The truth behind the nation’s massive fiscal problem

Facts have a ‘liberal’ bias…

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Thank God, more and more people are ignoring these G-20 clowns.

Paul/Napolitano 2012.

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dangitall LHU – 9:54 – you beat me to it.

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Obama keeps hiring more public sector employees to “study” things and “recommend” things. He is a one man employment agency for more government employees. I am all for cuts in government spending. I note that at the G-20 Obama had his head handed to him because the Europeans who have big government employee/union problems have learned that you can’t climb out of a financial crisis by spending more money. And Obozo wants to keep on spending. We can’t afford it. And he maintains the longest running war in history–question is why? Stability in Afghanistan? That is insane and everyone knows it. Chop some of those government employees and cut their pensions. Do it now, not later.

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Lord Help Us

Last year Republicans held Congress. Unemployment 4.7%

First year after the democrats took over. Unemployment 5%

So is posting your own numbers too much to ask or is just this idiotichabit of yours of just saying “no it isn’t the best you can do, yet again?

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Jay please tell us when the democrats in power will start accepting blame for their (in)actions? Oh, I’m sorry, that would mean that they would have to accept some personal responsibility. We all know that’s not going to happen.

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I’ve never had a problem with being taxed in the interest of national defense as long as the money goes towards that end. Never gonna be able to predict or stop aggression…best be prepared with money in the bank.

Obama is more than welcome to call the bluff before he falls off of it.

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Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney: “Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years,…”

Don’t forget Medicare Part D and agricultural subsidies (welfare for millionaires).

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NIF, show me what Congress did between Jan, 2008 and August, 2008 that caused the economy to collapse…or consider yourself…ignorant.

Thanks in advance…

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Lord HElp Us

I would first need to educate you as to when the Congress flipped to the democrats and educating you is far beyond what I would want to tackle.

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“This is one of the better arguments that libs have posted today. You must be really proud.”

looks like someone needs to learn the difference between causation and coinkidink.

we’ll keep a light on for ya, Hyperbole Boy.

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LHU – 10:01 – but … but … but … MINIMUM WAGE!!!

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JAy

No I would not.

The government is reactionary. It does not create wealth for anyone except politicians and government workers.

The private sector creates wealth and they do this by growing their business. They do this when they can turn a profit. The more people they hire, the more taxes are increased because more people are paying taxes.

It’s called capitalism. When the economy has power, the tax base goes up.

THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT FIX THIS. IT CAN ONLY GET OUT OF THE WAY.

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Didn’t get to comment on the thread downstairs. Pedophilia should be a capital offense. If the priests are found guilty, give ‘em the death penalty, and that goes for any child molester.

Death sentence…done and over.

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Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney: “…policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile,…”

Hear, hear.

In fact, policymakers should relax fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile. Contrary to the current meme, when business and families are tightening their belts, government should be loosening its belt to plug the hole in the economy created by the private sector.

In short, we need more stimulus until we approach something resembling full employment. If we don’t put people back to work, revenues will continue to flatten or even decline leading to even higher deficits in the future. If we ever hope to reduce or eliminate the deficits again (much less, pay down the debt), then jobs should be our number one priority today.

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NIF’s definition of an invalid question?

A question which the answer would illustrate just how ignorant he is…

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Let’s ignore the fact that revenue increase 20% as a result of the Bush tax cuts. Let’s ignore the fact that in less than six months obama increased the debt by 1.2 trillion dollars, for nothing. Let’s ignore the fact that the main economic indicator unemployment is still unnaturally high. Let’s ignore the fact that the stimulus did far less than a tax moratorium would have. You cannot spin your way out of the truth.

Both wars together still don’t add up to the cost of the stimulus.

It would have been cheaper to buy each of the 31 million people w/out insurance a private ‘Cadillac’ than that joke of a reform that’s going to drive health care costs even higher.

Obama has a huge culpability in the deficit and a precious little to show for it. You can only blame others so long before you look inept.

There’s your freakin’ truth.

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Where are entitlements in this discussion? The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare make the current debt look small. Without complete entitlement reform, it doesn’t matter what else we do.

Also, is it reasonable to assume that the lower tax rates from the Bush tax cuts have absolutely no positive effect on economic growth? None whatsoever? Where did all that money go?

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Jay

What are you talking about? Tax increases do not spur economies.

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Business leaders say Obama’s economic policies stifle growth

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

“The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama’s closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”

Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and “harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S.”

“In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore,” Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. “By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.”

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Lord Help Us

The Elections were held in 2006 and the Democrats took over congress of Jan. 2007.

And apparently your best defense is acting like a spoiled child.

Hey Pal. it ain’t working. You still look like a fool.

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LHU, it’s pretty simple here. Democrats won control of both houses in November of 2006. They took office in early 2007. NOT 2008, as you referenced.

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So, there should be no problem getting rid of the military since it is just part of that big bad government that is in the way of the BPs and Monsantos, etc. That one move will almost wipe out our deficit spending problem.

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NIF, oops, my bad and sincerest of apologies.

Dems took over in Jan, 2007.

I will still ask the question though…

What did the Dem Congress do between Jan 2007 (while GWB was still in office and could veto anything) that led to the economic collapse in August 2008?

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Any attempt to project a deficit over the next over the next ten years is absurd, and would only be done to serve a political purpose. Since the much maligned tax cuts are scheduled to end this year anyway, this is basically a hypothetical chart. These exercises are just warm up acts for the real tax increases coming after December. I only mention tax increases because I don’t think anyone really believes we will see significant budjet cuts from this administration.

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The government is reactionary. It does not create wealth for anyone except politicians and government workers.

I agree with your first sentence. The government does not have the appearance to be proactive in many areas, and I believe that’s one of the reasons that the government appears inept in different situations. However, to look at it from another viewpoint, if we had a proactive government, some would probably complain that the government was overreaching or overstepping their power in their actions. That’s a topic I think is worthy of debate.

A far as creating wealth, the highest salaried government worker is the POTUS with an annual salary of $400,000. As far as CEO’s, he probably doesn’t rate in the top 1000 paid in the US. The only way a government worker can create wealth is by using their skills learned in the private sector upon completing government service. I’d have to pull the bs card on that statement.

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By the way, allowing the Republican tax cuts to expire does not mean that the Democrats will raise taxes. It simply means that the Republican plan of returning to the old tax structure is being followed. So, why would the Republicans complain about following their own plan.

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“So, why would the Republicans complain about following their own plan.”

Well, you see…that wasn’t REALLY their “plan.” Circumstances interfered. The “plan” was to have a “permanent Republican majority” and they would just keep extending the tax cuts.

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I look at that chart and the only thing I can think is, I am so glad that we have the dimacrats in office because they can predict the future. NOT, there is only one way to reduce the deficit, spend less than you take in! Why is it that our elected officials can’t seem to balance a budget, doesn’t every American have to do that every day? If they do not know how to do simple math vote them out!!!!!

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bush lied, soldiers died…

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Kelly

Lemme guess…. you’re a conservative, right?

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Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse
Today’s corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010. These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market.

“On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts.

Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there’s always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.

Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe “double dip” recession.”

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Clearly this is a chart of the oil spill and somebody has just tacked some numbers onto it, but why are the “Bush tax cuts” playing such a big part in the future years when they mostly expire after this year?

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Jay; If you would open your eyes, ears and mind to what is going on in the world, you would see that even the EU socialist realize that they have to cut spending. Think with some common sense, You’re going to charge more on your credit card to stimulate yourself out of debt? The private sector is the group that provides the money to run the government. The economy is now that government owes salaries more than the income from the private sector produces. Small business’s can not borrow money to expand, or do things to produce job openings. The common American has not been helped by any of Obummer’s administration polices or new laws yet. Are you better off today than you were at the end of Bush’s term as president? In 2011 all of the old tax cuts jump up to higher levels, plus some new added ones. Go figure and doodle on some soft rolled paper.

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“but why are the “Bush tax cuts” playing such a big part in the future years when they mostly expire after this year?”

If you have a huge credit card debt…does it automatically go away if you get a small raise in salary?

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This article illustrates the maxim, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” (Mark Twain).

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jewcowboy

Pretty good with me. Mom’s in the hospital and I am going to see her today. I noticed a late night post of yours several days ago about trippin’ over shoes and I haven’t seen much from you since.

Recovering from a loss takes time—don’t let anyone tell you about how you should be over it by now. Only you can set that schedule.

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With all the problems in the country, do you know who the luckiest man in the World is? ……….John McCain. Man, did he dodge a bullet. And the luckiest company?…..Toyota. Have you heard anything about runaway cars since the oil spill began?

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Outhouse GoKart

June 29th, 2010
10:27 am

…and don’t forget Cheney is EVIL!

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Kelly

Purely from an objective point, your original statement attempts to cast conservatives in a good way. You then, use the same thing to attempt to cast liberals in a bad way. If that were not the case, you would have provided information about liberals other than the “(and even those who aren’t citizens).” talking point.

How can one be a conservative who believes in limited government, yet you advocate:
“That would entail having a military and funding military ventures, police funding, and funding for firefighters. That would also include passing laws that protect one citizen from another.”
Much of the military spending we do is not for soldiers as much as it is for systems and equipment that is completely unusable in our current engagements. Anytime a budget crisis happens, police and fire are the first to get the ax (along with teachers).

I haven’t quite figured that about the political factions. They both pay lip service to goups but don’t really have their backs when the chips are down.

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Those are the facts; that is the truth, the kind of thing you discover when you cite historical sources rather than hysterical sources.

Oh Jay, that was too good! Bravo!

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The truth exists independently of how we feel about it. I’m so bored with people injecting their feelings and opinions into a discussion in which they’ve already dismissed facts as irrelevant. We cannot begin to enact “what should be” until we deal with what IS.

