Really? I would tend to think it would stand even when you factor in payroll and sales taxes and all that happy crappy, but since I was clearly referring to Federal taxes, I don’t see an issue.
Y’know, he did cut the bottom bracket.
For the most part we’ve been discussing Federal income tax.
If making the tax cut revenue neutral based on last year’s dollars, than there would be nothing wrong with that idea. However, this tax cut is billed as a stimulous package among other things. Revenue neutral does not make a stimulous.
Distortionary in what way?
Those who consider the stimulous aspects of it to be important would indeed, I think.
Man you really got it in for the WSJ, don’t you?
I do think the stimulous aspects are important, so don’t necessarily count me out of that category. If I couldn’t have both I’d still take the dividend cut, though as I think it does us a lot of good.
I’m not all that crazy about your revenue neutral concept. I think the government wastes an awful lot of money, and I think as a whole incremental dollars do our society better in the hands of industry, private enterprise and individuals than they do in the fat bloated fingers of Uncle Sam. So, I tend to consider any strategy that lessens government revenue to be a good one in light of present bureacratic bloat.
Lean government up from its present form into something at least approaching the level of Enron in terms of fiscal responsibility. Do that, and if we still need more revenue I’ll happily embrace my higher tax bracket knowing that the money isn’t being pissed away. Until then, I’m not too enthuse about protecting Gov. revenue.
There is good reason to think tax cuts can provide a stimulous even if uncle Sam refuses to lean up and goes into deeper deficit spending for a while, so the OP-ED page may have a point.
Various federal income tax changes have increased taxes more on the higher earners than for lower earners. Furthermore, inflation does the same, year after year. If we rule out tax changes that provide more relief for the upper brackets, then our federal income tax will become more and more unbalanced. It’s pretty darn unbalanced right now. The bottom 50% of taxpayers went from paying 7.1% in 1975 down to just 4% now, according to this book review.
It’s important to note while talking to Jshore that when you say “taxes” to him, he thinks about everything: sales taxes, payroll deductions for social programs like ss and unemployment, property taxes, and probably unforsees externalities as well.
While I have personally found it frustrating that he insists on this holistic view and is unwilling for the most part to simply discuss FICA when that is clearly the topic at hand, he does have a point that these other taxes are not progressive.
His strongest point, and one that I would heartily agree with if he would just utter it straight out is that low-income tax-reform needs to focus on abolishing these payroll program taxes among the working poor.
I personally wouldn’t mind paying another $50/ a month in these programs (or see them phased out,) in order to stop screwing over hardworking yet low income people trying to get ahead on their own.
I think it’s pretty clear that the incentive this would produce would yield lower expenditures in these programs and also incent people to make it on their own, and then one day we can all share in my Republican paradise where everybody’s in the top tax bracket.
Jackmanii: So your only comment on 80% of the tax cut going to 20% of the population is that other people can argue “that those who pay the most taxes should get the biggest tax cut”? B.F.D., bro. That’s the crux of the argument, ain’t it?
Now, how 'bout you add something of substance instead of ritually rehashing everything that has been said in the thread? Otherwise, you risk running into a feedback loop of endlessly repeating your repeated rehashings. Scylla: 1. The 10% bracket was created AFTER I criticized the Bush plan for not lowering the 15% bracket. Get over it, already.
$300 is peanuts. I’m talking about substantial tax relief targeted to the majority bulk of American households, not caviar giveaways to the rich and saltines for the rest.
I’ll take off my blinders and free my mind when you stop smoking crack. Or perhaps we could both refrain from casting aspersions on each other’s cognitive functions and the honesty of our opinions, yes?
The wisdom of any given income tax “loophole,” a.k.a. an exemption or exclusion, is certainly debatable. If you want to discuss those loopholes, that’s fine with me. Me, I prefer to keep the tax code as simple as possible, so I’m willing to chuck out the great majority of them, up to and including the home mortgage deduction. But Bush the Younger chose to tweak the marginal rates for his tax cut, and so did I for sake of comparison. The concept of cutting the lower brackets more steeply than the higher brackets is easy enough to follow without resort to the distraction of loopholes, isn’t it?
Accepting, for the sake of argument, your calculation that 20% of the population pays 80% of the (federal income) taxes . . . so what? It hardly refutes my proposition that the lower brackets should be cut more than the higher brackets when you argue that the higher brackets contribute most of the federal income tax revenue. As you will recall, my claim is that those persons with the highest incomes should pay significantly higher marginal rates.
