of all of the Bush tax cuts. It’s a puzzlement, no doubt.
-XT
Indeed! The almost religious fervor attached to protecting the wealthy from increasing their taxes to pre-Bush levels is a puzzle.
So, Mr. Hedge Fund Manager buys one less bottle of Petrus at his wife’s birthday dinner in order to pay the additional 1% on earnings above $250K. HE CAN AFFORD IT! WHY DO WE NEED TO CONSTANTLY KISS THEIR COLLECTIVE ASSES?
It really is irrational.
Then we are at an impasse. You either can’t or won’t understand that middle class people need to spend to keep the economy running, because they barely have enough money as it is. They are spending all they have, if you reduce what they have, they will spend less, lowering demand in an already weak economy.
The tax cuts on the “non-rich” should be removed, but it should be after the economy has recovered more. Imho.
They aren’t a meaningless number, they are much, much less than what rich people got. I assume you’re simply pretending to not understand to make a point. It’s kind of unpleasant.
Again, the tax cuts on the rich can be safely ended because they aren’t spending their money now. We need the income for the country more than they need the cuts that the Bush Administration gave them. The “non-rich” are spending all the money they have, so it makes sense not to remove the taxes on them. This isn’t a hard issue, you appear to be pretending not to understand it simply to make a point.
The rich are sitting on tons of money now. If you have everything you need and are in a weak economy, why would a rich person start a business with his tax cut money if there is no demand?
Except that it makes more sense to allow it to stay with the people who are spending all their money now, just to survive. Raising their taxes would simply lower the amount of money going into the economy.
The banks are doing fine. Not that they are loaning the money out, but they are still making money on it. How many jobs do you think banks are creating?
I know you aren’t actually unable to understand this. Why keep up the act?
No, it makes perfect sense. Pretending you don’t understand an argument isn’t the same thing as refuting it.
You can’t conceive of a policy judgment that concludes that under current circumstances the pre-Bush tax rates are appropriate for the rich but the post-Bush tax rates are appropriate for the middle class?
I understand the part about letting the middle class keep their tax cuts so that they will buy goods, which will cause the rich to create jobs, but why is the elephant in this room being ignored? What part of this relief/job plan forces, or even invites, the rich to create jobs in this country? As far as I can see, this program does nothing but export our money overseas.
He must have been SHOCKED that his plan was foiled by that huge increase in federal tax receipts. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
Then we are at an impasse. You either can’t or won’t understand that middle class people need to spend to keep the economy running, because they barely have enough money as it is. They are spending all they have, if you reduce what they have, they will spend less, lowering demand in an already weak economy.
[/QUOTE]
You are right…I can’t and don’t understand why you think that’s the case. If just giving money to the middle class solves the problem then how about we give them each $100,000? Will that help more? What if we give them each a million? More benefit? A billion? A trillion?
You made a statement that seems to be a staple around here, which is that tax cuts to the rich do nothing because a “tax cut to him just adds to his bank account, it doesn’t go into the economy” where ‘him’ equals ‘some rich person’. If that’s true of a rich person why would it be different for a middle class person? Because the middle class person is just going to run out and buy stuff if they get a break while the rich person is going to put their money in a ‘bank’ where it will enter a black hole and be divorced from the economy??
To put this another way, we ALREADY have those Bush tax cuts in effect…have they spurred demand from the poor and the middle class? Has this fixed the problems or issues? Have we had a major recovery when I wasn’t watching? Perhaps we should cut taxes to the middle class again…would that help spur demand?
Why? Why do you think that the current tax cuts are spurring demand? Why do you think that taking money from ‘the rich’ will have a positive effect on the economy while removing the lesser cuts to the middle class and poor will have a negative one?
No, I’m trying to get you to admit that the cuts on the middle class and the poor are more than the token gestures you and others have been talking about for the last near decade. Because, if they were merely token gestures then you and others would have zero problem with getting rid of them in order to get the increases back to pre-Bush levels on ‘the rich’. The Democrats and various posters on this board wouldn’t be making the distinction of getting rid of the Bush tax cuts ONLY on those who make $250k/year or more if the cuts weren’t meaningful to those making less.