This mess did not happen over night, and it is not the result of one single idealogical faction’s decisions to the exclusion of others. Blame is abundant, and there’s plenty to go around. But more importantly, effective solutions require more than just shared blame; they require shared responsibility. Hanging on to partisan bitterness is SO NOT HELPING.

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Jay

The government did not create the wealth. They created an environment in which the airlines could create that wealth. The government does not operate any airlines, reservation lines, or ticket counters.

Using that, I could say government created Norfolk Southern’s wealth and J.B. Hunt’s wealth since the government was involved with creating the railroads and highways.

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And Kelly,

Please explain to us all how you are being objective when you assume incorrectly?

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“And Cheney was evil…”

No Normal – he STILL is.

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Kam – after our diiiiiiiiismal performance, I’m wondering if we’re going to see a shakeup across the board on how our clubs train / bring athletes up through the ranks, etc. There was a lot of chit-chat on the radio about emulating Germany’s system – but that’ll take money and the results won’t be fast …

me, I’m wondering if Capello will survive the week – Redknapp has said he would be interested in the post (hell, for £6M/year, I would be, too) …

more to the point, I’m more interested to see if FIFA is going to install more technology given the TRAGIC referreeing over the last couple of weeks …

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/7860378/World-Cup-2010-Fifa-president-Sepp-Blatter-apologises-to-FA-over-Frank-Lampard-goal.html

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SoCo,

Notice that I did not say that military funding was perfect or that there weren’t areas that could or should be cut. I’m sure that some money is spent in ways that I would not agree with. However, since I am not conducting a line-item review of each portion of the budget, I am speaking in generalities. In the same way, I don’t advocate totally cutting welfare. My family was on it briefly when I was a child, and I am so grateful that it was there. However, my mother, who worked several jobs to get us out of welfare and on our won, is the exception. Most people maintain entire lifestyles on welfare and spend their days trying to game the system. I know–I have been there and seen it. So while welfare is good for those who use it properly, it can and should be reformed. I feel that is it much more wasteful than many other areas.

You are right that policement, firefighters, and teachers are the first to get axed. I have never agreed with this but always understood it. The smart thing to do would be to cut benefits to those who aren’t providing services to the community. However, those who are working to protect us and teach our children are cut first. Why? Because, as I said, those who receive government benefits do not like to lose them. They learn to depend on them and get very angry (and show it at the voting booth) when they are taken away. So the right thing to do isn’t the politically expedient thing to do.

@ Jay

I think that’s kind of a silly sweeping generalization that you yourself know is not intellectually honest. To say that Republican = conservative is like saying Democrat = liberal. Not always. Generally, we think of it that way, but it’s not always true. I have voted for Democrats before (locally of course) that were more conservative the the Republican. And I’ll do it again in the future, I’m sure.

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Really Jay?
“Growth in Federal Tax Revenues From 2003 to 2006
Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006.”

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf

Is the CBO one of your “hysterical” soruces?

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Jay 10:38,
You are always giving enough fact and omitting enough fact to make your side look like something it is not. At the end of Clinton’s term we were sliding into a recession. Although that recession started under Clinton’s watch you and all this other bleeding heart liberals blamed Bush.
Such hypocrite’s.

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USinUK,

Wow, those headlines in the UK were hard core!!!!!

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USinUK,

Yes, I saw that one…..wow, you guys don’t mix words.

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The Obama stimulus was supposedly going to keep unemployment below 8%.
But lettuce not quibble. ITS BUSHs FAULT!!!

Obama is not gonna raise taxes…he is just gonna let the Bush tax cuts expire…ITS BUSHs FAULT!!!

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George Bush hates black people. ITS BUSHs FAULT!!

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Call me a liar will you….

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

Put in pipe, smoke away. Spending is the problem, not income. If you spend more than you make you go in to debt….Not Quantum Mechanics we’re talking about.

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Bosch – “Wow, those headlines in the UK were hard core!!!!!”

as are our football fans.

heck, even the BBC commentators were saying they were pathetic, shambolic, dreadful … talk about not mincing words!

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Washington, D.C.- The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) conducted a poll of people leaving the AmericaSpeaks 21st Century Town Meeting sessions on June 26th. The poll of 74 participants revealed a surprising lack of knowledge among people who had just sat through a 6.5 hour-long discussion of the budget.

For example, the vast majority had no idea how large the budget deficit had been in the years just before the recession sent it soaring. 84.2 percent believed that the country had large budget deficits (greater than 2.0 percent of GDP) just prior to the recession began at the end of 2007. Only 10.5 percent realized that the deficit was relatively small (1.9 percent of GDP in 2006 and 1.3 percent in 2007) in the years just before the downturn. Fully 48.7 percent answered that the deficit was more than 5.0 percent in the years just before the downturn, which would imply a very large deficit.

This lack of knowledge on key issues raises questions about the usefulness of the exercise. It is striking that people would have such a long period of time to devote to learning about and discussing the country’s budget and economic problems and yet were still seriously misinformed on several key issues. It appears that this effort was not very successful in educating the participants.

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USinUK, first recession was inherrited by the “New economy” as touted by Clinton. The “dot bombs” if you will.
Aside from that fact, I was talking the raw numbers of pure tax uptake by the government.
Naturally tax revenues drop durring recessions.

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Pat – “first recession was inherrited by the “New economy” as touted by Clinton”

ahhhhh … so this recession WAS Obama’s fault, but the Bush recession was Clinton’s fault.

gottit.

thanks.

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Ok, you got me on that one Jay. However, I believe that the government creates the environment for the companies to flourish most of the time. Whether it’s done because of “campaign contributions” or for the general benefit of the public is up to debate.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Here’s the 2010 budget (don’t you love Wiki??). Notice the “Other Mandatory” category. From previous budgets, you can see this includes mainly welfare and unemployment. It was $571 billion in 2010. The “mandatory” category (which I don’t see as mandatory at all, but I digress…) total is $2.2 trillion, including SS, Medicaid/Medicare, and welfare and unemployment. To get rid of those programs or pare them back would be a HUGE help to the deficits, both budget and national.

And I would totally agree with you on our politicians. I wish we had term limits instead of these morons whose only care is the next election. They care nothing about what is best, only what their name is remembered for and reelection.

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the truth, the kind of thing you discover when you cite historical sources rather than hysterical sources.

filed under “why I keep coming back to this otherwise Gawdforsaken place.”

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As I read the chart Bush’s tax cuts make up a substantial part of the deficit after they expire in 2011. Souldn’t that part of the chart be removed after 2011?

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I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea (except those who are receiving it, of course). It is essentially a Ponzi scheme, where you collect from the young and cross your fingers you have enough left in the pot to give it back to them when they are 62. Amazing that Madoff can get arrested for that, but the government just goes on about its business.

Seriously, reform is needed. Of course, Bush tried that, but no one liked the “everyone save for yourself the way a responsible person would” idea. Personal responsibility? What’s that??

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Huckabee, I agree with you. Whenever someone begins a sentence with “OK, I am going to tell you the truth”, THE NEXT WORDS THAT WILL COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH WILL BE LIES.

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It’s misleading to the point of lying to pick and choose your facts like this, Jay.

Our current Democratic Congress, which writes the budget, has been in control since 2006.

since 2006?

And you’re accusing Jay of lying?

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pat – I did look at the other link – and I saw a 27% increase in revenues from FY 2001 to FY 2008 vs, a 75% increase from FY 1993 to FY 2000.

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Okay, punching in…time keeper has been reviewing records of our time on blog…

Bosch–There you are!

SoCo

The government created the wealth from the railroads, eh? Even the FEDERAL government…hmmm…

The thread…? The only thing I ever learned about the whole concept of economics was, if you spend more than you take in, it’s in the red and that’s not good. If you spend less than you take in, it’s in the black, and that’s good.

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Thats a wrap! LUUUNNNNCCHH!!!!!

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You might be right that it’s going to take a combination of reduced spending and tax increases. For many years, I bought into the premise that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and actually increase revenue. Maybe it did, but the Republicans always increased spending or cut taxes further to negate that affect. All you have to do is look at who was in office when the deficit went up and down to see that the only ones who address the deficit are Democrats. I hope Obama gets a handle on it, but so far all he’s done is add to it.

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Okay. It’s Bush’s fault. If I concede that will you kindly tell me where the accountability is at this point with the Obama administration? He is currently the POTUS so he has to have some accountability. Why are we still spending so much of our tax money on so much B.S.?

500 mil. for ex jailbirds to be rehabilitated into being better fathers – how many billion to Brazil? And for what? You know as well as I do that this list could go on and on. You may say that 500 mil. isn’t that much but I wonder how many hours, how many tax payers have to work to pay that much in taxes. It all adds up. We need to only be dealing with the critical issues at this point and STOP using tax payer funded programs to buy votes which is what much of these programs are for in my opinion. Fix what is broken, no matter who broke it and then deal with the less pressing issues.

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“However, I believe that the government creates the environment for the companies to flourish most of the time.”

Soco…*I* would say: that’s how it SHOULD be, but the problem is that too often the government only creates an environment where SOME companies flourish.

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I believe NIF is really Rush in drag. Never sees a fact he can’t lie his way out of.

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Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006.”

But there was some major, huge, real-big additional expense from Team Bush that swallered up all them recovery-revenue gains, can’t remember what it was… think it rhymed with “kayak”… help me out here…

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To all politicians;……When you are in a hole, STOP DIGGING!

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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…Jobs, Jobs, Jobs…

Any questions?

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Kelly,

Your monthly prebate check is in the mail. Sorry for the delay.

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mrs. w – the 500mil was just proposed and not actually implemented. scratch that one off of your whine list

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“how many billion to Brazil?”

Gotta keep them lies going. Try this answer: none

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Don’t boycott BP, keep them in business so they can pay for the spill. Boycott LA and San Fran, support AZ.

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BadaBing – I never thought I’d say this, but well said for your 11:19.

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Doggone @ 11:19

Agreed!!!

