Bush’s Tax Cuts Really Were For The Rich!
Democrats are quick to get triumphant: Bush tax cuts benefit the wealthiest Americans
My response? Of course Bush’s tax cuts benefitted the righ, you ninnys, how can you cut taxes for the “poor” when the “poor” barely pay them? The top 50% of wage earners pay about 95% of the taxes.
How can we cut taxes at all if we don’t cut them for the rich? If the poor pay next to nothing in taxes, how do you cut taxes for them?
To me this is just more evidence of the fact that Democrats just don’t want to ever cut taxes period. Tags: Domestic Issues, Earl Pomeroy, JD Donaghe, Lori Swanson, Red River Flood
Those at the bottom are being helped. Tax cuts are fueling the expanding economy. Employment is at its highest point in years. You can not find a job, you are not looking. As for payroll taxes, cut them too. More capital in the pockets and bank accounts of more people is a positive. I see this story as the pie getting ever bigger. Want a piece? Get it yourself, don’t whine and cry for the government to get it for you.
I realize the GW SS plan wasn’t nearly enough, but it relied on the success of its limited privatization to sell its enlargement in the future. It was politically possible, in other words. It is a misperception that Republicans have majority control. With the leftie MSM acting as a political party, the lefties have a disproportionate political voice. That is the reality. The leftie Dems, since they lost at the ballot box, have been using their clout in the judiciary and their almost monopoly control of the MSM to advance their agenda. Their tendency toward legalistic tactics(ACLU) is obvious.
likwid: Even those groups have the opportunity while they are American citizens, as a condition of their citizenship. It is up to them to take advantage of that opportunity, though.
robert108,
Please, read what I wrote. For your average American focusing on cutting FICA is far more important than the individual income tax. Cutting business taxes would help too, since that would increase the amount of money going into retirement investment vehicles like pension funds. In none of this do I argue against cutting individual income taxes. Its simply a matter of priorities. You can cut individual taxes all you want to; until you attack FICA (payroll taxes) you aren’t going to reduce the greatest federal tax burden on your average wage earner.
Anyway, you didn’t answer many of my questions and I am well aware that SSI is a ponzi scheme, as are all unfunded, Bismarkian pension plans.
No, you’re wrong…I’m glad to see that you can find better sources than your favorite serial liar. (BTW, I wish you’d stop projecting your own "my party=perfect, opposition party=the devil" thinking onto me)
You’re still only looking at income taxes, and not total taxes. Your typical WalMart employee makes less than $12,000/year and loses 20% of that to taxes.
r108,Lik, you might as well give it a rest. Graeme is determined to drag all humanity into his Marxist nightmare, and he will not allow facts or reality to stand in the way. He is not alone, plenty of idiots who want to kill millions in the same manner as their Jesus, Joseph Stalin, and their Moses, Mao Zedong, did.
The top 50% of wage earners pay about 95% of the taxes.
I’m all for tax cuts, but this tidbit is somewhat misleading. After all, how are you defining taxes? Do you include FICA? Or the various sales taxes? Or do you simply mean the federal income tax? If that is the case then you are leaving out over 50% of the taxes that the federal government collects. A little under 20% of the taxes paid come from the income tax on businesses, which are ultimately paid by you and me either as shareholders (lower share price profits) or as consumers. Are you including that sort of stuff as well?
Anyway, reducing the federal income tax is never going to really help middle-income and low wage earners much, as most of them pay more in FICA than they ever will in income taxes. Indeed, its in FICA that we have seen the real growth in taxes in the U.S. (as far as the federal government is concerned) over the past fifty years. Thus getting that under control is really the area that folks of less lofty incomes should be concerned about.
Don,
And while we’re at it, did Krugman win the Nobel before or after his stint as corporate advisor to Enron? Hmmm?
Sorry, puzzlefeet. I can direct my comment to anyone in politics. They all suffer from the same problem.
Wow. The lowest quintile actually has a negative Federal Income Tax Rate. So they get more money back than they pay in. Not a bad deal.
Summation of Don Myers’ comments:
Insult.
A "no shit Sherlock" point plus innuendo.
Insult plus a reiteration of the previous "no shit Sherlock" point plus more innuendo.
Patting himself on his back.
More innuendo and an appeal to authority.
Next up from the one trick pony: more insults.
Don,
In what year did the reality-challenged Paul Krugman win his Nobel prize? And for what did he win it? Surely not Economic Science… nor rocket science either.
the top one percent might pay 22 percent of the taxes but they own 40 percent of all wealth. This has doubled since the late seventies. Greenspan made a comment a while back saying something along the lines of the income gap threating democratic capitalism.
