Obama has bigger tax cuts for middle class

[cannon_fodder]

1st HT, I tell you AGAIN that I'm not a Republican.  You keep trying to shove me into molds by telling me to "stay in my ORU circle" or drop my "Reagonomics."  I am very clear in my positions and do not fit into those stereotypes.

- - -

I know where I sit on the income ladder and I'm proud to say it is in the middle of the road for a college educated family of three.  So by definition we would be middle class.  My wife and I both work 50 hours a week,  we live in a $100,000 house, have ~$80,000 in student loans (Some 13 years of college between us, argh - just paid off my wife's loans! ), drive a Taurus and a Pathfinder.  We don't go on lavish vacations.  I don't have fancy boats, jet skis, lake houses, RVs, motorcycles or 4 wheelers.  I'm not describing a rich family, I'm perfectly happy... but not rich.

Let me know if what I'm describing makes me a "fat cat" please.

AND I can afford to pay my way.  Even while paying $500 a month in student loans, I can live perfectly comfortably.  So I'll go ahead and assume that many other people can afford to pay taxes.  Now, if I lived in a $250,000 house in a gated community and drove a fancy car - I probably couldn't afford to pay any more in taxes.  But that's a choice...

So why would I vote to give myself more tax cuts when we are having record deficit spending?  I'd be DAMN happy to pay less taxes.  But in reality we are spending the money and sooner or later the government is going to come and take it from me anyway.  So why wait until they do it with interest?

I guess I could say "I'm average, go take more money from someone else."  But I feel I have some obligation to my community and my nation to contribute.  I don't agree with about $1 Trillion of the federal spending we have and would love to be able to have those in favor of entitlement pay for it all... but that's not the way the system works.

If someone in the United States is struggling to survive, they don't pay any taxes.  They, in fact, receive HUGE tax benefits from the government that I pay for.  I'm OK with that.  Getting people back on their feet or ensuring the underclass can make a better life for themselves is better for all of us.  What I'm not OK with is people who are able to live comfortably and want more - so they demand that the government take what someone else has.  Or people who are content in their lifestyle so long as they don't have to work.

AGAIN, I am not saying struggling single mother who makes $24,000 a year should be taxed at 35%.  But a family of 4 making $100,000 a year can afford to pay some taxes.  Certainly the family of 4 Barrack described making $250,000 a year can afford to pay some taxes.

When we get the mentality that people with more than us deserve to have it taken away and that we are entitled to have government services for free... we are on a slow road to bankruptcy as a nation.  And welcome aboard.





PS. I am discussing the merits of the issue with my thoughts and ideas.  I did not call anyone names nor imply they are biased.  I did not imply that my idea was better and that you have been duped.  

I'd appreciate the same.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by guido911

Good post Gaspar

Thanks.  Unfortunately it will only make thinkers think.

[Hometown]

One of these posts Mr. Little is going to sweep in here and demolish all of you warmed over Reaganites.  But meanwhile, between bites of my leftovers, let me say:

Before Republicans mounted their hate campaign against government, we understood that no one else does the job government does, it is essential, noble, and supporting it is the responsibility of each of us.

Reaganomics never really happened.  It never made it out of committee and according to its architect, David Stockman, both Republicans and Democrats nipped it in the bud.  All we ever got were the tax cuts and deficits (until Clinton delivered welfare reform and a budget surplus).

The truth is that all along we have practiced Keysian economics that recognizes the importance of government spending as a means to leverage market forces.  Government and its spending picks winners and losers everyday.  This has gone on uninterrupted during my life.

Now, direct money to the lower and middle classes and you get a flowering of new businesses and meat and potato spending like purchases of household appliances.  Money given to working people percolates throughout the economy.

On the other hand, if you direct money to folks with plenty of it, you generally get unproductive capital and excesses like $100 Million paintings.  That's why the economist that invented profit sharing also proposed a Maximum Wage and the creation of citizen capital accounts funded by the overages.  There is a counterproductive pyramiding effect with capitalism that, if left uninterrupted, has a drag on an economy.

Gaspar, I like the part where you say none of this can be challenged.  God didn't hold back on self esteem when he created you, did he?  Here's a tip:  You would appear more knowledgeable if you would understate rather than overstate.

Cannon, I know you aren't a fat cat.  It would have weakened my statement by saying "'some' are fat cats."  What you are is a working slob that has been mind f***** by Republican strategists.  You bought it mister, no questions asked.  And you are still looking for Reagan's imaginary Welfare Mother living the life of Riley.  While, apparently it is just fine with you if billionaires make off with your lunch.  That's just the natural order of things.

All the things you advocate have never trimmed a budget or extracted a savings; all it has ever done is shift the burden from those who could easily manage it to those who cannot.