Kelly @ 11:13

If you can, find someone old enough to remember the Great Depression. You’d be amazed at the viewpoints you’d get from elders who have lived thru different historical events.

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Jay,

In at least two of your responses, you noted that government revenues adjusted for inflation reached the same level in 2006 as they were in 2001. In other words, the government had the same level of income WITH LOWER TAX RATES. People had more money in their pockets (a good thing), and the government had just as much money (a good thing).

Obviously, tax cuts produce a short term revenue hit to government, but your data seems to confirm that in the long term helps government revenue (or at least not have a detrimental effect). I think it is also true that the more effeciently an economy is performing, there are less negative effects to raising taxes or postive effect to lowering taxes.

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Jay,

The only thing that I learned about Obama is that he is a outright liar, this is what we learned from him.

If this was a conservative chart and it didn’t read what you wanted it to read it sure as hell wouldn’t be on this site.

Please tell the rest of us exactly when you and other liberals will stop the blame game and take responsibility for your actions?????????

The only thing that will help our country is after November when the conservatives take over and create a gridlock, this is what happened during the Clinton era and we were in pretty good shape fiscally.

Please show us that chart.

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I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea

I do.

This guy does.

Neither of us are currently receiving a dime from it. So that’s two you’ve met, now.

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“I also find it fascinating to see you forgive Bush on the grounds that he took office as the internet bubble was bursting, while conservatives absolutely refuse to extend that same forgiveness to Obama, who took office during an economic calamity that makes the internet bubble look like nothing.

Why is that?”

I can’t speak for Conservatives, I can only reiterate what I wrote previously further up the page:

Obama gets a pass for the first year…

….. and then he has to take the fall for continuing huge unsustainable deficits, entrenched unemployment that was supposed to be solved by a trillion in stimulus spending, rising medicare costs that were supposed to be tamed by cuts that have not materialized, and for a failing war in Afghanistan that he has pretty much neglected.

If my wife charges up our credit cards, I can’t blame her if I then max them out. Bush charged up the nation’s credit card, and Obama is maxing it out. Obama doesn’t get by with saying, “well Bush charged it up so I HAVE to max it out”.

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LOL. Jay’s hypocrisy is laughable as usual.

He starts off by sneering, “They give people a story line, an explanation for why the world is as it is and why their side isn’t to blame.”

Then he goes right on to give an explanation for why the world is as it is and why their side isn’t to blame, all the while foolishly sneering at his peers on the right who are doing the exact same thing. Apparently, Jay lacks any sense of self-awareness.

If there is a teeny part of Jay’s brain that functions beyond repitilian partisnship perhaps he would understand that he is exactly the person who he lives to hate, just a liberal version of them.

So of course silly people like Jay or Olbermann will say it is all Bush’s fault and their peers on the right Michael Savage and Glenn Beck will say it is all Obama’s fault. Then the rational and/or gown up people will roll their eyes and wish that all of the above clowns would all just shut up and let serious people try to solve problems. Let the partisan hacks go off on an island where they can live the fantasy that their stupid rigid ideology is the right one and everyone who does not subscribe to it is not only intrinsically wrong, but probably dumb and/or evil too. The rest of us would be far better off without their ignorant partisan dreck.

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Kelly,

“Of course, Bush tried that, but no one liked the “everyone save for yourself the way a responsible person would” idea. ”

Considering I’ve lost over 40% of the market value of my IRA since 2007, and have just recently started to see it growing again, I would rather not trust my entire fiscal well being when I no longer have earning potential to Wall Street.

Bush’s “reform” was simply a way to reward Wall Street contributors with a government mandated windfall…look at our current health reform for a Democrat example of this if you need one.

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Facts don’t like. The figures are accurate. But the past is past. Thing to do now is fix the deficit. Starting next year with the new Congress. We will see who is serious and who is blowing smoke.

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So, if we get rid of Social Security and Medicare and the corresponding taxes, exactly what impact will that have on the deficit.

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USinUK, I have already been called a liar by Jay, so I can clearly show that I was in fact correct.
Throwing strawmen at me is not going to falsify the actual, raw numbers.

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““I will also say that I have yet to meet a person who thinks SS is a good idea”

I do

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I’m here from… yeah, I have a question; what is a job? We keep hearing how this person created X number of jobs, and that one lost Y number of jobs. what is a job? One cannot “create” a job. The market creates jobs and if a person’s skills are no longer required by the market the job vanishes and never comes back. How many blacksmiths do you know? There are a few blacksmith gigs here and there, but Bush didn’t elimninate them (maybe Henry Ford, who was a capitalists, capitalist). Or, when a job can be performed for less, by somebody else (locally, or abroad), the job doesn’t go away. Excuse me, I have to get back to my job.

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And mindless partisans make gross overgeneralizations. LOL

You deserve a high-5 for that one!!!!

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“Or, when a job can be performed for less, by somebody else (locally, or abroad), the job doesn’t go away. ”

Don’t forget when jobs are eliminated due to automation and improved productivity. There is no government plan that can address that.

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mike,

“Better yet, I want my retirement to come from that magical money tree that liberals seem to think exists somewhere.”

That is not what I said, and I would hope you would realize that.

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S.S. would have been a good idea if it were actually funded. As it is now, it is only a good idea for people born before 1965. If not, you are paying 6 or 7 percent AFTER TAX dollars into something that will only pay you anything if you 1) can take advantage of the insurance aspect, 2) are not otherwise well off, or 3) live to a VERY old age. How much money has NOT been saved by people thinking it would provide the bulk of their retirement income?

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To charge or not to charge……That is the question. Whether tis nobler at the time to accept financial responsibility, or to aquire goods and support the economy. AHH to sleep , perchance to dream. To dream of iPhones and Lexuses ( Luxi? ) , or by avoiding them, to sleep the sleep of a person with no debt? There lies the rub !

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One of our most liberal, bleeding heart, caring, comforting, tolerant States is behaving in a SHAMEFUL manner.

Lawmakers Want State Money To Ship Out Homeless
Homeless Mainland Men Come To Hawaii For Benefits
http://www.kitv.com/news/24076002/detail.html

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jo nix – “I had a professor in college who used Boris and Natasha in his class on propaganda and the left’s circumvention of the McCarthy era…”

out of curiosity – did he ever talk about Horton Hears a Hoo?? I always thought that was a mighty subversive story …

me, I liked my macro econ professor who started every Friday class with a Yogi Berra quote. had nothing to do with the lesson, but it made discussions about the Laffer curve on Friday afternoons a lot easier to take …

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“That is not what I said, and I would hope you would realize that.”

Well, that was the summation of the point I was making. I noticed that you steered clear of the substantive part of the argument and moved on to the least relevant point. Yes, now that you have demonstrated that you are a serious chap, you can actually address the argument I was making about the relative merits of SS vs a Wall Street based plan.

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Jay,

If tax rates were cut in 2001, how do you explain revenue reaching the same levels in 2006 as they were that year? Is it a bad thing that the government had the same amount of income adjusted for inflation, and millions of people had more money than they otherwise would have? Aren’t you making the case that tax cuts over the long haul raised government revenue? Where does the money go that people keep with lower taxes?

Obviously there is a point of diminishing returns, but are you saying we haven’t reached that point?

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A financial question. If I were to spend money today like there was no tomorrow, and the World ended tonight, would I be a genius or what?

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JAy

Pat is asking you to take an intelligent look at RESULTS.

RESULTS. RESULTS.

Get it?

Not promises that the democrats were going to fix everything when they were elected in 2006. But THE RESULTS of what Republicans actually accomplished. Not promises. that’s what democrats live for: Promises.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS. See? If you start looking at the actual results of what politicians do, you might become smart enough to become a Republican, too.

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jc –

The productivity issue is a real one. At my company, I have implemented a strategy of hiring as few people as possible and preferring instead to spend the money upfront on infrastructure.

This is a trend that has been escalating for a long time. The recession only sped it up because layoffs and automation go hand in hand. Not to sound too partisan about it, but I have become even more convinced of the need to minimize headcount because I am concerned that the government will continue to make it more expensive to hire and retain employees.

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Polite golf clap for Jay’s 11:52 …

well played, sir …

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Amazing. Otherwise, supposedly educated Americans contending that the economy was good up until ____. (fill in the blank with your favorite cherry picked year.)

Nope, no War on the Working Class here in the perfect USA.

Too bad the factually averse can never quite bring their sorry selves to understand that the facts prove that for the vast majority of “middle class” Americans, their income, in adjusted inflation dollars, has DECREASED. And this has been the case for three decades now.

CEO pay went up by 250% in the 1990s. American workers? 4%

And the Reaganista idiots still contend they know what they are talking about…

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Good ol’ Mike…look out after himself instead of his fellow man…I do wonder what Jesus would say…

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Doggone,

Of course you don’t agree with them, because it will be someone else paying for it. The benefits are limited, so why shouldn’t the price each person pays be limited as well? What about the promises made? Is it okay that you promise take 6 or 7 percent of a person’s pay AFTER taxes for 30 years and then say to them: “You’ve done well on your own, so never mind.”?

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AmVet

Grab a clue. The middle class had a 4.7% unemployment rate under Republicans.

So who’s getting screwed now?

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From DGA’s link:

Inflation protection, if you can find it, is ultra-expensive. Vanguard, which offers a lifetime inflation-adjusted annuity in conjunction with — shudder! — an AIG insurance company called American General, quoted me a staggering price for an annuity mimicking my wife’s and my Social Security benefit. Would you believe … $774,895? Yes, that was the number.

in case you were wondering.

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Nothing is Free

June 29th, 2010
11:56 am
mike

**I am concerned that the government will continue to make it more expensive to hire and retain employees.**

Bingo!!! And that’s exactly what they are doing.

Well y’all, maybe we really should become a Socialistic Nation, just to make sure everybody gets their fair share…of food, healthcare, education…you know, all of that Communist stuff.