<blockquote>Yup. Sorry, I thought I’d made that clear.</blockquote>
So you’re hung up on the minutia that Rob doesn’t preface these articles with "Federal Income" before every mention of the word tax?
Would you suggest that the poor pay no payroll taxes? Or that companies pay the full 18% of SS?
If the poor paid no SS taxes, you do realize that the current SS scheme will collapse sooner than it already is?
Steve, you’re wrong about taxes—they aren’t just the day-to-day operating funds, they are an investment in the future.
Because our parents paid their taxes we have things like schools and hospitals and interstate highways. Our parent’s taxes paid for rural electrification—you’re welcome, Rob—and built an economic infrastructure second to none. Because our parents paid their taxes we have the Internet and the computer revolution.
We pay taxes today in order to make sure our children and grandchilden befefit from this investment they way that we did.
When a corporation makes a PO box in the Caymans their headquarters, they are unpatriotic—they take the benefits of past investments while ducking their own responsibilities.
robert108,
Also, GW’s plan wasn’t a serious or a very helpful plan (and Republicans were as much a part of its demise as Democrats were – after all, the Republicans are in the MAJORITY in the Congress) since it created an even larger bureaucratic morass than we have today. When someone proposes something along the lines of the current Chilean system I will start to take their proposals seriously.
Cato article on the Chilean system: http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj15n2-3-1.html
Graeme: What distinguishes free people making free choices is mobility, both upward and downward. The top one percent in the late seventies is a group populated by different individuals than it is today. Statistical groups only exist on paper. In real life, anyone has the opportunity to become prosperous if they want to do so, and do what is necessary for that end. No hereditary class system or govt mandates hold you back in our system. Success is available for those who wnat it enough.
Hmmmm…Imagine how much the hard working American tax payers are losing by having to invest in Social Security?…
"Steve, you’re wrong about taxes—they aren’t just the day-to-day operating funds, they are an investment in the future."
IE social engineering and redistribution of wealth.
I kind of like it when a company goes to the Caymans because it really pisses people like you off. Why do they leave, Don? Outrageous tax rates, maybe?
Re payroll taxes, maybe poor people shouldn’t have to pay them. Then people like you can raise them on the rich people like me so the poor can have a big fat retirement check.
Blah blah blah.
the top one percent might pay 22 percent of the taxes but they own 40 percent of all wealth.
So? These kinds of distinctions only matter to Marxists, communists, and socialists.
Greenspan made a comment a while back saying something along the lines of the income gap threating democratic capitalism.
What is "democratic capitalism" and how would a rich guy threaten it? Capitalism is nothing more than economic freedom. How does one guy having more than another threaten economic freedom?
Somehow we became the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, while we had a progressive income tax.
We should 2% flat tax wealth, start at $2 million then most of us would not even pay taxes.
Don, you must be referring to payroll taxes, right? Social Security, medicaid, etc.
Hello? Don?
that is simply not reality robert
H and R Block or the IRS might have some answers?…
That doesn’t make a lick of sense, Bat. Don’t you want everybody to pay their fair share?
Simple math. Federal minimum wage is $5.15 times 32 hrs/week (fulltime at WalMart) times 52 weeks = $8570. If they manage 40 hours, never take a day off, and never get sick, that can rise to a whopping $10,700.
As for the percentage of taxes they pay, here you go, dude. I’m sure you’ll agree that a Nobel laureate in economics probably knows more about taxation that a serial liar radio host, right?
http://www.pkarchive.org/column/120302.html
Hey Don,
Can we assume that you have any authoritative documentation that Mr. Limbaugh is wrong? Particularly as CBO and IRS figures seem to back up his contetntion regarding who pays taxes. Or are you once again just blowing partisan smoke?
As for payroll taxes, if there’s a point to adding those into the mix, why not add property taxes, sales taxes, along with excise taxes on the boat and "gas-guzzler" tax on that new Veyron?
And while we’re at it, how about a source for that contention that the average Wal-Mart employee only makes $12,000 per year. Or did that come from some PAW/UFPJ/IAC/A.N.S.W.E.R. website?
It is. Not even Stalin or Mao could produce equal outcomes, no matter how many people they slaughtered to try to create the "perfect society". My idea of perfection is that effort is rewarded, not some ideological concept.
