Obama: Let's end the Bush tax cuts

Great Debates
161

Tax cuts in a recession are a good thing if they encourage consumption. Tax cuts heavily weighted to the rich don’t. They are good for increasing investment, which is exactly what we don’t need when there is too much supply. Now, if a bunch of moron Republicans hadn’t worked hard in making the slightest tax cut the moral equivalent of taking the rich out and shooting them, we might have a rational discussion of the optimal economic strategy for perhaps increasing taxes for the middle class some. As it stands the only politically viable strategy is to keep tax cuts for most of the voters. It is not like Republicans don’t make it sound like Obama wants to raise taxes on everyone as it is. So why not put the blame where it belongs?

And I understand that raising taxes on the rich slightly is not anywhere close to class warfare - or soaking the rich? Do you?

162

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Primarily for the rich, definitely. Only for the rich? I call bullshit, It’s not like they weren’t marketed heavily. If you are calling all liberals here too stupid to remember this, you had better give a cite.
[/QUOTE]

The argument as I recall it was that they primarily helped the ‘rich’ or were mainly for the ‘rich’, and that everyone else got little to no benefit from them. Of course, there were folks on this board who flat out said that they were ONLY for the ‘rich’, but they were the minority.

The major theme, however, was that they weren’t really all that beneficial for the middle or lower classes, and that the major focus was to give the ‘rich’ more money. I’m not going to go slogging through cites from the Bush era to find you cites for all of this…I have no interest in playing that game. If the idea was that the middle and poorer classes were getting benefit out of the things, then why was there such wide spread opposition, especially if the benefits were substantial enough to make the Dems want to fight to keep those parts of the tax cuts going? If they were a meager as was stated in the debates about the Bush tax cuts then why keep them…unless they weren’t as meager as was being implied?

To me, this whole thing is one big sucker punch by the Dems. They complained about the Bush tax cuts when they went in (even though Dems voted for them at the time), complained about how they were for the ‘rich’ all throughout Bush’s administration, and then when they were set to expire they didn’t have the balls to let them all expire…instead, attempting to do this partial expire bullshit, where some of them would expire but others wouldn’t, knowing that the Republicans would fight as hard for a partial expiration as they would for the whole thing expiring. Which allows the Dems to paint this as ‘The Republicans are fighting for THE RICH!!!’ Booo. Hisss. :stuck_out_tongue:

Personally, I think it’s a brilliant strategy by the Dems…and I think it will probably work, since the spade work for class warfare has been put in place for years. I find it ironic and endlessly funny how the thinking by board 'dopers has shifted on the subject of the Bush tax cuts, from ‘we need to get rid of them!’ to ‘we need to keep the ones that help the poor and middle class, but we definitely need to get rid of the ones on people making over $250k, since they are obviously RICH’. Boooo…hisssss.

But, while I think what the Dems are doing is brilliant, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t see why it’s being done this way, or what it means. And I’m not going to pretend that the discussions I witnessed and even participated in on this board for the several years didn’t happen.

-XT

163

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.htmln OK XT, you want us to call them “the tax cuts that greatly helped the rich, really really helped the super rich ,and gave tiny little cuts to some of the lower class”. in the interest of accuracy.

164

If they are/were so tiny, why are you guys fighting so hard to keep them? Shouldn’t you have let them all expire so you could get real, meaningful tax cuts to the people who really need them?

-XT

165

Why can’t we do both?

166

Because the political realities are going to be that the Republicans will fight tooth and nail to keep them in and not allow the Dems to cut some and leave some going. And while they are in place, even partially, I don’t see how, politically new ones can be pieced on top of the existing ones. Maybe the Dems could have their cake and eat it too, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to play out that way.

Really, what the Dems should have done is let the things expire in the first place and then worked to get new ones more to their taste put in…but I think that the reality would have ended up looking much like the hated Bush tax cuts, since to get any through you are going to have to compromise.

-XT

167

You know, for a guy who’s refusing to discuss “class warfare”…

168

Someone made a comment that going back to the Clinton tax system wouldn’t really lead to more revenue because the rich would find loopholes. The problem with that argument is that we already know how much we would collect under the Clinton tax system. Why would there be more tax loopholes under a Clinton tax system in 2012 versus a Clinton tax system in 2000?

There have been all sorts of tax breaks (if you are a small businessman, the ability to deduct in one year what used to be depreciable over several years is a big one) and engaging in some tax planning to convert ordinary income into capital gains or convert salary into interest income, etc. But these tax breaks are largely the result of the Bush tax cuts. They don’t exist nearly as much without them.

169

I agree. Then we should add a few more brackets at the top end to a top marginal tax rate of 50%, return the capital gains preference to what it was under Reagan, get rid of all the phase outs to deductions, get rid of the AMT… I could go on for a week.

170

I agree they should repeal the Bush tax cuts and then propose some tax cuts for the poor and middle class and watch the Republicans bitch and moan about tax cuts.

171

If you reduce the top tax rates, it only affects the rich, but if you reduce the lower tax rates, it affects everyone, rich included. Even Bill Gates pays the lowest rate on his first $10K. (Not that he really cares about such a pittance.)

172

Who said the Bush tax cuts were only for the rich? They overwhelmingly benefited the rich but it wasn’t ONLY for the rich.

But it seems like you may not.

I agree.

Yeah but they’d fall on their collective swords and hold the rest of the country hostage to protect the tax cuts for those who make more than a million dollars a year.

173

and in what way were they wrong?

174

Marginal utility combined with marginal propensity to consume. The $800 tax break that the average guy got probably has a stimulative effect and would impact his budget. The $250,000 tax break that those in the top 0.1% has little stimulative effect and won’t require much belt tightening.

175

I wish someone would tell that to the Republicans.

176

Well, that’s what I meant.

There have been threads about how the bottom half of the income scale in America doesn’t pay a federal income tax as if that makes them free-riders or something.

177

The preferred term for the poorest of the poor is “lucky duckies”.

178

Why does wealth make people more squirrelly than similar statistics?

Take IQ. Only 2% of people have an IQ of 130 or higher. People don’t twig and get all upset when someone says that a guy with an IQ of 131 and one of 177 are both very intelligent, even though the guy with the higher IQ is in a much smaller subset than Mr. 131 (Mr. 177’s IQ is in the top .01%). Since we’re only talking about a small subset of people anyway, only a few pedantic types seem to get bent when they’re grouped together.

But when people have the audacity to lump everyone in the top 2% of wealth together, there’s fireworks. Why is that?

179

Yeah, I understand how a graduated tax system works. My point is that the Bush tax cuts shold be repealed in their entirety and then Obama shoudl propose his own tax package with more brackets and a lower tax burden on lower incomes.

180

CLASS WARFARE!! harumph harumph!!