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Normal

What would Jesus say? See 11:52

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Jay

**The only way those two things were achieved were by adding $1.6 trillion to the national debt between 2002 and 2006.**

And this is how you justify Obama adding as much in a time of less than six months?

Is there a liberal anywhere that has the education required to perform basic math?

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Little Ozzy the octopus was concerned. All of his neighbors in the reef were being evicted. The homes in his little subdivision, Coral acres, were being taken over by the evil banks. In a panic, he swam over to talk to his little finny friend, Clara the Clownfish. Clara had an idea, “Let’s go ask Clampers, the wise old clam”. Clampers was surprised to see them when they arrived. Clampers listened to their concerns, and proceeded to tell them that he had been warning all the inhabitants of the reef that they were spending too much money, but nobody would listen. Little Ozzy was listening now.

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And watch Jay slink back off . Lame.

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“(M)illions of people had more money than they otherwise would have” because it was borrowed money.

but, but, Bush let me keep what I earned!

wahhh! also.

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Normal

Or we could just become wards of the state. The government has lots of money. let’s just stop working and use that money. Free food. free housing. free everything.

I’m all for it, except when the government buys it, it sucks. When I can choose what to buy myself, I live a much better life.

The government standards might be good enough for you. Castro has lots of beans all ready for you. he;;, he probably has transportation ready for you. How are you on a bicycle? I would rather pay my own way if that’s OK with you.

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mike and jewcowboy, anyone who works in IT knows this, and most of the rust belt residents as well. and therein lies the rub; markets don’t care about jobs, they care about profitablity. if eliminating a job helps feed the beast, it is eliminated. if a new technology or skill set helps feed the beast, it is created. the government isn’t part of the beast anymore than it is part of us. it is the conduit by which the We the People feed the beast.

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I told ya Sailors had class…

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/06/navy_cosby_award_062810w/

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Did I hear somebody say “uppity?” Yes, what can I do for you.

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“markets don’t care about jobs, they care about profitability”

Shoot, in bad times, markets are willing to care about basic viability. Some people don’t seem to get that.

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Normal:

Make that sometimes, like this:

By keeping people from dipping into the fund and using the money for purposes not associated with SS.

Not, this:

Good ol’ Mike…look out after himself instead of his fellow man…I do wonder what Jesus would say…

If that was intended for mike…if he’s not able to employ all of them, he can, at least, do what’s necessary to employ some of them. He’s indirectly employing those who produce the automation needed.

I’m outta here. Discussing this topic is like beating a dead horse.

Overkill!

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Say whatever you want about Obama. He ain’t full of B.S. He’s working Congress to get them to propose the comprehensive reforms he was elected to get done. I just wish it was faster and that he had tackled climate change/energy policy before taking a year on healthcare.

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Jay –

“Slam dunk”

Well if you are trying to demonstrate that you are incapable of processing basic logic, then yes.

As I pointed out in detail, and as you in your typical cowardly fashion selectively ignore, my comment was not a general comment and was instead about a specific argument. A specific argument which you choose to ignore in favor of this juvenille excercise;.

Please continue to keep the conversation at this level. It only demonstrates how pathetic your contribution to this paper and this community truly is. I am having an adult conversation about the economy with the other adults. You are on the AmVet/RW level of pettiness. Congrats.

BTW: Is this what you imagined you would be doing with your journalism careers? Aren’t you embarrassed? I mean I do what you do in my spare time while running a business. I even do it better.

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josef, what denominations do those trees come in?

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“Which means raising the top income tax levels up to a pre Reagan 70 percent”

This I don’t agree with. In “normal” times it should never be necessary to anyone to pay more to the government in taxes than they earn for themselves. I think the upper rate can be increased some, but not by this much.

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“Mike’s glib, meaningless, pontifications sometimes gets my goat, so I pull his chain…and he never fails to respond. It’s amusing to me.”

Yes, as opposed to your meaningful posts like all of the ones on this page. LOL

Yammer what you want. You give the lame retorts that you do because you are incapable of nothing more.

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headed out…THE VAMPIRE NURSE AWAITS…

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josef, should I plant a few $100 trees, or should I plant a lot of $20 trees and make it up in volume?

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“You have chosen instead to use 2003 as your base year, which is well after the tax cuts had taken effect. You are comparing revenue AFTER tax cuts to revenue in another year AFTER tax cuts, which tells us nothing about your original claim.”

It tells me that the governmnet still got a boat load of money and has no idea how to manage it.

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Got a plane to catch. It was nice to reduce Jay to sputtering, incoherent and illogical rage. Just took a few minutes too. LOL

Cheers all and thanks for the laughs.

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Again Jay:
Tax reciepts between 2000 and 2008:
2000 2,025.2
2001 1,991.1
2002 1,853.1
2003 1,782.3
2004 1,880.1

2005 2,153.6
2006 2,406.9
2007 2,568.0
2008 2,524.0

The intake in 2008 was 25% higher than 2000.
The avaerage annual intake during Clinton was $1682.83 B. The average anual intake during Bush was $2144.89 B. This is an average of 21.5% more tax revenue intake than during the same time frame of Clinton. All numbers are adjusted for today’s dollars. I am correct. Here is the proof AGAIN:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/Content/Excel/fed_receipt_sum_historical.xls

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Republicians (sic) were in control, NOT conservatives.Big differance (sic).

I am 124.63% in agreement.

The outcome of not having any conservatives in the GOP for nearly 40 years…

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BADA BING

That depends…are you looking for a quick return or are you in it for the long haul…I think I’d go for the $20 ones and reinvest…and if the blight hits a few, those that survive are more resistant…

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DO you know what happened 159 years ago this fall… back in 1850?

California became a state
The people had no electricity.
The state had no money.
Almost everyone spoke Spanish.
There were gunfights in the streets.

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Intown

June 29th, 2010
12:12 pm

LOL…at best, Obama is a bad joke played upon the US citizenry. And he will be a one-term loser!!

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Raising the TOP MARGINAL rates does not mean raising the taxes on the middle classes much or at all. It means that the richest either keep their money inside of a business creating jobs and new products, or they lose a ton of it if they decide to take a million dollar bonus this year.

Businesses benefit massively from the government and services created by government and the infrastructure created by government. Therefore there is a price to pay for those services.

No one should pay the government more money than they earn from their OWN labor. When you are making millions off of the labor of others, this is another question. The government allows businessmen to basically take a portion of the “fruits of the labor of others” when they create businesses. The price for this is to pay for those privileged. And starting a business is not a constitutional RIGHT, It is a privilege granted to a person or group, not just by the government, but by the society the government represents. When what the business owners earn massively exceeds that earned by those whose labor he uses is, then it is appropriate for government to “rebalance” the equation.

Indeed that is what government exists for in a representative Republic. To repair the problems created by past decisions it has made. And lowering the top tax rate is one of those errors.

It is responsible for every speculative market bubble that has happened. The excess capital allowed by those tax cuts is always used speculatively and the result is huge harm to millions who do not have the resources to do this.

Basically lowering the tax rate is a Ponzi scheme that allows the rich to get rich while screwing everyone else.

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A good example is that the tax code is so written that two out of three American corporations pay NO TAXES AT ALL.

Yet they use government resources at a huge rate.

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It’s time for this mindless partisan to go get domestic. Uniforms don’t press themselves.

Later y’all…

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Here’s your truth:

a government proposal to upgrade immigration detention centers to include unmonitored phone lines, dance and cooking lessons, continental breakfasts, freedom from lockdown and other amenities.

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Maybe next time we hire a leader we will at least have one with the experience of running a fruit stand.

Did I mention, JOBS!

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Love the liberal argument- the real issue is that over 40% of folks don’t pay any tax and this % keeps growing. I will save the liberals from responding. First they will yell “but they pay payroll tax”- yes, but they then get that back and them some through refundable credits. Second they will say the rich can afford it- easy response, everyone but a % that is less than 5% should pay tax because a) they want to be productive citizens and b) everyone, including the rich, should PAY their fair share. Lastly, the libs like to pick and chose when a company/institution or not. When it comes to taxes- by gosh they are living things, when it comes to campaign finance, they are not.

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There aren’t many (logical) people who would defend everything Bush did. Yes, his wars were/are expensive. However, you cannot deny that Obama is adding to the deficit problem, rather than trying to fix it. I believe he shattered all records for first year spending by a president. So rather than point fingers and have another 4-8 years of fiscal irresponsibility why don’t he and the dems figure out a way to cut spending across the board? One suggestion would be to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan completely and stop wasting money on ridiculous wars that can’t be won against an enemy that can’t be quantified because they are breeding new members of their army on a daily basis. Bring home the troops, secure the boarders, cut spending across the board.

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“the real issue is that over 40% of folks don’t pay any tax and this % keeps growing”

I’d like to see your proof of this. No one else who has made this claim can prove, see if you can do better.

And here’s a clue for you: they pay more than payroll taxes, they also pay sales taxes and fees for government services.

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This goes way back before Bush 43.

In 1961 when Kennedy was sworn in the national debt was $650 billion.
20 years when Reagan was sworn in the national debt was $957 billion.
That is an increase of $307 billion over 20 years, roughly $15 billion a year. Wouldn’t you all love an annual deficit of just $15 billion today?

Then in 1981 Reagan decided that we could decrease taxes and did so. But he forgot to decrease spending. As a result of that policy, which we have continued to FY 2011, is a national debt of over $12 trillion.

Yeah I know the tax cuts were to spur business activity and increase tax revenues. And they did, but way below the expected rate. What business did was not invest in US domesticate business but to start sending businesses overseas. And it was financed with the Reagan tax cuts.

Top tax rate in 1981 was 70%. By 1987 the top tax rate was down to 38.5%. But spending kept going up. And deficits kept going up. Funny how that works; tax rates go down, spending goes up, all of which equals deficits going up.

And don’t tell me the increase spending was for defense to defeat the Commies. Reagan only increased defense spending $750 billion over his 8 years. There is $1.9 trillion in deficit not accounted for by defense spending.