Hi Hoodlumman!…Is soc. sec. considered a payroll tax? I thought it was one of those sentimental liberal programs that we are forced to pay into even though it is defunked?
Unequal outcomes is the reality of human beings.
Robert says: In real life, anyone has the opportunity to become prosperous if they want to do so, and do what is necessary for that end. No hereditary class system or govt mandates hold you back in our system. Success is available for those who want it enough.
Graeme says: that is simply not reality robert
And I find myself wondering how Graeme could be correct?
Robert, correctly, lays out the societal model that the country succeeded upon and Graeme say that’s not reality. How? What is the reality?
I see Robert’s definition all the time. People succeeding everywhere… when they want to. The people who fail actively do things to help themselves fail… How can you deny this?
LOL! good catch! thanks for the correction
"The govt never invests; govt is an expense to the public’
Wonder where all those roads and bridges came from?
But Sigivald, Krugman has never been caught abusing prescription pain killers. Therefore, he is right, regardless, and Rush is wrong.
And a liar.
I think that’s how it goes…
Don: You parrot the serial lies of the left about economics. The govt never invests; govt is an expense to the public. The money we pay to the govt is unavailable for investment. Private enterprise always spends its money more efficiently than govt does. You, like all good socialists, don’t trust the rest of us to do what you want with our own money; fortunately for us, we live in a free country where it is NOYB how we spend our money. It works, but you are welcome to move to a socialist country, say, France. Bon Voyage!
robert108,
Anyway, the basic problem with Bush’s program was that it lead to increased government control over SS, not less, due to the extra layer of bureucratic control it required. A true reform wouldn’t do that.
Inefficient use of our tax money. Some govt expense is OK, even if it is inefficient, like national defense, border security and basic infrastructure, like roads and bridges. The other two-thirds, the social engineering and entitlements, are a total waste of our money. We get nothing in return for that money. It is definitely not an investment.
<blockquote>Don’t you want everybody to pay their fair share?</blockquote>
How much is fair?
Steve, I was simply repeating the President’s own words and his promise to the poor of this country. don’t shoot the messenger.
Anyway, until someone in D.C. starts to seriously talk about restructuring SSI I won’t take "tax reform" for a less lofty earner like myself seriously.
Seth Yantiss said, And I find myself wondering how Graeme could be correct?
Ahhh! robert108 said that "anyone has the opportunity to become prosperous if they want to do so". We know that is not true because some people die before they get a chance. Others are born mentally retarded and don’t have the opportunity to become prosperous as a result. And still others, related to the retarded, are those we call Marxists and communists who refuse delivery of reality and thus prematurely banish any chance of prosperity because they are too busy arguing what is "fair" and what is not.
So in the end, graeme is correct. robert108 wasn’t describing reality. He forgot about the dead, the mentally retarded, and the Marxists such as graeme.
Epi: The answer to both your questions is to make SS an investment plan. It has always been a pyramid scheme in its present form. Now that we have smaller rather than larger generations, the scheme is collapsing, as was predicted in the sixties. Raising tax rates will only postpone the inevitable. A serious plan has already been proposed, by GW, and the lefties shot it down. Don’t try to sell us that cutting income taxes won’t help, though.
Epi: I thought the conclusion was obvious, but here are the details. First, I don’t agree that we have to address the tax situation piece by piece. Reducing the overall tax burden is always good, since money paid to the govt, or at least two thirds of it, is, IMO, simply wasted. Reforming SS into an investment plan would reduce FICA immediately, since FICA taxes were jacked up(tripled, I believe), about thirty years ago in anticipation of the demographic problem we have now. Not only that, but the presence of that amount of money in the Market would stabilize it and rasise the rate of return in general. Business taxes simply distort the market and should be abolished. The real key to all of this, IMO, is that govt needs to spend a lot less. With citizens keeping more of their money, many govt services would become unnecessary. Bottom line, we need to demand less from our govt and behave like the free people we are. How’s that?
Rob: Can you prove your contention about the top 50% of wage-earners without resortinbg to a drug-addled serial liar?
Seriously, if it’s true—and I have my doubts—surely you can back it up with someone more credible than Mr. Limbaugh.
(In fact, the list of people LESS credible than Mr. Limbaugh is a short one indeed)
puzzlefeet, you illustrate the problem of taxes perfectly.
Taxes aren’t meant to help anyone. They are to fund the day to day operations of the government. Social engineering and redistribution of wealth are not valid uses of taxes.
Facts about Taxes
Who Pays Income Taxes?