Pretty much everybody thinks the government should spend less money, but the Republicans have made a mantra out of it ever since Reagan. Lower taxes! Less spending! Now’s your chance–you’ve got the House, the Senate, and the Presidency firmly under G.O.P. control. Let’s see those budget cuts. Go on, I’ll be waiting. Because personally, I long ago concluded that your leaders are full of shit on this one. Your guys want to spend just as much money on the federal government as the Democrats do; they just want to spend it on different stuff, and they want to float the tab on the national credit card.
december: The income thresholds for the various federal income tax brackets are already automatically adjusted for inflation. Thus, there is no dollar-ain’t-what-it-used-to-be effect on who pays what rates.
Assuming that your computer is not randomly deleting parts of my posts, I have to conclude that you’re ignoring comments of mine to which you do not wish to respond, as well as deliberately misrepresenting my remarks. Whichever is the case, it’s not worthwhile responding to you further.
I’m just surprised that you would repost a a post where you criticize Bush for not doing something which he actually goes ahead and does.
I think you’ve been a little hard on the Bush, Ward.
Maybe $300 is peanuts to Porsche driving litigators, but in terms of percentage tax burden to yon hoi polloi burger flipper at $6/hour, that may be two weeks’ take home pay. Poo poo it not as low income tax relief.
I’ll go with the first one and stop smoking crack, if you’ll take off the blinders and free your mind.
First off, Bush didn’t choose anything. I don’t really consider chucking the entire tax code and rewriting it from scratch to have been a valid workable alternative. We have to work with what we got, which means we have to discuss specific loopholes and deductions where applicable. Secondly, he did not “tweak the marginal rates.” Marginal rates has a specific meaning which I’ve explained. That is the tax rate of the next dollar a given entity receives as income. That’s what marginal rate means. It’s a hypothetical figure for a specific taxpayer dependant on a host of variables. It is also incorrectly used to mean the average tax rate a taxpayer pays on any given dollar he has received.
It does not refer to the tax brackets.
Thirdly, Cutting the lower tax brackets does very little because the lower tax brackets pay very little if any in Federal Income taxes.
Joe Blow in the 10% tax bracket probably isn’t paying any Federal income taxes. His borther Moe Blow in the bottom of the 15% bracket isn’t paying hardly anything. You can’t cut what isn’t there.
You have all these exemptions and credits and deductions which apply to the first dollars earned which are supposedly taxed at these 10% and 15% levels. They effectively shield those dollars from any taxation. Joe Blow may only have $200 of his 10k crappy salary that hits the bracket. In his case, he pays $20 in Federal Income taxes. More likely, his tax bracket is actually negative in real terms. That is, he is receiving more in subsidies by far than what he is paying. His real tax bracket is probably negative 40%
His brother Moe on the other hand is probably paying out 5-6% of his Income in Federal Income taxes.
That’s what our tax structure looks like on the very low end.
I’ll repeat. The bottom tax brackets aren’t cuttable in real terms because the pay nothing or next to nothing in Federal taxes in real terms.
Therefore, just about any income tax releif you care to provide is by inarguable logic only going to effect those people who are paying taxes.
Any income tax cut is going to disproportionately provide relief to the higher brackets because, they are paying taxes because the dollars they earn are subject to the brackets.
Accepting my rule of thumb is nice. What you’re really missing though is that the bottom couple of tax brackets aren’t even in the running here. You can’t cut what doesn’t exist. Cutting the 10 or 15% brackets doesn’t change anything worthy of notice in terms of tax burden. It doesn’t change the picture. You have to go higher to make a cut that actually does something.
Actually, the creation of the new 10% bracket lowers the income taxes of everybody in the 15% bracket and above by pretty much $300. You have to account for the personal exemption and the standard deduction, but if you run the math, you’ll see that’s exactly what its effect is. So my proposal to drop the 15% bracket all the way to 7.5% is clearly superior to Bush’s creation of the 10% bracket for income up to $6000.
