How could that possibly be true? I’m sure it could be true in a very artificial model of the US, but could it ever be true in reality?
Define “reality”.
Taxes have in various times and places been very, very high. And sometimes this didn’t result in universal prosperity and happiness. (Example: communism could be described as 100% taxation. How did the social services hold up?)
Of course, the US today is not an example of a place where the taxation is inarguably excessive.
Tax cuts on the rich benefit the rich. Tax cuts on the poor benefit the poor. Cuts in vehicle registration taxes benefit those who buy vehicles. Nobody ever cuts taxes across the board, so no tax cut ever benefits everyone.
Isn’t it true by definition? Unless you think it means: “income tax cuts benefit everyone who pays any sort of tax at all, even if they don’t pay income taxes”. However, I don’t think that is a fair interpretation of the statement.
OTOH, it’s a static analysis. If I don’t pay much income tax, and I get a $100 cut, but I depend on government services, and the tax cut caused my benefit from those services to be reduced by > $100, then I don’t have a net benefit.
Frankly, though, this is just a slogan, not an economic treatise. I would treat it that way.
If a guy who makes $1,000,000 per year has to pay 75% back in taxes, he should still be able to live pretty comfortably.
If a guy who makes $20,000 a year has to pay “only” 10% in taxes, he’s still going to struggle.
Can you explain what that has to do with the topic of this thread?
People discount the benefits that come from paying taxes. If taxes were all going into a Great Big Black Hole never to be seen again, then it might be true.
If all taxes were changed to 0%, it would certainly *not *benefit everyone who pays taxes now.
I suppose the countries whose people have the highest happiness ratings, may argue. Many nations have a higher tax rate by far than we, but they provide a level of safety to their people. They provide health care and have better safety nets.
Cutting taxes to the bone and eliminating services strikes the wealthy as a great idea in America. They don’t need them. They don’t care about the little people. Somehow we think that is better.
I THINK by that people are talking about marginal tax rates. Someone making $1,000,000 a year doesn’t get taxed the top rate on all million dollars. Their income is divided into brackets, and they pay the same tax on each bracket that the people whose income puts them only into that bracket pays.
For instance, if the brackets are under $50K/10%, $50K -$100K/20%, $100K-$500K/30%, over $500K/40%…the guy making a million dollars only pays the 40% on his income over $500,000. On the other $499,000, he’s paying 10% for the first $50K, 20% for the next $50K, and 30% on the next $400K.
In other words, he’s not paying 40% on a million dollars. There’s probably some complex mathematical formula to determine the exact percentage of the full million that he’s paying in taxes, but its’ not 40%.
ETA: Duh…I forgot my point…
Which means that when taxes are cut for people making less than $500K (in my example) or $250K (in the real world), people who make much more than that still get a tax cut, too.
That a 5% tax cut “across the board” benefits the rich much more than it does the poor. However, raisng taxes on millionares 3% benefits the poor much more than it hurts the rich.
So what? The OP simply asked whether there was any benefit.
Did you really think people on this MB don’t know how to calculate percent?
What the hell is an ‘artificial model of the US’?
Well if you buy what supply siders are peddling, you could change the title fo the thread to “tax cuts benefit everyone, regardless of whether or not they pay taxes because the benefits of those tax cuts for the rich trickle down to the poor”
If I was less of a patriot, I’d say “Canada”, but…
Exactly! I just signed up for Medicare. If a tax cut resulted in my receiving a bit more income, but reduced or eliminated my Medicare benefit, I would consider that a major loss.
Um…well, depends on the tax cut, I’d say. Certainly, tax cuts benefit all those who pay taxes and are part of the specific cut. The Bush tax cuts, for instance, benefited just about every category of folks who paid taxes, if by ‘benefit’ you mean ‘pay some non-zero amount less in taxes’. Obviously they benefited some groups more than others, and of course this will probably spark any number of folks claiming that it only helped ‘the rich’ (by which I must be a member, since I paid less taxes due to the cuts).
America isn’t part of ‘true reality’? 
-XT
Republicans either can’t or don’t care to. And why are you attacking me? I just pointed out that the OP was misleading at best.
Man, I thought ither message boards were nit picky, but THIS one…
Yeah, we don’t give you a pass on your wild, unsupported and unsubstantiated CT claims, or attempting to ‘win’ by simply calling everyone who disagrees with you a ‘Republican’, if nothing else. Sheesh…what’s the world coming too, ehe?
-XT
Exactly. It’s pretty easy to show that there exist tax cuts that do not benefit all taxpayers. Once that’s done, then we could have a meaningful conversation about where the optimal level of taxation is, what kinds of things we should tax, and what the money should be spent on. And we could do it without silly sound bites like “tax cuts benefit all taxpayers”.
OK. I asked the question because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt-- I didn’t want to accuse you of simply taking a gratuitous swipe, but since that’s what you say you are doing, then fine. Let’s just be open about it.