Don, you must be referring to payroll taxes, right? Social Security, medicaid, etc.
robert108,
The majority of the seats in the House and the Senate are controlled by Republicans. If they can’t stand up to the media that’s more of an issue of their own cowardice than anything else. Or have Republicans so taken on the mantle of victimhood status?
Also, what exactly does the judiciary have to do with SSI reform/abolition?
I realize the GW SS plan wasn’t nearly enough, but it relied on the success of its limited privatization to sell its enlargement in the future. It was politically possible, in other words.
Weren’t you just attacking me for my supposedly piecemeal approach? What gives?
Epi: I never "attacked" you at all. You seemed to pit FICA reduction against income tax reduction, and I don’t think it is necessary to do that. In other words, I was agreeing with you about FICA, and adding income tax reduction to the mix. This thread was about income tax reduction and the leftie spin on that subject, btw. I don’t think you can assume that means FICA is insignificant.
My point about the MSM is simple: The lefties control the public dialogue through the MSM, so that distorts the political situation toward the left, more than the electorate wishes it to be. It has nothing to do with victimization; it is the truth of the present situation.
I made no connection between the judiciary and SS reform, but if the GW bill had been passed, we would very likely have seen it, through constant investigations and legal challenges.
I wasn’t attacking you, and I didn’t feel good about the gradual approach to SS, but my point was that it was better than nothing. You had previously called for a serious plan from DC, and that was more than anyone else has done since FDR.
Calm down, I’m not your enemy.
I don’t agree that we have to do something perfectly or we shouldn’t even try to do it at all. To me, that is failure thinking conditioned by fear.
robert108,
Since when did I argue merely for piecemeal reform (though I’ll take that if that is all that possible at the time)?
The entire point to my statement was that merely looking at the federal income tax leaves out much of the overall picture, especially from the stamdpoint of the average wage earner.
robert108,
Well, its nice to see that we are merely talking past each other (mostly). I still don’t buy your MSM hypothesis though. Republicans need to grow a backbone if what you have described is really true.
As to what the average American wants, well they want two things: less taxes and more government services.
Tax Rates vs Tax Receipts
The crusade for "a living wage" that will enable a worker to support a family proceeds without the slightest interest in finding out whether most people who are making low wages actually have any family to support — much less seeking out the facts about what actually happens after the government sets wages.
Epi: I do agree that the plan wasn’t perfect, but the govt part of the program would expectedly shrink over time due to the success of privatization. It is probably the only type of plan the American public will accept right now, especially with all the lies about it pushed by the MSM. They successfully sold the lie to the public that privatization of SS was "risky", when the present scheme is guaranteed to go bankrupt in a few years. Nice propaganda.
robert108,
That’s a fine sentiment as far as it goes, but my point is that the Bush "reform" went down the entirely wrong road to greater government centralization. You argue that the government portion of the program would have eventually sloughed off, but that is not my vision of how government either grows or works. Much like the California energy market "deregulation" wasn’t really deregulation (or a very good way to even regulate the market there) Bush’s SSI program wasn’t really reform – it was merely adding a layer of government to an already overly bureaucratized system.
I’m happy with piecemeal reform (in other words), but it has to be real reform.
Those Wal Mart workers making 12,000 per year also file tax returns and get their money back…
Here is some info. on living wage results, Mickey: http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp170
Have you ever thought that the poor don’t pay taxes because they don’t have enough to live? Hell, if I were to go out on my own- I wouldn’t stand a chance. Jobs are hard to come by for a student like me. If you’re poor, you can’t afford the education to get a better job. SOMEONE has to work the lower paid jobs. If we all worked higher paid jobs…well, you know that’s not the way it works anywhere.
So if poor people pay half a million dollars in taxes, then where is the money coming from? Explain that. Oh, and what’s even worse, my family has been taxed as a family and assumed to have my head of household still alive, so they made us pay more than we should have. Tell my dead dad to go get a job. I’m sure he’ll just roll over in his grave.
Let’s see, any tax is going to make the rich pay more than the poor, simply because the rich have more to give. it’s more logical than taxing the poor something that they can’t pay. Now how in the world is it possible to charge the poor more than the rich?
Who decides what a "living wage" is? For me, it’s at least $100,000 a year. I await your contribution to my living wage, P.
I agree with you about the backbone thing.
We also have a growing shortage of skilled labor in this country.
I do have empathy for anyone whos situation is hard. I was there myself . Thirty years ago I worked in jobs that are filled by illegal immigrants today. I know minimum wage.
