Why are Republicans pushing to extend the Bush tax cuts?

[Airbeck]

Republicans will never stop arguing for lower taxes. What is news about that? They don’t care about reducing spending to match it at all, or what effect it will have on the economy or the governments ability to function, but lower taxes at any cost is always the way with them. It sounds great if you don’t think about it too much.

Passing a tax cut with a sunset provision hoping that it will be politically hard to not extend the temporary cut strikes me as a sort of crossing the fingers behind the back disingenuous political trap. Especially now that they are trying to categorize it as a take hike. Its just sleazy. If you can’t see the repugnance of this, then I don’t know what to tell you.

[gonzomax]

The reason Bush made the taxes sunset was because he knew they were going to do a lot of boost to the deficit. If the tax breaks for the wealthy were such a good idea ,he would have made them permanent. We can see the impact on the deficit. it is time to let them expire. The rich don’t need any more money and we have to address the Bush deficits now.

[Airbeck]

Also, were rich people really hurting that badly in the 90s? Its like you think that it was the great depression for the wealthy back then before GW saved the day with these irresponsible temporary tax cuts.

[Huerta88]

@gonzomax

If the tax breaks for the wealthy

They were tax breaks for everyone, when you do what you just did it gives aid and comfort to those who accuse the Left of class warfare.

[Huerta88]

@Airbeck

Passing a tax cut with a sunset provision hoping that it will be politically hard to not extend the temporary cut strikes me as a sort of crossing the fingers behind the back disingenuous political trap. Especially now that they are trying to categorize it as a take hike. Its just sleazy. If you can’t see the repugnance of this, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Counting on adults to be able to read the text of a law and know (a) how it will operate in principle; (b) how it will operate as applied, is “repugnant?” Sunset provisions are as old as the hills and as you point out, Republicans can be reliably counted on to favor lowish taxes now, five years from now, ten years from now. So someone has to save the legislators from passing a bill because, what, they don’t realize that inevitably the Republicans will take up the lower-taxes banner again when the time comes around to let it expire or not expire? That’s almost . . . patronizing?

Politics is well known to be the art of the possible. One side rarely gets everything they want. Obama likely would have had a more sweeping, liberal view for the healthcare law in a perfect world, but he and the Dems had to water it down a bit, had to make promises that would get enough moderates and conservatives on board. Conservatives warned that this (like just about every political cause) was the thin end of the wedge, that Obama just wanted to ram through some plan because once the public got hooked on government healthcare, there’d be no turning back. Incrementalism. Which is exactly the half-a-loaf approach the GOP took in “settling” for the (nominal) sunsetting of the tax cuts. If there’s somehow a Dem landslide and huge groundswell in Congress for full-on NHS style government-provided healthcare, which I know the hard Left has as its holy grail, I won’t like it, but I won’t accuse anyone of “lying.”

[Airbeck]

intellectual dishonesty. That is the concept we are talking about here. Its intellectually dishonest to push for a temporary tax cut that will expire in several years, and then in several years turn it around and accuse the other side of class warfare. That is not having an honest debate of the issue. I’m sorry that this is unclear to you, but I feel like we’re just banging our heads into a wall at this point since you refuse to see this.

[Voyager]

@Huerta88

@Airbeck

Well that’s good because it wouldn’t be either of those things.

The original temporary tax cut plan on the other hand …

Was a law that had a sunset provision that the advocates hoped would be irresistable for the legislature to allow to take effect. And a majority of Congress voted for it with eyes wide open with the intent of (a) having it renewed; (b) having it not renewed; or (c) kicking the can down the road. Again, how is that less legitimate than what the Dems may, or may not, do this year? I don’t mean how is it less desirable from your or my POV. I mean how is it fairly characterized as based on “lies?”

Because they provided forecasts of the impact of the cut on the deficit that they had every expectation would be false. A piece of deceit in the package which is not a lie was how it was structured to maximize the cut for the “average” income while whose above and below that level didn’t do as well. And yes, those who voted for it on either side of the aisle were nitwits.

This is hardly the first sunset provision type law. Some sunsets have been allowed to go into effect. Others have proven politically very hard not to renew. Unemployment benefits just got extended. Does this mean that the last time they were extended for X weeks it was a “lie” because pretty much everyone knew at the time that unless things dramatically turned around, there was a high likelihood that at the expiration of X weeks there’d be no political will for allowing them to lapse?