Let’s posit, for instance, an unmarried taxpayer with no dependents and no itemized deductions, with income of $25,000. After subtracting the personal exemption and standard deduction ($3100 and $4700, respectively). That’s $17,200 on which to pay federal income taxes. At a 15% rate (what it was last year), the taxpayer pays $2580 in taxes. Under Bush’s new 10% & 15% plan, the taxpaer pays $2280 in taxes. But under my plan and its 7.5% bottom rate, that taxpayer pays only $1290 in federal income tax.
So who’s the friend of the working man? George Bush and his measly $300 tax cut, or minty green and his robust $1290 tax cut?
Oh yeah, I think I can sell that one to the electorate.
I don’t think it would still stand. What needs to be kept in mind is that the top 20% don’t spend all their money. I’m trying to come up with a way to get this point illustrated with numbers, but I think it should be self evident that the top 20% don’t spend as much of their final take-home on things which generate other taxes(sales tax most notably). Tax-deferred investements and savings for instance. A family in a lower quintile will have far less opportunity to save or make tax-free investments because they have to spend a larger percentage of their take-home on subsistence.
This is the nature of sales taxes. They hurt the people who have to spend the most, percentage wise, of their income more than those who can survive on a fraction of their take-home. If Family A(upper quintile) lives on 40% of their take-home pay, then they effectively pay additional taxes(8.25% sales tax in my area, varies wildly in others) of 8.25% of 40% of their post-payroll tax income. The remaining 60% of their post-tax income goes to savings or tax-deferred/free investments or some other non-taxed channel. Family B, lower quintiles, needs to spend 80% of their take-home pay on subsistence. They pay an additional 8.25% on 80% of their take-home earnings. They have 20% which can go into savings or tax-deferred/free investments or other non-taxed channels.
When you start considering that the top 1%, who pay the most income tax, probably pay the absolute least(percentage wise) of taxes like sales tax, I’m not sure what the end effect is, but it seems to skew the 20% pay 80% number when talking about all taxes. Transaction-based taxes cost the most to people who are forced, by subsistence needs, to spend the majority of their income in transactions. Those who can subside on a smaller fraction of their income being spent in channels which invoke sales tax(or other transaction-based taxes) do not have to pay this additional tax on as much of their income.
Here in Texas there was a relief program at the beginning of each school year called “Tax Free Weekend” in which the state suspended sales taxes for the weekend. This program was wildly popular with the lower-income families because it gave them a chance to avoid paying that additional 8.25% on the income they were going to have to spend anyway.
No. Like so many other things you are saying in this thread, this is also wrong. The fallacy of the excluded middle refers to an either/or proposition. My statement was not an either/or proposition but simply a rebuttal of your $300 doesn’t matter.
I showed you circumstances where it does matter. The only party I’m excluding is Porsche driving litigators.
No argument here, Minty. Congratulations! You’ve created a middle and upper class tax cut. You’re little scenario isn’t going to do anything to help the working poor, or Joe or Moe in my above example. They are getting screwed just as they always have.
My plan to move all tax brackets to zero and run the govenment on happy thoughts is superior to yours.
Not you. You’re a great boon to recent College graduates, Junior advertising executives, and Copy editors, and everybody else who’s middle class or higher.
You don’t care about the poor with the tax cut. They’re paying for it! Look at Joe and Moe. What do they get?
Screw the unmarried taxpayer making 25k. What fucking problems does he have?
Tell me about the guy with a wife trying to raise three kids on 25k. How does your tax cut help him?
What about a guy trying to get off welfare and make it on his own but who only earns 12k? How are you helping him.
As usual the Demcratic party talks a big game, but as you can see from their candidate Minty Green, it’s just a Porsche driving litigators bag of wind. As usual he’s lining the pockets of the middle and upper class and catering to his constituency.
At least Bush gave money back to the working poor. Your plan hangs them out to dry.
Look at your nerve! You complain about Bush’s tax cut which at least gave the poor something. You on the other hand are shafting them completely and giving a tax break to the upper and middle class.
Shame on you. Shame shame.
You would be such meat if you dared try such a thing as a “working class” tax cut.
Your point is well-taken, and in fact is why I hedged a little bit by saying “I would tend to think it would stand.”
I’m not sure but I think it would.
While Mizer Moneybags doesn’t spend as large a percentage of his income as Joe Workingclass, it is a much larger pool. Additionally, you would be surprised. High income earners do tend to be prolific in their spending. A lot of times, like with Drs. and Lawyers, there’s been a lot of hard work, 80 hour weeks, low income, and student loans to pay off to get where they are. Once they start earning the big money, you better beleive they like to spend it.