We have a nation where roughly only 25% have any formal education beyond high school. That in itself sets one up for a hard road ahead.
But that’s another issue.
From the White House website:
"These are the basic ideas that guide my tax policy: lower income taxes for all, with the greatest help for those most in need. Everyone who pays income taxes benefits — while the highest percentage tax cuts go to the lowest income Americans. I believe this is a formula for continuing the prosperity we’ve enjoyed, but also expanding it in ways we have yet to discover. It is an economics of inclusion. It is the agenda of a government that knows its limits and shows its heart." — President George W. Bush
Hmm…. I guess not.
ss: It isn’t, and they don’t. This thread is about tax cuts, not taxes imposed. It is certainly logical that "the rich" pay more in taxes, dollarwise, than "the poor". The question is: How much more is just? Even if the rates were equal, the rich would pay more. The real issue is that the rich pay a greater portion of their income in taxes than those who earn less. In one way of looking at that, it’s unfair; others think it’s fair. It’s an open question.
Don: Even these <a href="http://www.rmpjc.org/2002/WalMart.html">anti-Wal-Mart activists</a> think the average wage of a full-time Wal-Mart employee is $15k, with a <i>28 hour</i> minimum for "full time".
So, 12k seems a bit low. Maybe that’s because Wal-Mart doesn’t actually pay minimum wage everywhere? Because, you know, with an unemployment rate under 5%, there’s actually competition for even the unskilled, lots of places.
(PS. Calling Limbaugh a liar won’t change the CBO or IRS numbers. And arugment to authority won’t make Krugman more right than the agencies charged with collecting or overseeing taxes. But maybe your reliance on Krugman explains your "12 thousand dollar" figure… being three years out of date. And "lucky duckies" seems to be a Krugman invention, though he implies the WSJ coined it. Of course, there’s also no links at the archive site, to the WSJ.
And, of course, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/luskin200506011007.asp">some</a> people would argue (and provide copious, copious evidence) that <I>Krugman</i> is a serial liar with an agenda just as big as Limbaugh’s… and a lot less openly admitted.)
Don, How can the AVERAGE Wal-Mart employee earn MINIMUM wage?
I don’t remember much from math, but I think I recall something about how you get an average… Even if every single employee, save the CEO, made minimum, you still couldn’t get that for an average…
What song did that "straw man" sing? Oh, yeah…
Hey Rob, where’s the article that says the Bush tax cuts have really really helped those at the bottom, for those with the greatest need at the bottom? Even if you argue the MSM ignores how great the poor are doing in this country, one would think that Fox News or the Washington Times or the NY Post would do an article touting how the tax cuts have helped those who President Bush promised would help the most.
BTW, Rob—you’re only taking about income taxes, not payroll taxes. The idea that the poor are "lucky duckies" who pay no taxes is a complete fallacy.
Great Don, now that we’re clear can you tell me how payroll taxes are pertinent to Bush’s cutting income taxes?
Though, frankly, I’d be all for cutting payroll taxes (which are largley a flat percentage across all income levels). Care to get on board with me for a "let’s cut the payroll taxes" campaign? Just think of all the poor people we could help!
Can’t deal with the facts so you have to attack the source, eh Don?
Well, how about the Empire Center of the Manhattan Institute which states that the top 1% of wage earners pay 22% of the taxes? How about the Congressional Budget Office which had the top 5% of wage earners paying approximately 50% of the taxes in 1999 (raw data available here)? Or how about the Tax Foundation which states that this last year the "poorest" 41% of wage earners paid no federal taxes at all?
There is probably nothing I can link to that will make you believe this, Don, as I’m sure you’ve already made up your mind not to believe it…but your obstinance aside there is no denying the fact that the rich pay the taxes in this country.
Of course I’m not talking about payroll taxes, dummy, the Bush tax cuts didn’t touch those. Bush cut income taxes, and those are heavily lumped upon "the rich."
We probably could cut things like payroll taxes if you liberals would stop complaining every time we try to reduce the growth in spending on things like Medicare, Medicaid. You want us to cut payroll taxes which fund those things yet you aren’t willing to cut spending on those programs. Where do you think the money is going to come from?
Puzzle, the President is talking percentages while the article is talking dollar amounts. If I’m a millionaire and you make $35,000 a year 3% of my income is going to be more than 10% of your income because I make way more money.
When the spread on the tax rates is so lop-sided, as I pointed out in the post, when you cut taxes you cannot help but benefit the "rich" more.