[TulsaFan-inTexas]

Gaspar and CF, fantastic posts. Let's see how the logic WILL be twisted. []

[TulsaFan-inTexas]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

That's why the economist that invented profit sharing also proposed a Maximum Wage and the creation of citizen capital accounts funded by the overages.

Egad! That sounds like communism to me. I don't purport to have answers to all of this, but did Clinton reform welfare or was it at the prompting of the Republican Gongress. I'm asking a serious question here in the interest of a good debate.

[Hometown]

I forget the economist's name; I look it up every so often.  He described himself as a radical capitalist and he pioneered profit sharing.

Welfare reform:  Clinton provided leadership.  Many Democrats were voted out of office after voting for it.  Clinton co-opted a Republican issue and crafted a compromise between left and right.

Republicans talked the talk but couldn't deliver.  

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by TulsaFan-inTexas

Gaspar and CF, fantastic posts. Let's see how the logic WILL be twisted. []

Yeah, that Ben Stein is certainly one of those class warfare types... [!]

from 2006...

In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning
By BEN STEIN
Published: November 26, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html

...the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton's merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush's tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

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

"Don't raise taxes. Cut spending."

The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want. Every president and every member of Congress promises to cut "needless" spending. But spending has risen every year since 1940 except for a few years after World War II and a brief period after the Korean War.

The imperatives for spending are built into the system, and now, with entitlements expanding rapidly, increased spending is locked in. Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt — all are growing like mad, and how they will ever be stopped or slowed is beyond imagining. Gross interest on Treasury debt is approaching $350 billion a year. And none of this counts major deferred maintenance for the military.

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

"deficits don't matter."

There is something to this. One would think that big deficits would be highly inflationary, according to Keynesian economics. But we have modest inflation (except in New York City, where a martini at a good bar is now $22). On the other hand, we have all that interest to pay, soon roughly $7 billion a week, a lot of it to overseas owners of our debt. This, to me, seems to matter.

Besides, if it doesn't matter, why bother to even discuss balancing the budget? Why have taxes at all? Why not just print money the way Weimar Germany did? Why not abolish taxes and add trillions to the deficit each year? Why don't we all just drop acid, turn on, tune in and drop out of responsibility in the fiscal area? If deficits don't matter, why not spend as much as we want, on anything we want?

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

People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?

Oh, now, now, now I recall. It changed when we figured that we could cut taxes and generate so much revenue that we would balance the budget. But isn't that what doctors call magical thinking? Haven't the facts proved that this theory, though charming and beguiling, was wrong?

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by TulsaFan-inTexas

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

That's why the economist that invented profit sharing also proposed a Maximum Wage and the creation of citizen capital accounts funded by the overages.

Egad! That sounds like communism to me. I don't purport to have answers to all of this, but did Clinton reform welfare or was it at the prompting of the Republican Gongress. I'm asking a serious question here in the interest of a good debate.

Gee, I guess that would make my grandparents' generation a buncha commies......

History...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/06/3003/

---After the Republican Great Depression, FDR put this nation back to work, in part by raising taxes on income above $3 to $4 million a year (in today's dollars) to 91 percent, and corporate taxes to over 50% of profits. The revenue from those income taxes built dams, roads, bridges, sewers, water systems, schools, hospitals, train stations, railways, an interstate highway system, and airports. It educated a generation returning from World War II. It acted as a cap on the rare but occasional obsessively greedy person taking so much out of the economy that it impoverished the rest of us.

---Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they're still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world).

The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

One of these posts Mr. Little is going to sweep in here and demolish all of you warmed over Reaganites.  But meanwhile, between bites of my leftovers, let me say:

Before Republicans mounted their hate campaign against government, we understood that no one else does the job government does, it is essential, noble, and supporting it is the responsibility of each of us.

Reaganomics never really happened.  It never made it out of committee and according to its architect, David Stockman, both Republicans and Democrats nipped it in the bud.  All we ever got were the tax cuts and deficits (until Clinton delivered welfare reform and a budget surplus).

The truth is that all along we have practiced Keysian economics that recognizes the importance of government spending as a means to leverage market forces.  Government and its spending picks winners and losers everyday.  This has gone on uninterrupted during my life.

Now, direct money to the lower and middle classes and you get a flowering of new businesses and meat and potato spending like purchases of household appliances.  Money given to working people percolates throughout the economy.

On the other hand, if you direct money to folks with plenty of it, you generally get unproductive capital and excesses like $100 Million paintings.  That's why the economist that invented profit sharing also proposed a Maximum Wage and the creation of citizen capital accounts funded by the overages.  There is a counterproductive pyramiding effect with capitalism that, if left uninterrupted, has a drag on an economy.