Unemployment benefits are a short term thing. In a decent economy you want them to expire since almost anyone could find a job in that period if they want one. A better example is the AMT - they keep on extending the rules to keep it from affecting the middle class, while they should just fix the law already. But that would lead to increased deficit projections later, which would mean facing the problem.

[Voyager]

@Huerta88

@gonzomax

If the tax breaks for the wealthy

They were tax breaks for everyone, when you do what you just did it gives aid and comfort to those who accuse the Left of class warfare.

Tax cuts were actually a quite reasonable way to combat the effects of the recession. The problem was that the recession was again a demand one (the bubble resulted in a massive oversupply of lots of stuff - many companies wrote off billions of dollars worth of inventory) so tax cuts which heavily favored the rich were not all that helpful. That explains the very slow growth in GNP and jobs for the next three years. So accusations of class warfare had some merit, though I expect the goal was to give Republican donors more rather to give the average American less.

The second problem was that there was no attempt at increasing revenues when the economy recovered, even when it could have been justified to pay for the great patriotic war in Iraq. Instead they hid the cost as an emergency allocation every year. Greenspan also held interest rates low well beyond the point of need, which contributed to the housing bubble and our current problems.

[crazyjoe]

@erez

@crazyjoe

The bottom 50% of this country hold less than 1% of the wealth. The top 2% hold over 90% of the wealth, so of course they are going to be the ones paying most of the taxes. They have most of the money.

Factually wrong. As of 2007, top 1% held 35% of wealth, and top 20% held 85% (Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power). In addition, the taxes in the U.S. are paid based on income, not wealth. Top 1% had 22.83% of the total AGI in 2007. Top 25% had 68.71% (http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html). crazyjoe, why do you post made up numbers?

My apologies. I jsut do what the liberal media tells me to do.

Do you think that your more accurate numbers do much to change my point? A small minority of Americans own a large majority of the wealth, and so therefore are going to pay a sizable portion of the tax.

[Huerta88]

@Voyager

The second problem was that there was no attempt at increasing revenues when the economy recovered, even when it could have been justified to pay for the great patriotic war in Iraq. Instead they hid the cost as an emergency allocation every year. Greenspan also held interest rates low well beyond the point of need, which contributed to the housing bubble and our current problems.

Agreed on Greenspan, agreed on not matching revenues to spending (though I’d have done it by spending control, which everyone is right to blast GWB for not taking at all seriously), and agreed (if this is what you’re suggesting) that Iraq was a stupid decision and waste of massive amounts of money.

[Voyager]

@Huerta88

Agreed on Greenspan, agreed on not matching revenues to spending (though I’d have done it by spending control, which everyone is right to blast GWB for not taking at all seriously), and agreed (if this is what you’re suggesting) that Iraq was a stupid decision and waste of massive amounts of money.

Cut spending first, then cut taxes - not when the cuts started, during the recession, but later.

The correctness of the war is not at issue - it should have been politically feasible to say that though they hated to raise taxes, everyone would have to sacrifice to keep us free from the WMD threat (cue patriotic music here.) That is what happened during other wars. But that would have required a bit of reality, leadership and political courage, and Bush always took the easy way out.

[gonzomax]

The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits From Jobs

Here is Reisch explaining why tax cuts do not result in more jobs. Business is sitting on a pile of money. Adding more just increases the pile. But they feel surer if they increase their offshore presence. We love America. Our corporations do not. We think they will do the right thing. Only they will not.

[foolsguinea]

Two people have been offended that I described taxes as extortion. I was meaning to stand by my terminology, not to condemn but to describe. I am a New Dealer; I believe in progressive taxation; but structurally, taxation is collected by the threat of reprisal.

And from an anarchist/libertarian perspective, wherein government is seen as something external to oneself, as a separate actor, that’s exactly how taxes are seen: as extortion.

But in trying to explain my position, I find I may have to modify it. Taxes can be extortion–look at the kleptocratic model of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean 2000 years ago–but taxes levied by a government perceived as legitimate are technically something else.

From a [del]conservative[/del] traditionalist (NOT right-wing) take on governmental authority, taxes are more like** rent,** & a thing owed to one’s sovereign. That’s fairer, I think.