And yeah…it’s quite unpleasant and has been so for years now discussing this subject.
The ‘rich’ don’t generally spend their money…that’s how they stay rich. They INVEST their money, and they are still doing that. The money doesn’t go into a black hole, divorced from the economy. Right now The Rich™ aren’t taking any great risks, and are hedging their investments because of how the economy is doing.
The ‘non-rich’ aren’t going out and spending their money either…they are paying their bills. A lot of them (the smarter ones) are paying down their debt right now…they aren’t going out and incurring a ton of new debt because they think the future will be rosy because they got a tax break under Bush.
I’m not pretending anything. Has it occurred to you that I don’t agree with your assessment that tax breaks to the middle and poor classes is a spur to demand, while your assertion that tax cuts to the rich don’t have any positive effect at all? I certainly AM trying to make a point here…the point being that the trivial or token tax cuts that Bush supposedly gave the poor and middle class (especially the later) weren’t nearly as trivial or token as has been stated around here, and that THIS is the reason why people want to make a distinction between those making $250k or more a year and those making less.
I am genuinely, honestly and earnestly saying that I think that people making $250k/year should have those Bush tax cuts revoked and go back to the pre-cut levels. But so should everyone else. If tax cuts are bad (for ‘the rich’) then we should remove them in this time of crisis.
Of course, I have some ulterior motives here. First off, politically if I were a Republican I would absolutely refuse to allow partial revocation of the Bush Tax Cuts™. Why? Because it’s a common meme now that the Bush tax cuts were only ‘for the rich’…and I think that it would be an eye opener to people when the cuts went away how much benefit we all (well, all tax payers) got from them. The benefit was proportional to the amount one pays, to be sure, but then so are the tax levels in a progressive taxation system. So, to me it would be an all or nothing thing (of course, the Republicans are too stupid to see this and will stubbornly cling to no new taxes, evah, so it’s a moot point). Secondly, and on a personal level, I DO think we are all in this together, and we all need to pitch in to do our parts to try and pay down our collective debt and get our spending under control. A little pain that we all share will teach us all a collective lesson…don’t continually spend more than you have unless you want to feel the pain. No free lunches and all that. Thirdly, I disagree with you that the middle class cuts spur demand and that this will get us out of our current crisis…I think that we are in for a fairly long, bleak period, but that if we can get our collective spending under control we will emerge stronger than before, and that THAT will spur demand in the long run, which will spur investment and the economy. YMMV of course but that’s my take.
(sorry, don’t have time to address your other points, but I think that covers some of them anyway)
-XT
I’ll take $100,000. It’d clear out my debts and let me start spending more on a regular basis.
I could go for a billion. I could spend a LOT to stimulate the economy and I would free up one job that could put someone else to work.
Yes. Spending by the middle class (and the poor for that matter) is much better for the economy than anything the rich are likely to do with it. And the rich already literally have most of the money in the country anyway, they don’t need more.
Or at best they’ll spend it in ways that only help a tiny segment of the economy, the part that caters to the rich. You don’t get many jobs by increasing the number of yachts or jewelery bought. The majority of the population buys far more things and a far greater variety of things because they are the majority.
Because the rich have most of the money in the country. Redistributing it to the majority of the population will get it circulating again and stimulate demand.
Tax cuts to the rich have a negative effect, not no effect. It allows them to hog more and more of the total wealth of the nation to themselves. Taxes on the rich should be hiked, by a large amount.
Which if we actually intend to do so means that most of the tax increases will have to be on the rich because they have most of the money in the country. You can’t tax money from the general populace that it doesn’t have.
Please. The people who are so hot to cut spending mean they want to cut spending and protections for the common people; they want to convert America into a nuclear armed Third World nation with a tiny superrich class and a sea of poor with no real middle class at all. Cutting spending will just encourage the Republicans to rack up yet more debt and to trash the economy even harder, it will be rewarding bad behavior.
The basic problem with the OP’s proposal is that the system should be fair.