Gaspar, I like the part where you say none of this can be challenged.  God didn't hold back on self esteem when he created you, did he?  Here's a tip:  You would appear more knowledgeable if you would understate rather than overstate.

Cannon, I know you aren't a fat cat.  It would have weakened my statement by saying "'some' are fat cats."  What you are is a working slob that has been mind f***** by Republican strategists.  You bought it mister, no questions asked.  And you are still looking for Reagan's imaginary Welfare Mother living the life of Riley.  While, apparently it is just fine with you if billionaires make off with your lunch.  That's just the natural order of things.

All the things you advocate have never trimmed a budget or extracted a savings; all it has ever done is shift the burden from those who could easily manage it to those who cannot.

You rewrite history my friend.  

First of all, "Welfare reform" known formally as The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was part of Gingrich's Contract With America.  It was introduced by Rep. Clay Shaw from Florida.  Originally Clinton and the Democrats were opposed to it, until public pressure for individual states rights in the regulation of welfare began to mount (starting in Wisconsin). He was highly criticized by his fellow democrats, because it went against everything the party stood for.  Only after receiving the accolades of the people, did he begin to tout his penmanship on this important legislation.

I don't condone tax breaks to the wealthy!  I condone tax breaks to everyone!  Everyone should pay their fair share!  The emphasis should be on "Fair."  

If you can provide a single example of where growing government, and shrinking private capital ever grew an economy please provide it.  Please!

Your examples are hideous.  

If you direct money to people, regardless of their income, they will use that money for their individual goals.  Who cares if they buy a 100 million dollar painting or a 20 million home.  That money moving in the economy makes money.  People need to sell paintings and build homes too.

That's all I'll address, it's obvious where you are coming from.

[waterboy]

1983. The joke then was, if you paid income taxes this year...fire your accountant! Wasn't really that funny at the time.

[Red Arrow]

I saved an article in the Tulsa World editorial pages by Paul Greenberg dated Monday, November 5, 1990 which had references to the Federal income after the Reagan tax cuts of 1981.  Paul stated that Federal revenues went up - by $1.1 trillion. Unfortunately, spending went up even more - by $1.9 trillion.  He quoted Warren Brookes ("one commentator on the economy who can be trusted"), "From 1981 to 1987 the income taxes actually paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose by 49 percent ... while the bottom 50 percent paid 15 percent less."

[USRufnex]

"From 1981 to 1987 the income taxes actually paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose by 49 percent... while the bottom 50 percent paid 15 percent less."
"

Ummm.  Yeah, a HUGE redistribution of wealth from poor to rich will do that to you... gee, thanks Reagan.

Here's The Reagan legacy...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/4Inequality.htm

Salaries and benefits of corporate CEOs as a multiple of the average factory worker's
1980   30 times
1991   130-140 times

Executive Compensation as a Share of Corporate Profits
1953   22%
1987   61%

Percent Increase of Combined Salaries by Income Bracket, unadjusted for inflation (1980s)
Income Bracket       Percent Increase
$20,000 - 50,000          44%
200,000 - 1 million      697%
Over $1 million        2,184%
***Viewing the above chart more broadly, the total wages of all people who earned less than $50,000 a year -- about 85 percent of all Americans -- increased an average of 2 percent a year from 1980 to 1989, which did not even keep pace with inflation. By contrast, the total wages of all millionaires shot up 243 percent a year.

So who gets ahead, and who gets left behind? The single most decisive factor is education:

Education, Experience and Wages
Percentchange in earnings
New Workers (1-5 years experience)      
from 1979 to 1987

Less than 12 years of school             -15.8%
High school degree                       -19.8
16 or more years of school               +10.8

Old Workers (26-35 years of experience)
Less than 12 years of school             -1.9
High school degree                       -2.8
16 or more years of school               +1.8

[Red Arrow]

I suppose we could start a statistics war but I expect we both have better things to do.

I prefer the concept of bringing up everyone economically rather than bringing up the bottom by lowering the top. Creating new wealth (not just printing money) will allow this. Simple redistribution of existing wealth will not.

Be careful what you wish for when trying to equalize wealth.  Several people here have found to their surprise that they are in the wealthy category.  Granted, they aren't living in cardboard boxes along the river but they do not have enough money to be worry free.

Accumulation of great wealth is not always bad. I know I couldn't finance the research that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are sponsoring. Andrew Carnegie and others that we know the names of would probably be just a name in the history books if they only had a moderate amount of money. I know in some cases the fabulously wealthy got that way on the backs of the workers. Who knows why they finally decided to give back to society. It's hard to be a philanthropist without money.

At the other end, if we ignore the needs of the poor, we will earn another French Revolution.

The answer is somewhere in the middle. Republicans and Democrats will probably always disagree on how to get there.