…

What questions we ask make a difference:

“How high should taxes be?” is often a simplistic question, devoid of cost-benefit analysis. Some people try to come up with arguments for lower taxes conferring a counterintuitive macro benefit, but that’s not necessary for most voters.

“What should gov’t be doing?” is still narrow.

I prefer “What is it useful for gov’t to do?”

But to many on the right, gov’t is EVIL. A necessary evil, but evil nonetheless. So they want to be as small as possible.

So that may be “why” they push to extend the tax cuts.

Or the perception of gov’t as other rather than the agent of the people may be why. Or the lack of perception as oneself as one of the people, or lack of perception of “the people” as being one’s own people, may be why.

The GOP incorporates many different strands of thought; some may be almost diametrically opposed to each other; but they embrace tax cuts, even if for opposite reasons & expecting opposite results, & for this they are the GOP. Whatever your reasons, if you want tax cuts, the GOP will try to provide them for you.

So it doesn’t matter “why.” The GOP cuts taxes because that’s what the GOP is for. Whether you think it will make the USA stronger, or you think it will make the USA weaker, if you desire a slashed tax base the GOP is institutionally sworn & bred to try to give you one. And not so long ago they thought they had permanently & revolutionarily won. So the professional GOP tax-cutters are whinging & whining that they’re out of power & the ONE GREAT THING they believe in, the one thing they were chosen for, is being undercut, so they’re back.

And Americans are stupid enough to vote for it, because most voters are devoid of serious analysis.

Instead of writing a book in this post, I may start a new thread.

[Der_Trihs]

@foolsguinea

Two people have been offended that I described taxes as extortion. I was meaning to stand by my terminology, not to condemn but to describe. I am a New Dealer; I believe in progressive taxation; but structurally, taxation is collected by the threat of reprisal.

Just like every other form of payment. People pay for their groceries because if they just steal them uniformed people with guns and clubs will come after them.

[gonzomax]

@Huerta88

@gonzomax

If the tax breaks for the wealthy

They were tax breaks for everyone, when you do what you just did it gives aid and comfort to those who accuse the Left of class warfare.

C.mon, you have to know it was tipped far to the wealthy. You have to know that . You have to escape the right wing BS and face the truth. Bush badly redistributed the income to the top. That was part of the loud debate when he jammed it through. That has been the criticism for years since.

[gonzomax]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html here is the IRS analysis which will explain to you who got the best out of the Bush tax cuts. I can not believe people don’t know this.

[gonzomax]

HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost Here’s Geithner who I am sure you know works for Goldman while in government employ saying the Bush tax cuts for the rich should end.

[yorick73]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@yorick73

I agree with you. My opinion is that everyone (or most) should pay into the system. Ideally, the percentage not paying into the system should be quite small. The problem arises when we approach a point where almost a majority of the country is paying ZERO federal income taxes. Nobody can blame people for voting in their own interests. Invariably, over time, those who are exempted from federal income taxes will not think twice about raising taxes on those paying into the system if this is required to keep their favored programs intact. There is no consequence for those who do not pay into the system so why should they care what the tax rates are for everyone else?

I would point out once again, federal income taxes are not the be all and end all of contributions to the system.

You are correct. But, in order to contribute money to the system, which is then spent on things that we choose, you must pay taxes.

[yorick73]

@Airbeck

Understood, but what of those that have been mentioned in this ticket before like the stay at home mom, that doesn’t work outside of the home, or the senior citizen that doesn’t earn enough income to qualify for paying income taxes, or the HS student who just registered to vote at 18 but doesn’t yet work. Do they all have their voting rights stripped under your plan? How do you deal with those that are not in the category of freeloader, but also don’t pay income tax? Do they just owe anyway or something, or just not get to vote?

There simply is no way to differentiate. Taking away voting rights is certainly not a feasible option. Therefore, everyone should contribute some percentage.

[DanBlather]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@DanBlather

So hereis that data on total taxes paid by income level. The idea that the poor get a free ride is just another lie that conservatives like to spew.

If you only want to count taxes other than federal income taxes, then sure I guess you’re right but if you ONLY count federal income taxwes (which accounts for almost forty percent of all government revenues) then the rich are getting soaked and noone else is paying very much at all.

And if you ignore income tax then the poor are getting soaked and the rich are getting off easy. But why would you ignore either one unless you wanted to deceive gullible people into reaching faulty conclusions so that you can personally benefit?