Let the good times roll for the upper-class!

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Flubber
Thats probably not the case which is why I asked if anyone had the amounts people pay AFTER the tax cut is factored in . . .

Just to help with Rufus' comprehension issue. Perhaps repetition will help

[Flubber]

Oh and assuming Rufus's numbers are correct it appears that this tax cut makes the tax system slightly less progessive. My opinion on this is the same as when we were talking about making it more sharply progressive. You can do it but people should know what you are doing. Be transparent about your goals and why

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Flubber


Don't be dense-- Perhaps proportional to TAXES PAID not income

See? So very, very wrong.

My comprehension is just fine. (And yes, I comprehended "perhaps"; but when you start out by calling someone else dense it's unseemly for you get your panties in a twist about someone saying "wrong" instead of "perhaps not.")

[Dinner]

I general tax cuts are good but not if they are bought with borrowed money which is what the GOP is again doing. $350 billion per year deficit here we go.

Our children's futures, there they go.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


So very, very wrong.

Let's take two people, one making $50,000 and one making $1,000,000.

Let's say they're both single, childless, and take the standard deduction.

The guy who makes $50k takes the $5k standard deduction, then pays taxes on the remaining $45k. He pays $7,921 in taxes.

The guy who makes $1 million takes the standard $5k deduction and pays taxes on the remaining $995k. He pays $328,719.50 in taxes.

Using the more conservative numbers (that is, assuming each guy is at the upper end of the lower bracket, rather than the lower end of the upper one), our first guy would save $46 which is a .58% tax cut. Our second guy would save $5562, which is a 1.69% tax cut.

In other words, the rich guy's tax cut is ~ 3 times the size of the middle-class guy's cut, as a proportion of their taxes currently paid.

"Proportionate" my ass.

You are absolutely correct however understanding that requires a work and an understanding of basic math. Therefor the average American will not be able to understand it. They're just that lazy and stupid. Instead they'd rather have Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly tell them what to think because thinking hurts.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Flubber
Oh and assuming Rufus's numbers are correct it appears that this tax cut makes the tax system slightly less progessive.

Which is the Repuks' main goal. To make the tax rates lower on the upper classes (who donate to the GOP) and to push the tax burden upon the poor and middle classes (who don't give much money to the GOP). That's great sense if you are a member of the Republican elite but it is horrible policy for running a nation.

[pchang]

Then, I'll have the last laugh

I'll make a lot of money and then not donate anything to the Republican party!

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


See? So very, very wrong.

My comprehension is just fine. (And yes, I comprehended "perhaps"; but when you start out by calling someone else dense it's unseemly for you get your panties in a twist about someone saying "wrong" instead of "perhaps not.")

Nope you didn't read back far enough to where I started. In my very first post I asked about amounts of taxes paid and speculated that those raw numbers could occurr in a proportional cut.

I told the responding poster " don't be dense" since anyone could do the math he did-- I assessed his response as being intentionally obtuse.

So I stick by what I said. I don't think its controversial to ask if something is proportional and I stand by my "don't be dense" commentary. As it happens, the tax cut is not proportional but the raw numbers of the dollar values of the cuts do NOT give you that information

------------------------------------------------------------

AS an aside, my favorite method for a government to give tax cuts would be to raise the personal exemption. It makes more of the working poor tax free, is simple and applies to all individuals relatively equally.

[Flubber]

Re: Then, I'll have the last laugh

Originally posted by pchang
I'll make a lot of money and then not donate anything to the Republican party!

AS a Canadian, the Republicans seem just way too far right to me. NOt surprising since the Dems are where the Canadian Conservative party is on many economic issues.

I like tax cuts but never saw them as something you finance with debt. Canadian tax cuts are measured and so far only done as surpluses continue

[Ben Kenobi]

I general tax cuts are good but not if they are bought with borrowed money which is what the GOP is again doing. $350 billion per year deficit here we go.

Our children's futures, there they go.