So, I would tend to think it still holds. If it doesn’t I don’t have a big personal stake. It’s just a guess, but an educated one.
Huh? The poor are already not paying anything in federal income taxes, and they won’t pay anything under my system either.
Housing, health care, transportation, beer. All the usuals.
Through needs-based social services programs, such as subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicaid, etc. Since that person pays no federal income tax either under the Bush Tax Scheme or my own Red, White, and Blue Tax Savings Plan for Honest, Hard-Working Americans, no tax cut can possibly provide any assistance whatsoever to your strawman.
He pays $420 in federal taxes under the Bush Tax Scheme. Under the RWBTSPFHHWA, he pays only $315.
Incidentally, I note that the IRS agrees with my usage of “marginal tax rate.” See Figure C.
Wait, is that the sound of a Republican squealing in annoyance? Music to my ears.
Of course, but this doesn’t stop certain posters and Democrats from making the same claim about Bush’s tax cut screwing the poor.
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Since that person pays no federal income tax either under the Bush Tax Scheme or my own Red, White, and Blue Tax Savings Plan for Honest, Hard-Working Americans, no tax cut can possibly provide any assistance whatsoever to your strawman.
[/quote]
It’s amazing how well you understand the fallacy when it’s used against you. This is my point. Tax cuts don’t help the working poor. They can’t.
Yeah, but he has $300 in his pocket, doesn’t he.
No. You are mistaken. From that cite:
This is for all intents and purposes identical to what I have said.
You are blinded by your hatred of Bush and Republicans. Remove the scales and you will see that I am trying to help make you better.
Surely a man as smart as you can see that your tax plan is vulnerable to the exact same strawman complaints as Dubyas.
Here. Say it with me:
Complaining that tax cuts don’t help the working poor is a strawman.
Would those “certain posters” include me? If so, I’d love to be reminded of where I ever said anything like that. The most I said was that it was a disgrace that his plan (originally) didn’t do a damn thing for the lowest tax bracket. That’s not at all the same thing as claiming that the tax cut screwed the poor, as I’m sure you would acknowledge if you’d put down the damn crack pipe already.
Would you kindly drop “the working poor” schtick? Not my bag, at least as you’re likely to define “working poor.”
And under my the RWBTSPFHHWA, he has $405. The Bush Tax Scheme still loses.
The crack pipe has left your brain so atrophied and useless that . . . aw, fuck it. How 'bout you just behave with a modicum of respect and decorum when you hang around GD? Just for a change?
Not my beef, daddy-o. Caviar and saltines, remember.
Not a particularlly good example to use. “The guy supersizing your value meal” is not supposed to afford preventative dental care. His Mommy and Daddy are. That’s a job for High School kids looking for spending money. It also doesn’t require insurance to actually PAY for services rendered. A concept completely lost on any generation since the 80’s. Cable is not a requirement to sustain life. Neither is the TV attached to it.
Go back in history and find the President who said “You can’t tax a country into prosperity”. He cut taxes on the wealthiest of wealthy and it worked. Clue: he came from money, never acted in a movie, and wouldn’t know what a farm field looked like.
It all falls under “the endlessly tiresome bitching and whining about Bush for shitty pretenses” category of crap, and yeah, you’re guilty.
Then why ae you bashing Bush in yet another Bush Bashing thread which claims he’s going after the working poor?
You do a fine job of understanding these things and making counterarguments to this stupidity when it’s your assertions under attack. Are they somehow true when directed at your political opposition?
Bullshit, Homey. Don’t get fast with me. I know what time it is. Nowhere in your reposted quote do you mention giving out $300 refunds, and, as you are so apt to point out, you posted it way back when. If we’d a followed yours instead his, he wouldn’t have gotten that $300. Nice try though.
If attacking your opponents personally makes you feel better about all the backing and filling you’ve had to do here, go right to it my man. Victory leaves feeling magnanimous.
Sorry, but that $300 rebate check from two years ago is now reflected in the $420 he pays for 2003 under the Bush Tax Scheme; it’s the difference between the former 15% tax bracket and the revised 10% on income up to $6K. The RWBTSPFHHWA still lets your hypothetical taxpayer keep 25% more of his own money.
