Moonshot1925, is it your intention to turn every thread you participate in into a Gish Gallop? It seems to me you post misleading or false stuff, and then when called out on it, just move on to more and different falsities. Please see your original assertions through to conclusion before moving on.
(1) The reason they pay a disproportionately large share of the individual income tax is primarily because they have a disproportionately large share of the income. It is not primarily because the income tax is so progressive (although it is certainly somewhat progressive). To paraphrase what Willie Sutton said about why he robs banks, the rich pay a lot of taxes because that’s where the money is. If inequality of income was not so extreme in the U.S., the rich would not pay as large a share of the income tax. (And, in fact the growth in inequality is exactly the reason why their share of the income tax has increased significantly over the past 40 years, a fact that makes it very pathetic that the solution to this problem that the Wall Street Journal editorial page crowd supports is to cut their income taxes!)
(2) While the individual income tax is progressive, other taxes are not. The payroll tax is regressive since it is paid only on earned income and because there is a cap above which you don’t pay the social security component (which is most of it) anymore. And, state taxes, which rely largely on sales taxes, tend to be regressive.
As Hentor the Barbarian notes, you are just jumping from one discredited Wall Street Journal editorial page talking point to another. As we destroy one, you just seemlessly move on to a new one.
Those are cites. Cites prove stuff.
Cites have a known liberal bias.
It’s pretty sad this debate. Wouldn’t it be nice if we “made” more to “have” more instead of “Gee, if the man would just take less from me, I would have more”? How can we talk tax cuts when so many have lost their jobs, homes, health and self-respect lately. What do tax rates/cuts mean to a person with no job or home? What do they mean to someone on Welfare? Nothing. We need industry and jobs in this country. We are not our “own” consumers. That’s a sick joke. How many dollars stay in this country these days? China probably knows the answer to that question. Someone said that politicians always lie about creating jobs, but I think Roosevelt actually did something about it didn’t he? Obama has not plain and simple. If Obama was the captain of a sinking ship… instead of providing more life rafts, he would create more desperate people to save. He would tell them that he will save them too so that they would want to keep him captain, but in reality he will only succeed in drowning more people. (It might also be nice if he stopped poking holes in the boat but whatever) When resources are limited you can either: produce more or reduce the draw on those resources. Which has he done? Four more years? Really?
packergirl: Obama has turned the economy around from shedding about 800K private sector jobs per month when he took office to producing about 100K-200K jobs per month over the last couple of years. Yes, that is still not enough jobs to bring the unemployment rate down very quickly particularly given the drag of decreasing public sector employment (due to state and local government’s financial predicament), but it is still a pretty good record for the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Unlike standard depressions, financial disasters are notoriously slow to recover from because there was a huge loss of wealth associated with it.
Now, one could make arguments that Obama could have done more, as Paul Krugman has, to stimulate the economy. However, unfortunately Paul Krugman isn’t running against Obama. Rather, the people running against Obama are offering ideological fantasies with absolute no support in economics or fact in order to fix the economy. People stupid enough to fall for them will get what they deserve but unfortunately the rest of us will suffer too.
Even Romney had been going around acknowledging that things have been improving. Before they decided that they had to go.full out lies instead.
That ought to have been “standard recessions”. I am not sure a depression is ever considered to be “standard”.
I think we underestimate the depth of Romney’s intellectual curiosity. In New Orleans, he asked Bobby Jindal where all the water came from.
[QUOTE=Romney]
“Did the water come from the sky, or the rivers, or the ocean?”
[/QUOTE]
Not an entirely unreasonable question. Some areas are flooded by rain accumulation, some areas are flooded by rivers overflowing their banks, and some areas are flooded by storm surge.
Well, it’s like Peter Orszag said. If you raise taxes, the revenue increase from collecting more tax will raise more money than the loss of government revenues from a contracted economy. And the same holds for cutting taxes. Cutting taxes increases the deficit.
So what then? Well, we could do what FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Reagan, and GWB did, and have the government hire people. That would broaden the number of people in the workforce. And the money those government workers spend would grow the economy. This would also increase the deficit, unless you raised taxes a fair bit to cover it.
So, let’s be deficit-neutral:
We can hire more government workers, have the government buy more stuff from private companies too; thus increase the workforce and demand base, and raise taxes to cover it.
or
We can lay off lots of people, both federal workers and government suppliers, and cut taxes.
Well, whom are you going to lay off? And how long until they get another job? Doesn’t this make the economy smaller and slower for a while? Does that help?
There’s a reason a lot of people think FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Reagan, and GWB got it more or less right. Hire people. Just raise taxes to cover it.
Where are you from? After a big storm here, that’s a pretty common question for people with water damage (usually characterized as runoff (sky), flood (rivers), or surge(ocean)). For example, both times my old house had water damage, it was runoff caused a neighbor screwing with the natural drainage off a hill.
Somehow you managed to ask the same question without sounding like you needed a snack and a nap.
It just sounded stupid. Presumably if you’re running for president you’d have someone brief you on the cause of the disaster you’re about to visit.
Romney’s big mistake is forgetting people are not just disappointed by the last 4 years but by the last 12. Not Obama is not enough, not Obama but also not Bush is what he should’ve been running as.
Exactly, but the RNC is completely irrational at this point and can’t make sound campaign decisions anymore.
If they lose the house and senate maybe they check themselves do a reboot, unfortunately the Dems aren’t really exciting anyone who actually cares so this point may take a few more cycles.
Given that his staff (and expected administration) is largely former Bush people, this would’ve been a little hard to sell.
He could have ya know NOT used them for his staff… Would have been step 1 of a competent campaign: What should we not do that would destroy our chances?
Oh sorry. I didn’t realize we were positing a world where Romney doesn’t tack hard right. 
In 2009 the top 1% made 16.9% of the income and paid 36.7% of the federal income tax.
The bottom 50% made 13.5% of the income and paid 2.3% of the federal income tax.
The rich are paying their fair share while the poor are not.