The problem is not with the cuts, but with the spending. If spending on domestic items were to be less then the increase in GDP for the US, then you could afford the tax cuts without going into deficit. Spending on domestic items outweighs every other expenditure, including tax cuts and the war..

Secondly, if your desire is to increase revenues, your best way to do that is actually to cut taxes, and get more as people are making more money. They work harder because hey, if you aren't paying so much to the government, you have a much greater incentive to work hard. And if you work hard and make more money, you will end up paying more in taxes.

Economics isn't a zero-sum game. Cutting taxes for one group, benefits all the other groups to a lesser degree.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Secondly, if your desire is to increase revenues, your best way to do that is actually to cut taxes, and get more as people are making more money. They work harder because hey, if you aren't paying so much to the government, you have a much greater incentive to work hard. And if you work hard and make more money, you will end up paying more in taxes.

Dude, we've gone over this a million times and the tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Study after study prove that.

The one case where tax cuts actually can increase tax reciepts simply doesn't apply here. The one case where this works is if you have a really high rate, like around 70% or 80%, because at that rate the rich people spend all of their time attempting to evade taxes. In that one case lower the tax rate significantly could actually get more people to file their taxes and stop evading. We're simply not see the massive tax evasion at 35% so cutting it to 33.5% isn't going to result in many new receipts. In terms of lower taxes increasing economic activity so that the economy grows; that's a long term thing where as the deficits are right now. Our economy simply isn't going to grow fast enough to make up the lost principle and the compounded interest on the money borrowed. That's bad economics.

[Ben Kenobi]

The one case where tax cuts actually can increase tax reciepts simply doesn't apply here. The one case where this works is if you have a really high rate, like around 70% or 80%, because at that rate the rich people spend all of their time attempting to evade taxes. In that one case lower the tax rate significantly could actually get more people to file their taxes and stop evading. We're simply not see the massive tax evasion at 35% so cutting it to 33.5% isn't going to result in many new receipts.

We've seen a considerable boost in productivity here in BC, but again, the tax cuts were matched by cuts in spending. I agree, deficits are a bad deal, but better to get the cuts then increases in program spending.

In terms of lower taxes increasing economic activity so that the economy grows; that's a long term thing where as the deficits are right now. Our economy simply isn't going to grow fast enough to make up the lost principle and the compounded interest on the money borrowed. That's bad economics.

Which is why you cut some of that pork out of your domestic spending. It's unheard of to have those kind of increases during a war.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


So very, very wrong.

Let's take two people, one making $50,000 and one making $1,000,000.

Let's say they're both single, childless, and take the standard deduction.

The guy who makes $50k takes the $5k standard deduction, then pays taxes on the remaining $45k. He pays $7,921 in taxes.

The guy who makes $1 million takes the standard $5k deduction and pays taxes on the remaining $995k. He pays $328,719.50 in taxes.

Using the more conservative numbers (that is, assuming each guy is at the upper end of the lower bracket, rather than the lower end of the upper one), our first guy would save $46 which is a .58% tax cut. Our second guy would save $5562, which is a 1.69% tax cut.

In other words, the rich guy's tax cut is ~ 3 times the size of the middle-class guy's cut, as a proportion of their taxes currently paid.

"Proportionate" my ass.

You just don't understand the plight of the upper class in United States. They shore got it ruf.

[Dinner]

I'd gladely eliminate the stupid farm subsidies where we pay farmers to not farm, I'd also love to slash or even eliminate all of the corporate welfare which the GOP showers on companies which bribe them with "donations", and I do think simplifying the tax code is a great idea. But that won't happen because the politicians want to keep buying votes with subsidies and corporate welfare while those bribers, er... "donators", demand tax loopholes in exchange for their bribes.

The only really way to fix this system is to declare that anyone giving money or gifts to politicians (or any politician who accepts those money or gifts) is guilty of bribery and then making bribery an automatic death penalty case. I'd be all for that.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Oerdin

The only really way to fix this system is to declare that anyone giving money or gifts to politicians (or any politician who accepts those money or gifts) is guilty of bribery and then making bribery an automatic death penalty case. I'd be all for that.