To use an analogy that I think was originally due to Bricker: We’re playing Monopoly. I think that the common houserule of “get money for landing on Free Parking” is a bad idea that accomplishes nothing but slowing down the game. As we’re starting the game, therefore, I argue that we shouldn’t agree to use that houserule, but a lot of other folks like it. One of the proponents of the houserule says “Well, here’s a compromise: Whenever any of us land on Free Parking, we’ll get money, like we want, and whenever you land on Free Parking, you can choose not to get money, like you want.”. Would anyone consider this a reasonable compromise?
And now, suppose that we do play a game with the Free Parking money rule, and I go ahead and collect money whenever I land on it, like everyone else. The next game, I say “Well, you saw how long that game took-- Will you believe me now that that’s a bad rule?”. And one of the proponents says “You’re a hypocrite! You say you don’t like that rule, but last game you collected money anyway!”. Is this a reasonable criticism?
We want the rules to be changed, but until they are, we want what rules we have to apply the same to everyone.
Well said.
I think there might be a case to be made here. I can’t provide a cite but it seems reasonable that there may be a diminishing returns effect here.
Let’s say you want to pump ten million dollars into the economy. If you give ten thousand people a thousand dollars each, they’re probably going to spend most of it. But if you give ten people a million dollars each, they’re probably not going to turn around a spend a million dollars.
Spending doesn’t scale up directly with wealth. If you gave me a thousand dollars, I might go out a buy a big screen TV. But if you gave me five thousand dollars, I wouldn’t go out and buy five big screen TV’s. From the point of view of a guy who sells big screen TV’s the economy is better off when everyone has a thousand dollars rather than when a third of the people have five thousand dollars - even though the second case represents a higher total sum of money.
Anyone can go pay extra to pay down the debt. You can do it online:
https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454
Well, duh. On the one hand, you have the United States – an advanced and educated (by historical standards) society. On the other hand, you have the rest of the world – partly advanced and educated, and partly still at the stage where “social mores” boil down to “banding together to throw rocks at the tribe over the hill”. Naturally that last component of the latter mix is going to drag down the curve when it comes to exhibiting civilized tolerant behavior.
Thanks for the great discussion. Other than Der Trihs, I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s responses.
Of all the posts, I think **Chronos **hits the nail (and perhaps the fatal flaw). The system should be fair. Perhaps the only way for anything like this to work would mean that problem would have to be solved first, and we’d spend the rest of our lifetimes arguing over what “fair” is?
Let me respond to a few replies that caught my attention (haven’t had much time to devote to this lately. I apologize).
And if I don’t quote you directly, please don’t take it personally. It usually means I couldn’t find the exact quote I was looking for.
Great Antibob states:
This is not something that doesn’t happen in the business world every day. Why would the government be any different?
People get laid off all the time… I can tell you some horror stories of people I hired, they changed their lives to come work for me, only to have the budget shifted by some EVP who didn’t like that my slice of the pie was bigger than his, and he was the CEO’s bud. As a result, my budget goes down, the scope of the project changes, and a few people who relocated to work for me were terminated. That sucks. But the government should not be immune to similar budget fluctuations. Trust me… if NASA had massive layoffs one year, and massive hiring the next, they’d find all the people they needed and then some. It’s really bad out there.
As for the number of people who have pointed out that if I want to pay more now, I have the ability, the process is in place, thank you. However, that process isn’t exactly what I have in mind, and I don’t think it’s as easy to do as I’d like. The option should be on a tax form right before the signatures, not on a website somewhere, where you have no idea what happens to your money. Kind of like the boat all of us are in right now with our taxes.
BrightNShiny said (among other things):
Yes. Like it or not, our tax money is spent on how our elected representatives decide when they are making their backroom deals to get their pet projects funded. So like everyone in this country, my tax bill is absorbed into the great big money pot, and is divided up however the budget demands. I can’t get into a twist if they use my tax money for UHC, for example, even if it’s not one of my burning issues at the moment, because that’s the way it worked out through the budgeting process in congress. Once the president signs off on the budget, I have very little say on where any of my tax money actually goes. It’s been spoken for. The voluntary portion of my scheme may not amount to a hill of beans, but let’s say that it did. A million dollars for the Energy Dept. Money that they were not earmarked for, and money that they can do whatever they wish (except giving themselves bonuses or throwing parties with it). They can even put it in a “savings fund” if they don’t spend all of it.