And except for a brief tax increase under Bush 41 & Clinton, we have continued the Reagan policy of tax cuts/increased spending.

Solution? Two simple solutions. 1) Reduced spending and increased taxes. Or; 2) Become Greece and just declare we are broke.

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“It takes time for bad economic planning to have an effect.”

This is most prescient statement on this subject. Conversely, it takes time for good economic planning to have an effect.

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williebkind, why do I keep asking myself; “willie ever be smart”? you really have to let go of the “Obama is a socialist”. what you must learn to say is; Obama (and Bush, and Clinton, and the other Bush, and Reagan, and Carter, and Ford, and Nixon…) is a plutocrat; or at the very least, a shameless servant of the plutocracy. for the last time (everyone); to paraphrase George Bailey; “you’re looking at this all wrong”. what is the national debt? $5 trillion? $11 trillion? where did it go? it went somewhere because we sure as sh*t are holding the tab. I’ll tell you where it went; it went to Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, CSC and IBM; who have IT outsourcing contracts with just about every government agencie from the DoD to the CCD, to the SSA, to NASA. Some of this then flowed through to shareholders, but the visit was temporary, as those shareholders then bought cars, furniture, vacations, and flat screen TVs, or paid for healthcare and education.

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Has anyone on here ever played SimCity? If so, try maintaining a city you’ve built on continual tax cuts or continued deficit spending and see how long the game lasts. There are a time for each, and neither is a long term solution.

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Can we discuss significant tax increases matched by significant cuts in government personnel, cuts in waste/theft within existing government programs, reduction of government pension benefits, require ALL government employees to use Obamacare, and stop providing government funded benefits to illegal immigrants as a way to correct our longterm fiscal problems?

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I wasn’t finished. Most of the funds end up with the exuctives or majority shareholders (and in the revenue streams of the hedge-dund owners and managers who buy/sell/short the stocks). The same is true for much maligned “food stamps”. This money doesn’t stay in SW Atlanta or the South Side of Chicago, in a coffee can buried in a backyard. It ends up in the coffers of Archer Daniel Midland, General Foods, Coca-Cola, and Hormel. When Blackwater or some other outfit gets a $2 or $10 billion contract to protect VIPs in Iraq, or secure transportation routes, or train police officers in Kabul, do you think ALL the money goes to the $250,000/year contractors? No, it goes to the executives at Blackwater. Anyone whose ever tried to manage or reconcile a checking account when you’re spending more than you’re taking in, knows this. Just add about 11 zeroes to you checkbook and you get the picture. This nothing to do with ideology, unless greed is an ideology. the very essence of ALL governments is socialism (the herd is more important than the individual)

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“And he better not raise taxes, “not one dime”.”

“better not”? What happens if he does? (and you DO realize, don’t you, that he CAN’T raise taxes? Or did that little aspect of our governmental system escape your notice?)

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**Jay, the reason that Mike frequents your place of business is because he wants to educate your few liberal followers.**

The dreaded liberal label, cause thats all it is – a label that for conservatives conjures up the image of some type of superiority. As soon as the “label” appears the debate becomes almost pointless because of a prejudged stereotype. The damned truth is that just about every conservative “principle” was enacted during bush – all were failures and left us where we were in 2008.

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NIF,

There is nothing to argue. Jay presented you with facts, and your argument (along with the other wingnuts) is BS.

I’m not going to waste my time restating the facts to a brainwashed wingnut. Now go listen to Rush and get your talking points (lies) for the next article.

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Question:

Does Supreme Court nominee “Lady Kaga” have a tattoo ?

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Actually Dan you are only PARTIALLY correct. The original surge from the Bush tax cuts came from the 56 percent that went to the bottom 98 percent of wage earners. The other 44 percent which went to the wealthy is responsible for kicking off the wave of speculative investment in real estate based derivatives which caused the market bubble and then collapse of the economy.

So if the net effect is a short term increase in government revenues, caused by the fact that those who got a few hundred dollars to a few thousand went out and IMMEDIATELY spent it does not divert from the long term damage of the tax cuts caused by the rich who did NOT go out and immediately spend it in the consumer market, but went looking for some hot investment to put it into, so as to see 20 percent returns on that money. This overheated that sector, the largest sector in the American economy, and cause a massive crash.

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Can we discuss significant tax increases matched by significant cuts in government personnel, cuts in waste/theft within existing government programs, reduction of government pension benefits, require ALL government employees to use Obamacare, and stop providing government funded benefits to illegal immigrants as a way to correct our longterm fiscal problems?

Uh, could we hold off on all this stuff for another 18 months till I can retire?

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Keep on with the talking points, Republicans.

Obviously none of you have the first clue what conservatism even is…

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Granny:

Never you !!

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Jay I provided the raw proof to you. It is anything but twisted…On the contrary it could not be straiter…It is you who is being dishonest now.

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“Jay and his lib buddies are trying to spin their way out of the thrashing they have coming in November.”

But will it begin to compare to those back to back annihilations of 2006 – going an unimaginable ZERO WINS and 36 LOSSES – and 2008? For a combined LOSING RATIO of 93%?

Ninety three percent???

And that reverse Joe Dimaggio-like record of 2006 will likely never, ever, ever be touched.

So you fake conservatives got that going for you!

You gotta admit, those results still make the average American laugh long and hard at you silly neo-cons…

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And even more simply, everyone knows the figure conservatives often tout that 70 percent of all American jobs are created by “small businesses” No one ever bothers to ask what percentage of ALL businesses in the US makes up those small businesses that create 70 percent of the jobs. It is 7.9 percent

The other 92.1 percent of all businesses create the other 30 percent of jobs.

But the small businesses barely if ever benefit from Republican tax cuts.

It is the Democrats who have offered the most initiatives ( as well as two old style Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) that benefit the 7.9 percent of small businesses in the U.S. It has been Republicans who have filibustered every bill that would do something to give tax relief to small businesses.

I love hearing the old argument that “X” proved he was not a “fiscal conservative”

Fact is no one who runs as a fiscal conservative ever ends up acting as one when they get into office. The simplest reason for this is that what sounds good on paper or when spoken, does not work in reality.

This has been the case ever since 1913. No Republican has ever managed to balance a budget and always ends up spending more. On the other hand during the same period, Democrats have managed to balance budgets and lower the deficit in every presidency.

And it gets better. They do a better job of reducing deficit spending and debt when a Democratic President is working with a Democratic Congress.

Every Democrat since the end of WWII has LOWERED the national debt relative to GDP. The old style Republicans, Eisenhower, and Nixon also managed to do this as well. But the key thing to note about these guys is that they NEVER lowered the top marginal tax rate. Never,

The record on this is clear. No matter how much Republicans try to dance around this, when there is a Republican President with a Republican Congress, spending goes through the roof and government revenues do not keep up.

Everyone forgets that Reagan ran on this. He asserted that America could lower taxes and simply BORROW its way to prosperity, because as the police force of the free world, no one would ever call in the debt. This is not just an analysis, This is directly from Reagan speeches.

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Here’s the complicated math I laid out for you Jay…I took the tax revenue from the 8 years Clinton was in office, added them together and came up with an average. Same thing with Bush, the numbers added up to the Bush years AVERAGING 21.5% higher tax revenue, period..
By all means, don’t take my word for it, see for yourself…:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/Content/Excel/fed_receipt_sum_historical.xls
Note that the numbers on this chart are adjusted for inflation….
If I am a liar, then it’s my source “Source: Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the US Government” that is providing me false information.
Rate of inflation hovered between 2.8% and 3.8%….21.5% is higher than this number….

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And the easiest way to determine HOW the Bush tax cuts “increased revenues” is easy to see when one looks at when parts of his tax cut bill expired. The general tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent expired in 2005. Every year taxes on the working middle class creeped up because of bracket creep Republicans inserted into the bill. Next, the special tax credit for small businesses expired in 2006. They went up to paying pre Bush tax cut tax rates after this year.

So the assertions that the Bush tax cuts increased tax revenues must be looked at by looking at WHERE the additional revenues came from. They came from parts of the Bush tax cuts expiring long before those on the wealthiest did.

Another was the expiration of the “child tax credit” in 2005. It went from 1000 dollar to 700 dollars

This is the schedule for sunset dates of ALL parts of the Bush tax cuts:

Child Credit: This credit will shrink from $1,000 to $700 per child on January 1, 2005.

The 10 Percent Bracket: The upper income level for this bracket will decrease by $1,000 per filer on January 1, 2005.

The 15 Percent Bracket for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2005, the upper limit of this bracket will shrink from 200 to 180 percent of the upper limit of the 15 percent bracket for single filers, creating a marriage penalty.

Standard Deduction for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2005, this will shrink from 200 to 174 percent of the standard deduction for single filers, creating a marriage penalty.

Alternative Minimum Tax: Exemptions will decrease by $6,500 per filer on January 1, 2005.
Bonus Depreciation: This provision, which changes depreciation schedules for businesses in a way that encourages investment, will expire on January 1, 2005.

Small Business Expensing: On January 1, 2006, the maximum amount that a business may deduct will fall from $100,000 to $25,000, which will not be indexed to inflation.

Capital Gains: Rates will rise to 10 or 20 percent, depending upon income, on January 1, 2009.

Dividends: Rates will rise to match standard income tax rates on January 1, 2009.

Child Credit: This credit will shrink from $700 to $500 per child on January 1, 2011.

The Income Tax: Rates will increase between 3 and 4.5 percentage points in each bracket on January 1, 2011.

The 10 Percent Bracket: The bracket will be eliminated on January 1, 2011, raising the income tax burden of many workers by 5 percentage points.

The 15 Percent Bracket for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2011, the upper limit of this bracket will shrink from 200 to 167 percent of the upper limit of the 15 percent bracket for single filers, creating a marriage penalty.

