Monday, December 3, 2012

Domestic Terrorism

This time from a different source. The president is tweeting to his followers what will happen if we don't give him our watches and wallets:
From the prez' tweets, regarding the mortgage deduction:
"Breaks for middle class impt for families & econ. if top rates don't go up, danger that middle class deductions get hit - bo," the president said via Twitter.
Thanslation: Gimmie my tax hikes or the middle class gets it. Later student loans and teachers saleraies came up:
Obama responded that tax cuts without revenue increases would result in a reduction in student loans, while work/study and college tax credits would expire.
Translation: Gimmie my tax hikes or students will get it.

The prez is in a pretty good position here.

Plan A: No one agrees with anything and taxes go up next year. The economy tanks, and the prez blames republicans.

Plan B: Republicans agree to more modest tax hikes and budget cuts to be named later. Budget cuts never happen. Economy tanks and the prez blames republicans.

Plan C: Republicans give prez everything he asks for, economy tanks, prez blames republicans.

Going to be a bumpy ride.


6 comments:

Austin Wedding Photographer said...

As far as i know, taxes are always increasing every year and it never decreases!!! So sad about the government.

The Troll said...

"As far as i know, taxes are always increasing every year and it never decreases!!!"

See "Average Tax Rates For The Highest-Income Payers, 1945 - 2009"

Why the benefits of lowering tax rates on the rich have not "trickled down" to the rest of us is an exercise left to the reader. Hint: if "a rising tide lifts all boats", those without yacths, or even life-jackets, will have to continue treading water.

According to Business Insider (July 12, 2011) :

Today's income tax rates are strikingly low relative to the rates of the past century, especially for rich people. For most of the century, including some boom times, top-bracket income tax rates were much higher than they are today.

Contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, super-high tax rates on rich people do not appear to hurt the economy or make people lazy: During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%--and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed.

Super-low tax rates on rich people also appear to be correlated with unsustainable sugar highs in the economy--brief, enjoyable booms followed by protracted busts. They also appear to be correlated with very high inequality. (For example, see the 1920s and now).

Periods of very low tax rates have been followed by periods with very high tax rates, and vice versa. So history suggests that tax rates will soon start going up.

The Troll said...

"Domestic Terrorism"

I remember when the right-wing would get self-righteously indignant when the left-wing would compare them to terrorists because of opinion and policy differences. "Hate speech!" the right wingers would cry, and rightfully so. The donkey-rats who engaged in such behavior should be shamed.

Do you guys still do that? I stopped getting the right-wing talking points newsletter, after I refused to continue drinking your Kool-Aid.

Cincinnatus said...

Troll, is there a reason you keep trading in falsehoods? The high tax rates were not effective tax rates because of the large number of deductions, exclusions etc.

None of the "rich" paid "90%". And in fact, the actual amount of revenues as a percentage of GDP was roughly the same then as today - around 17% of GDP plus or minus.

This BS from Democrats about how wonderful higher tax rates - without discussing what the effective rates were after deductions and exclusions - is just patent dishonesty.

Billll said...

There's a better chart out there that tracks tax rates from the advent of the income tax forward. It started out at 3% and fluctuated with the war we found ourselves in. The 90% rates didn't start until just before WWII and persisted through the 50's.

Yes, pretty much nobody actually paid that rate. People are clever and found ways around it. See the movie "How To Marry A Millionaire" Tax rates now are low only in comparison to WWII.

Low rate periods result in massive wealth creation, which sets up the do-gooders to call for higher taxes so the bigger government can "help" more people. The resultant slump is never blamed on the higher taxes. It is used as an excuse for even higher taxes so the resultant larger government can do more to help the burgeoning numbers of "unfortunates".

Yes, rising tides lift all boats, even rowboats and life jackets. If you're too stupid to notice the tide coming in, maybe you deserve to drown.

The Troll said...

"Low rate periods result in massive wealth creation,"

Wrong.

See the charts at
economixcomix.com/2012/07/24/tax-cuts-for-the-rich/

You say there are other charts. Where are they?

"Tax Cuts for the Rich: Let’s Stop Pretending They Work"

We’re constantly hearing about how
rich people are wealth creators, job
creators, the most productive members
of our society, a bunch of Hank Reardons,
bla bla bla ad infinitum, and how we
should cut their taxes so that they
can unleash their productive powers.

The more intelligent-sounding purveyors
of this point of view use sophisticated
economic models to support their claims.

But models are just that—they’re models
of what should happen, given certain
assumptions. And the real world is far
more complex than any model can portray.

The real way to understand what cutting
taxes on the rich would do is: try it
and see what happens.

But I don’t recommend doing that.

Why not? Because we already freaking did
it.
Many times. We know what happens when
we cut taxes on the rich; we just choose
not to remember.

Thing is, back in the 1950s and 1960s,
taxes on the rich were very high. Past
a certain point, the government took
almost all of your additional income —
as much as 92 cents on the dollar.

Yes, there were deductions; nobody paid
92% of their income. But a rich person
deciding whether or not to earn an extra
dollar had presumably already found all
the deductions he could, so he really
was faced with the prospect of working
harder in order to earn only a few more
cents.