Someone mentioned that it takes skill to manage large and fluctuating budgets. I agree, and have managed some pretty large budgets myself. Here’s the thing, though. In most government settings, if a department, agency, or government entity doesn’t spend every last dime allocated to them in the budget, they will not be getting an increase in funds for the next year. I worked for the government, and I saw some pretty outrageous spending as the last quarter wound down. Had to. If you don’t look like you need all the money allocated to you, you will lose your argument for increased funds next year. It’s a bad system, and it has been this way for as long as I’ve been around. There is no incentive to save money. Because there is no place to “put” extra funds that aren’t spent. Let each department have the ability to stock away funds that would not have to be spent, instead of sending 40 people to a week long seminar that is just to burn cash off the books.
But I digress.
The most sobering post was from kinilou:
When you take a hard example and look at the real numbers, it is truly depressing. $300 Billion is an amazing amount of money to have such a small and short term impact. It’s depressing, really.
It seems the concensus is that my idea is decent in theory for many of you, but for most of you, it would never work in practice. Maybe you are right.
I am at a point where I am concerned about the solvency of our country, and trying something new that is not manditory is at least one way to bring relief to some program, however small that relief may be.
Finally, for my angry friend Der Trihs, who hates all things repubican (interesting you’d choose red shirt as your user name.. isn’t red the color of the republicans?) Anyway, you say some pretty strange things. For instance:
Redistribution is not an option: And if it was, how would you propose to do it? Everyone get the same amount? Someone like Bill Gates, who created wealth out of hard work, incredibly good luck, being in the right place at the right time, and managing his company extremely well would have **what **incentive to continue to do so if you took all of his money and redistributed it? I simply don’t follow your logic that redistribution would do much more than cause folks to produce less, not more, and cause resentment at the more fundamental class levels. Lower and upper middle class, lets say. If I’m upper middle class, have a good job, and busted my ass to get where I was, while my neighbor was lower middle class because he can only do the type of work that provides him the pay that defines him as lower middle class, how does resentment NOT occur?
This country was founded by a bunch of rich guys who owned an incredible percentage of the country’s wealth. They got poor and middle class people to fight (and die) for independence because the FF sold the masses the American Dream. The great brass ring. Nothing in this country stands in your way of becoming a huge success and being one of the uber rich. It’s been sold to all of us for close to 300 years now. And every time someone makes it out of the bottom and gets to the top, it gives everyone hope that it could someday happen to them or their children as well.
**
Der Trihs** says alot of things, but I think this item is why I can’t take him seriously:
You unfortunately are one of those people who has lost the ability to see anything rationally somewhere along the way. Even if you are somewhat intelligent (and I have no idea), you are so blinded by your ideology and your believe that you are not only right but your views are superior to every elses puts you in a bad spot. I can’t take you seriously, because even if your points have merit, they have merit by accident. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.
**septimus **shows some insight into his character and intellect by saying:
other than insulting me in a very odd way, why even bother with this post? This isn’t that controversial a debate topic. And you spout this? The way your neurons fire in your brain fascinate me.
[hijack]
This is beyond the scope of my question in the OP, but I felt like addressing it just the same.
Finally, Gonzomax asks a question that seems to be a popularly held belief out here:
Do you honestly think that Bush/Cheney wanted to bankrupt the country? What good would that do, really? Bankrupting this country isn’t going to be good for anyone, not even the uber rich. Although I DO wonder where exactly we are heading. The fear I have is that we may have passed the point of no return… the “everything will work out” drumbeat that keeps people from panicing in the streets is no longer true. After 2+ years of Obama, I haven’t seen much of anything change, including the direction of this country, the recovery of our economy, or anything out of Washington even remotely resembling “Hope” or “Change”.
[/end hijack]
Let’s not discuss anything between the hijack brackets in this thread. I’m sure there are other threads discussing those very topics on the board right now, and I’m not interested in taking this thread into that direction. Thanks.
PS: I’m sure there are typos and some runon sentences in here. I’m tired and wanted to get this out before going to bed.
So, don’t hammer the grammar. And if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.