Standard Deduction for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2011, this will shrink from 200 to 167 percent of the standard deduction for single filers, creating a marriage penalty.

The Estate Tax: The top rate for this tax will increase to 60 percent on January 1, 2011, and the value of an estate exempt from taxation will shrink to $1 million, which is less than it is today.

So kids how did Bush increase those federal revenues. By RAISING the taxes on MILLIONS of Americans a little bit, while keeping the tax cuts for the wealthiest in place for his entire presidency.

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Or to put it even more simply. The devil is in the details.

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What are we going to spend more stimulus on? Traditionally, stimulus spending has brought recovery by focusing on manufacturing and related services. Now we have very little manufacturing. Most has been exported. No long-lasting jobs are going to be created by funding infrastructure projects. At the end of such projects, people are still thrown out of work. And certainly providing stimulus funding for states to keep existing workers on the job will not create any new jobs. And unemployed people don’t pay the taxes necessary to fund the services we desire.

There is only one way to go: down. Until our standard of living reaches the level of countries where we have shipped our jobs, we can’t be competitive and manufacturers will continue to ship jobs overseas and import their wares. NAFTA and other “free trade” legislation has shafted us, and we are unable or unwilling to adapt. Where are the jobs now? They’re at fast food joints and other low-wage employers. People working at such jobs are unable to afford the goods that will bring the economy back. We’re now looking at an underclass consisting of the permanently unemployed, and those permanently unemployed aren’t the traditional kind. They’re former middle class and upper class workers who will never return to their prosperity.

I simply don’t see an exit from this fiscal problem. Extending unemployment benefits is a compassionate thing to do, but it won’t bring a dying economy back. The unemployed can’t buy the housing, the cars, the refrigerators, and other goods that result in increased employment. Buckle up, America. This roller coaster is going down.

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FOLKs…..JAY is paid by the Socialist owners of the Obama-Atlanta-Urnal to SPIN…SPIN….SPIN….LIE..LIE..LIE about the news..JAY IS A LIAR AN UTTER LIAR

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Bush tax cuts DO NOT “explain” the deficit in the manner depicted. Fact is, without the Bush tax cuts and resulting multiplied tax revenue collected the deficit would probably be far worse. Go back to school; you got cheated in your economics class. Another point: Government doesn’t “own” the money supply, the people own it and governemnt confiscates it. I don’t want any part of political leadership that thinks we exist for the benefit of government.

Start cutting spending. Reverse health care deform, stop bailing out Wall Street and the big international corporations, and work diligently to get us out of the military entanglements in the Middle East. Incentivize investment in American business employing US citizens with investment tax credits. Cut corporate income taxes to attract investment in America.

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Jay,

This is simple…just wait six more years and see if Pat applies the SAME ‘logic’ to these SAME numbers for Obama to Bush.

Simple, huh?

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Dollars Jay. Give us a number. $3,500? $1,000? What? Don’t give me the libleral line of “my share” cause to a liberal that usually means I’ll give my $2 and everybody else can pay $5,000.

What do you think is your “fair share”?

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NJ has some valid points.

But the Bush tax cuts also exempted more people than ever before from having to pay any taxes at all, while growing the number of people who pay negative federal income taxes (and also those you pay negative combined federal income taxes and payroll taxes). And both the absolute dollars and the %share of taxes paid by the high-income earners rose quite a bit, while the share paid by the lower-income household fell.

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“I simply don’t see an exit from this fiscal problem.”

Math and science education…when the Latvia has higher math literacy scores than the U.S, perhaps it’s time for a little less Intelligent Design and little more Pythagorean theorem…

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Another false Republican claim. The Republican congress had no part in the Clinton economic miracle. They attempted to block, filibuster and prevent every budget he submitted from going through. Remember when they tried to shut down Congress over the budget? No.

Typical short Republican memory and rewrite of history. In the end, public opinion nailed the Republicans for shutting down 14 critical government departments and in the end, the Republicans had to cave to Clinton. Back in 1995.

What the shutdown indisputably did do was sour Republican approval ratings. Gingrich’s personal approval rating was at 27% during the shutdown, and Congress as a whole had a 24% approval rating–one of its lowest points historically.

And this sour turn may have had some unforeseen consequences: Eager to repair his standing post-shutdown, Gingrich suddenly turned cooperative, striking deals with President Clinton on welfare reform and other measures. Those deals in turn undermined the Republican case against the Clinton presidency, sacrificing the presidential campaign of Robert Dole.

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I see a whole bunch of whining from the GOPers but I don’t see much from them regarding the fiscal problems. Bush and the Republicans gave us the illusion of prosperity by borrowing from our future in order to give us tax cuts, more benefits and wars in the present. All that has to be paid back with interest and we are still stuck in a major economic downturn with high unemployment and no rosy short-term prospects. So, how do we cut our deficit spending while stimulating economic activity. Come on, Republicans. Give us your ideas.

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NJ said, I love hearing the old argument that “X” proved he was not a “fiscal conservative”

Actually, truth be told, Jerry Brown, in his first term as governor of California proved himself a fiscal conservative that one cannot imagine many republicans aspire to. This Democrat did not care to live in the expensive governor’s mansion. Instead he rented a $275 apartment. Governor “Moonbeam” also drove a Plymouth rather than being chauffeured in a limo. He took a salary cut and he slept on a futon. When is the last time we heard of a republican going that frugal?

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the level of revenue garnered at the state level as a result of UE spending is still lower than it was formerly.

well sure–it’d be better if these folks were working. No argument there.

do it on compassionate grounds, not with the expectation that it’s going to solve the fiscal crisis.

You and I aren’t that far apart on this; I’m not arguing that it’s going to solve the fiscal crisis, just that it can be pretty easily economically justified.

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How’s about fast fowarding that graph and project the deficit as Obamacare kicks in. You’re gonna need a bigger box.

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Jay:

I am not a chemist but I believe there is a point in a chemical reaction where “nothing” can be done to stop the reaction in progress.

I am also not an economist but my common sense tells me we have also reached that point in our economy.

As Julius Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon, “Alea iacta est” (the die is cast).

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Yes Jay, I do dissmiss these ridiculous findings becuase it comes from libturds. I do agree that numbers don’t lie but unfortunatly when they are made up to suit your ideology they can’t possibly be taken seriously….. A good example is the so called scientists who skewed the numbers to promote their global alarmist agenda….

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Scout @ 2.15,

You mean the “tipping point”? I wonder where else that might apply…

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jewcowboy:

Same concept ……… also known as “deep doo doo” and “up to your neck in alligators”.

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Joe,

Still clinging to your failed ideology of tax cuts and no regulations for the 1%?

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We got our huge tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. About ninety-five percent of us are paying out a lower tax rate than ever before yet here we are neck deep in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. So, what now folks. You can only cut taxes so much. Last time I checked, zero percent is as low as it goes. After that, you gotta borrow it in order to give it and folks are not too keen on loaning us bunches of money right now. So, we can chop out social security and Medicare and get rid of those payroll taxes and what will that amount to for the average person. Not much. It will put a more substantial sum of money in the pockets of some of the major corporations but not small businesses. Then, there is the DoD. There are hundreds of billions that could be cut there. Of course, that prescription drug company program needs to go, along with the farm subsidies and oil company kickbacks. What are we waiting for. Let’s do it.

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benefit all with FAIR TAX
Get with it ladies….
pimps,hookers, welfare scammers, illegal aliens, etc all pay their share.
Or would you prefer we foot that bill too?

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USinUK
June 29th, 2010
9:56 am

Thank you. Brilliant. Truer words never written/spoken/uttered.

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Thanks, Jay, for this. Oh, how the rightists squirm when confronted with uncomfortable, inconvenient facts that shatter their fantasy-world view about our nation’s fiscal reality.

Unfortunately, when the numbers don’t stack up the way they prefer, it all gets dismissed as “fuzzy math.”

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water-crisis sheets, bitches.

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The deficit is symptomatic of a serious negative change in American attitudes relative to money and consumption.

There was a time when Americans were net savers. People saved until they had a 20% downpayment for a car or a house.

But somewhere along the line we lost that. We have become an “instant gratification” society driven by gross commercialism. People don’t want to save and for a long time the banks continued to bankroll the consumerism with relatively cheap and abundant credit.

At the same time we were buying McMansions, SUVs, HD TVs, taking expensive vacations, saving nothing and running up the charge card, our elected representatives were also infected.

There was no need for public services to be paid for. We would just print more money and issue more debt. We could be the policeman of the world with overpriced, unnecesssary weapons systems, spend on discretionary programs and support entitlement programs at the same time taxes were kept extraordinarily low.

I hope the tide is turning on individual consumerism. Gone are the days of cheap and loose credit. I hope it stays that way. Now we need to take hard decisions on public consumerism.

What are our values? Do we want to try to police the world or use our tax dollars here at home on fixing our crumgling infrastructure and caring for our own? The rest of the world laughs at the U.S. as they enjoy 5 or 6 weeks of mandatory vacation, substantial public pensions, free healthcare, etc. As long as the U.S. continues to play world policeman we will never have the resources to care for our own.

And we have to decide among those programs at home which ones are meaningful and which ones need to do? Once we can agree on what we want then we have to accept the need to pay for it on a “pay as you go” basis.

Until there is a change in mindset we are doomed to failure.

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Bada Bing, a billion dollars still is a lot of money in my wallet. I remember when I could buy a popsicle for 3 cents.

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scared to watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

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Jimbo, give it up. You can’t explain the Fair Tax to a bunch of dimocraps. Unless the evil rich aka: Hard Working Americans are paying 90% of the taxes in this country, then it’s not FAIR, somebody has to support the useless, lazy and illegal people. Remember to the bedwetters, if you work hard, do the right things, invest wisely and aquire wealth, then you were just LUCKY!!!!

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This continuing lemming chorus that it’s all Bush’s fault and Obama inherited this mess so he should be absolved of all blame just doesn’t resonate with the majority of Americans. Obama looked like the fool he really is at the G-20. He kept pushing for more stimulus spending, which hasn’t worked, while the European leaders ignored him and spoke about spending cuts and budget reductions. The only ones who were on board with Obama were the third world countries, so evidently he wants to take us to that level. Once again we have the neo-comms attempting to defend the indefensible.

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“The rest of the world laughs at the U.S. as they enjoy 5 or 6 weeks of mandatory vacation, substantial public pensions, free healthcare, etc. As long as the U.S. continues to play world policeman we will never have the resources to care for our own.”

Yes, American blood and dollars have enabled the socialist gluttonny in Europe. Their day of reckoning is fast upon them. I do not call 5-6 weeks of vacation, substantial public pensions, and “free” healthcare “care” or “caring”, I call it socialist indulgence and it’s selfish because SOMEONE ELSE ULTIMATELY PAYS THE BILL (America for defense, future generations for the burgeoning debt).

RF: Jobs can be created by investing in the creation of wealth. You transform resources into something someone else is willing to pay a premium for (i.e., manufacturing, art/entertainment, technology, etc.). This is what causes tax revenues to GO UP when tax rates are cut. Government handouts are merely transfers of wealth and the multiplier effect in the economy is far, far lower.

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DawgDad

I want some of that socialist indulgence. As long as America is stupid enough to carry the security freight for the rest of the world I wish the Europeans long and enjoyable vacations, pensions, etc.

Yes some of the Eurozone countries have gotten caught by their deficits but not all of them. Europeans, especially the Germans, were foolish to give up the Mark in favor of the Euro. They now have to deal with the consequences of the lack of political cohesion among the Eurozone countries.

But give me some of that long vacation time, early pensions, etc. I wouldn’t mind trying it out for a while.

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Nothing is stopping you from writing a check this very moment for any additional amount you’d like to pay. Heck, you can even add up the amount you got from the Bush tax cuts since 2001 and send the treasury a check for that amount today. As they say, “money talks, BS walks”.
Jay wrote:

June 29th, 2010
1:28 pm
RB, I’ll gladly pay my fair share in additional taxes, because I recognize that this is one of those situations in which we’re going to pay one way or the other. I prefer to do it through taxes than through financial collapse or insolvency.

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I’m an independent who tried the Republican party and learned what a fraud it is. They always promise tax cuts and spending cuts to give the appearance of fiscal responsibliity. And they always do the tax cuts because it’s politically easy to dispense money. But they never do the spending cuts because that takes political courage and they are political cowards. My response to the Republicans is spare me all the PowerPoint numbers, charts and ideological crap, just stop handing out tax cuts and starting wars until you grow a political backbone and become responsible enough to pay for them. Their supporters on this blog come across as silly bozos when they defend Bush. After all, Obama would not be in power had the Repubs not been an unprecedented fiscal disaster.

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Fascinating to read the continual liberal-conservative blame game. Both parties are at fault. The issue is spending more than you receive in taxes. All talk and no fiscal restraint.

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“Sorry Dawgdad. Year after year, the final amount appropriated by Congress year after year was almost exactly the amount that Reagan had requested. A fact of history.”

I recalled seeing some useful numbers on Reagan’s budgets vs Congress’s budget, but right now all I can find are Reagan’s proposals compared to actual expenditures (which might not reflect what Congress approved in their budget). Jay’s right, for certain values of “almost exactly”.

Outlays
Fiscal Year Proposed Actual % Difference (Cumulative)
1982 695.3 745.8 7.3
1983 773.3 808.4 4.5 (12.1)
1984 862.5 851.8 -1.2 (10.8)
1985 940.3 946.4 0.7 (11.6)
1986 973.7 990.3 1.7 (13.5)
1987 994.0 1003.9 1.0 (14.6)
1988 1024.3 1064.1 3.9 (19.1)
1989 1094.2 1144.2 4.6 (24.5)
______________________________________
Totals $7,357.6 $7,554.9 Avg 2.8 (3.1) (averages for 82-9)

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Thomas, technically tax cuts are not “dispensing money”. It’s allowing people to retain money that’s already theirs (barring “refundable tax credits”). The problem is not one of revenue, but spending. If you don’t have $2.5T in revenue, then by god, don’t spend $2.5T!

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theeyeshavit:

3 Krystals, fries and a coke for 26 cents.

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Hey ReyJay,

Use your bat phone to call Obama to stop this market sell off.

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There are ALWAY surpluses available because to date, Social Security takes in three dollars for every one dollar it pays out in Social Security Checks.

Republicans love to deny that these surpluses exist, but in fact they do and they always do.

The problem is that the reason that we are in a recession is because the so called “stimulative effects” of the Bush tax cuts vanished in 2006. The vast majority of the tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses ended that year.

All that is left is the income tax cut to the richest 2 percent and the capital gains windfall given to the rich.

But if these actually WORK. If giving investors a bigger chunk of their profits after taxes actually created JOBS, we would see the private sector creating jobs, because they are getting a much larger amount of their investment dollars given back to them.

The fact is that the best thing that can happen for the economy is when the Bush Tax cuts for the rich expire.

Then they will have to leave their money inside of investments and businesses, rather than do profit taking. And they will have to SPEND those dollars in ways that a business can spend them and avoid corporate taxes.

And the ONLY way to do that is to open more businesses, hire more people, provide more benefits, any “business expense” which will offset being taxed at the higher rates…

This is why a mere TEN PERCENT increase in taxes created the economy of the 1990’s The ONLY way to avoid paying taxes on their wealth was to create a business, rather than to take a million dollar bonus.

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Are you dumb or just stupid? Th government doesn’t have a revenue problem it has a spending problem. I’m sure if the government could give us a date certain where these mythical problems will be solved we would all be in total support. But the programs are more about sustainability of the government employees and grant recipients than about the outcome.

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Stands for decibels,

Not all of the unemployment benefits goes 100% back into the local economy, you forgot Uncle Sams cut.

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Of course the primary assertions made by conservatives that money gained when the top tax rate is lowered will be used to create jobs or start businesses is the largest pile of buffalo bagels imaginable.

No amount of giving tax cuts to the wealthy will ever create a single job or result in a new business being created. This has been a fact since 1919 when our economy became a totally mature industrial economy.

Tax cuts have never, I repeat, have never caused increased investment—not in the 1920s, not in the 1960s, not in the 1980s, and not in our own time. The empirical record is uniform: net investment keeps falling no matter what. Don’t take my word for it. Consult Peter G. Peterson, a co-founder of Blackstone (a private equity group just gone public), and a former cabinet member under Nixon and Ford.

There is no cause-effect correlation between lower taxes and greater investment because, again, economic growth no longer requires, or even allows, increasing net investment. At the macro level, we can improve productivity and output just by replacing and maintaining our existing capital stock—we certainly don’t have to make any additions to it.

So to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals is to invite them to place their augmented incomes in the hands of people who have no choice except to bet this new money on the available speculative site, in this instance on the housing/mortgage market. There’s no place else to put it if they want to get a return better than a savings account or a stodgy mutual fund.

If you look at the stock market closely, what you find is that none of the money invested there is ever used to create new jobs, or to purchase new business equipment, etc. It never stays in one place long enough for that to happen. The stock market is basically a casino where money changes hands too fast to be used for anything even remotely related to business purposes. It is where the excess wealth of the rich is used to gamble on what is actually happening in the Main Street economy.

Basically ALL of the money that is used to create new jobs and to open new stores or factories or offices comes from the productivity gains of the existing work force.

Since 1979, the worker productivity of the American worker has increased by 80 percent. But their wages have not even come close to seeing a similar increase. If wages kept pace with productivity the average income for an American worker would be close to 80,000 dollars a year. Rather than the current 38,000 a year.

The Reagan revolution ENDED the period in which the worker shared in his own productivity gains.
This would NOT have done anything to prevent the business owner from getting a decent share of profit for his “risk taking” as conservatives love to call it. (but when corporations and businesses are protected from much risk by bankruptcy laws, while workers can no longer avail themselves of the same laws, it is hard to accept this “risk based” assertion for the goodness of the corporation for the American people)

Before Reagan, each sector of the population saw gains in their personal income. If the economy saw a ten percent growth in any year, every quintile, from the poorest 20 percent to the top 20 percent saw their REAL income grow. Everyone got a little something for their efforts.

After Reagan changed the tax codes, this vanished. Every single deduction which could be taken by both a real flesh and blood person, and a fictional one called a corporation was taken away from the real person. Before Reagan’s tax changes, anyone could deduct the interest on any sort of loan. Car loan, credit card interest, etc. After Reagan these deductions were only the privilege of the rich. And Reagan made sure he got those changes in while he had a Republican majority Congress between 1980 and 1986. After that he had a “split” Congress which meant the Democrats who had a majority in one house could be blocked by the Republicans in the other.

Republicans love to repeat this old BS line about tax cuts stimulating the economy, but there is no evidence that tax cuts, except those given to the lower income brackets, ever have any stimulative effect at all.

Which is why Republicans LOVE these “Flat across the board, ten percent tax cuts”

The mathematical results of this, given the current ranges in the tax percentile brackets will ALWAYS result in about 55 percent of any total dollar sum going to the bottom 98 percent, and the other 45 percent going to the top two percent.

And the money given to that top two percent almost never used to create new jobs or businesses.

Even after years of analysis David Stockman finally found that only 4 percent of the Reagan tax cuts were used to create jobs or improve businesses. The rest was simply play money for the wealthy.

It kicked off both the junk bond phenomenon, as well as the REIT real estate investment collapse late in Reagan’s presidency

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NJ – Please keep your stupid opinions and poor research to yourself. You do know almost all of that tax data you were listing earlier today was wrong don’t you? You quoted expiration dates from the original bill but almost all of those were extended through this year. For example, the child tax credit did not revert to $700 in 2005, it is still $1000 for 2010. Moron!

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Oh, and please try to limit yourself to 100 stupid words or less. Long, wrong, and stupid is really bad. BTW, there is still a 10% bracket, it didn’t expire yet either.

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Alex – The dividend and capital gains cuts were the worst. The richest woman in the world, Jay’s de facto boss Ms Cox, makes about $1B a year, almost all of it in dividends and capital gains. Her marginal rate is 15%. A working stiff like me has a marginal rate of 28% (or 31% if you use NJ’s bad numbeers). That is a regressive tax and is an outrage.

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Still waiting for Jay to answer…if the answer is so obvious, and Bush’s tax cuts are to blame, why aren’t the Dems SHOUTING FOR THEIR ENTIRE REPEAL AT THE TOP OF THEIR COLLECTIVE LUNGS?!?!

After all, if simply repealing ALL THE CUTS will close the budget gap, seems like a no-brainer. So quit crying about Bush and FIX THIS OBVIOUS MISTAKE!

(not holding my breath)

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Simple poll. Family of four. Children are ages 7 and 9. Both parents work and have a combined income of $200,000 after social security and medicare are deducted from their paychecks. How much Federal Income tax do you think it would be fair for this family pay??

$25,000
$50,000
$75,000
$100,000
$_______

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“As I understand it, Grumpy, some of those tax cuts will be allowed to sunset as the Republicans intended, but many will be extended at least for a while” Can we then rename those that are extended Obama’s tax cuts?????

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“My response to the Republicans is spare me all the PowerPoint numbers, charts and ideological crap, just stop handing out tax cuts and starting wars until you grow a political backbone and become responsible enough to pay for them. Their supporters on this blog come across as silly bozos when they defend Bush.”

The government does not “pay” for tax cuts. Properly structured tax cuts would generate MORE tax revenue for the government, as recent history suggests, unless the outright objective of the cuts is to shrink government in absolute terms (which it hasn’t been; cuts may hold back the rate of growth of government but in recent history they have shrunk it not one bit). I agree they should stop starting wars until they can “fund” them (to use the proper term here), except in times of dire national self-defense where borrowing may be necessary.

Bush is indefensible, and most true conservatives would agree with me on this point. He did nothing to hold spending in check for eight years, he was evidently powerless to stop the bad mortgage underwriting fraud and derivative trade problems (or maybe he was culpable), and in the end he publicly disavoved the very economic and moral principles that he should have been doing everything in his power to uphold. Like Obama, also being a puppet, he proved too weak to keep his party leaders from raiding the hen house. Has there ever been a Bush that hasn’t stabbed his core constituency in the back (”read my lips . . .”)? I wonder.

That does NOT mean the prescription for our economic woes is tax and spending increases. We’re slitting our own throats in that regard. Learn Chinese, you’ll need it soon.

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PLEASE, whether people accept the prevailing thoughts or not it does not alter them as being true. The president’s job is to be responsible for all federal governmental problems in existence whether becoming problems prior to or during his tenure in office. He could have avoided this responsibility by not running for the office. A second point, whatever you label the people who did not follow the perscribed steps in permanetly entering the USA are CRIMINALS since they entered ILLEGALLY.

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TM at 5:26

Pretty familar with those numbers, assuming home ownership and other normal deductions Fed Tax bill is about $25K.

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We can even go back the Reagan years and get data for what caused the creation of the jobs.

There were two major tax changes in Reagan’s first term, which began in January 1981. ERTA, aka the Reagan tax cut, was signed in August 1981; TEFRA, which raised taxes, was signed in September 1982.

If you look at what happened after Reagan signed his bill lowering the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent is that unemloyment started going through the roof.

Why. Because Reagan gave the rich, expecially CEO’s and other business executives a choice. Basically he said, you can give yourself a ten million dollar bonus, or hire ten thousand new employees, and the tax consequences will be exactly the same.

The other part of the insidious Reagan tax cuts is that they also removed the ratio between the earnings of a worker and an executive in a corporation. Before Reagan, there was no law saying that a corporation could not pay an executive whatever it wanted. But there were consequences. The consequences were that the company could not CLAIM ALL of a huge salary increase for an executive as a legitimate business expense. That is if the lowest paid employee in a company made ten dollars an hour, the the company could only legitimately deduct a salary of 250 dollars an hour for its CEO. If it wanted to pay the guy 500 dollars an hour, they could. But they would have to eat half of it when it came to deducting it on their corporate taxes.

This created what never happened before and is happening now. The “Jobless Recovery” So now it is possible for the stock market to go through the roof, without creating a single job. In fact it is possibly to have the stock market climb and climb and climb while having employment drop and drop and drop because Reagan effectively decoupled the earnings of companies and executives from the employment and earnings of American workers.

A company can make BILLIONS in profits off the labor of employees, pass all of it on to the executives and shareholders, while firing workers, cutting benefits, calling for the workers to take salary cuts, the works.

And this is all the result of lowering the top tax rate, while destroying the relationship ratios between worker and executive compensation when it comes to tax deductions.

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Ah, I live to listen to anti Muslim wing nut fantasies. It restores my faith in my theory that Conservatism is closely linked to mental illness.

The fact is that Republicans these days are a party that has two pillars. One is that tax cuts are the answer to all economic problems. The other is social conservatism. Nothing else.

The fact is that not even supply side economists state that tax INCREASES are necessarily bad things. Reagan basically cherry picked through Milton Friedman’s ideas, and only looked at the part that said that taxes that were TOO high, really high taxes, were bad, and did not look at the parts that said taxes that were too low were equally pernicious. Supply side only indicates that taxes in above the 70 percent mark were really damaging. But he also places a bottom limit for taxes, of about 39 percent. Going lower than that will also create problems.

Another Friedman and Wanneski assertion. NO government program should be exempted from cuts in order to balance the budget. Both were insistent that the biggest, and worse form of spending was defense spending and if you are not willing to make cuts there, supply side will not work at all.

This is the reason that the remaining LIVING creator of supply side economics, Jude Wanneski, dumped the Republican party in 2004 and went Democrat. He went back and looked at the history of both parties, and saw the propensity of the Republican Party to create a permanent state of war someplace on earth in order to spend more and more money in the “Military Industrial Complex”

When Bush said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could be generational wars, he knew he was looking the nightmare that Eisenhower predicted in 1960. That the military and defense industry would make up threats in order to justify defense spending taking up ever larger portions of government spending without reductions for as far as the eye can see.

The fact is that we currently spend more on defense than all of the rest of the world combined.

If our goal is purely defensive, a fifth, even a tenth, of what we now spend would be sufficient to “defend” ourselves.

If our goal is to invade other countries to control them for American corporations, no amount will ever be sufficient. And this IS the goal. Everyone points at medical costs, but the fact is, without private insurance middlemen, healthcare costs would not rise more than the costs of inflation. Get rid of the insurance middleman, and in ten years, the cost of health care in America will be exactly what it is today. About 2.5 trillion dollars a year. If we eliminated the middle man, the actual cost today would be more like 1.25 trillion. That includes everything. Private insurance, people covered by the government, the works.

Today the US government is providing health care for a little more than 50 percent of the population. Spending about 700 billion dollars to do it. The other fifty percent spend the other 1.6 trillion dollars and about 20 percent of that is insurance industry profit.

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NJ- the bounceback in the stock market should be an indication that companies are making money and will expand the job base. That’s what the economists are hoping for, which reality proves isn’t happening. The GOP is LOVING this because the political unrest it creates will result in gains in numbers in Congress. Their single goal, regardless of how badly citizens suffer in the meantime, is to shoot down the first black president and bring back the white elite to power. Then the corporate pocket-lining habits of deregulation and manipulation of tax codes to favor the rich can continue. If the past eight years and the skyrocketing deficit didn’t do enough damage, the next few years will. The rich will recover while the rest of us continue to try to eek out survival in the midst of rising prices and reduced income. We will see a “double-dip” recession, and the rich plan on recouping as much of their lost wealth as they can before it happens.

If Obama wants to prove his leadership abilities, he needs to make sure financial reform legislation gets through the system so that there will SOME reasonable limits put in place. I’m flabbergasted by how many citizens, whose savings and retirement were all but wiped out in the recent collapse, would even think about supporting the economic policies that put us here. But hey, it costs a lot to keep a CEO comfortable and I guess some of us can hope to earn a pittance scrubbing the decks and living as indentured servants. That will be just about the only jobs left. I guess I can scrub toilets in the Hamptons mansions…..and my kids are cute enough to beg outside the gates for a crust of bread.

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The problem is that the old economic saw that when the stock market bounces back, companies will soon start hiring no longer applies in an era of low tax trickle down economics. Because when taxes on personal income is low, business executives have two options. They can give themselves million dollar raises, and billion dollar bonuses, and get exactly the same “expense of doing business” tax deductibility as creating ten thousand new jobs. When the top tax rates are very low, a businessman can take a million dollar bonus and keep 650,000 of it. When tax rates are higher, and if he takes a million dollar bonus and only gets to keep 100,000 of it, guess what he is going to do. He is going to keep that million sheltered by doing something like opening a new office, a new store, a new factory, which has intrinsic value as capital that is less liquid, but will gain in value, especially if the business becomes profitable. Eventually he gets to sell this “investment” and pay the a “long term capital gains rate” of 15 percent. So rather than take a million dollars in salary for himself, he buys a million in inventory, has the store sell it at a profit, makes 4 million funnels that into opening 4 more stores that cost a million a piece, they each generate more income, which gets funneled back into the businesses to shelter the profits from taxes, and so on. As long as the top marginal tax rates on INCOME is high, this all become possible. When it is low, you have what we saw under Bush…Jobless recoveries. The markets reached all time highs under Bush over 13,000 but job creation was dismal because profit taking was cheap.

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[...] InquirerIs Obama losing the economic argument?IndependentChicago Tribune -NPR -Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)all 66 news [...]

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