Dem Robert Rubin - "We must raise taxes"

[Pa(b)st Prime]

I respectfully disagree. For every middle class income household that's bingeing on plasmas (probably purchased on credit) there's four who're struggling with an increased property tax bill, stressing over college tuition or pinching pennies because of unexpected increases in energy, insurance and leisure costs.

Here's the bottom line. It's THEIR FRIGGIN' MONEY! It's not yours. It's not mine. It's not Henry Waxman's or Nancy Pelosi's. Since when is earning a wage such a luxury that government assumes it has dibs on a third, a half or in extreme cases 70%.

Do you believe that you receive a dollar of service or value in exchange for a dollar in taxes? Unless you work for the government and can retire on a 75% pension or unless you do business with the government and are getting rich on overpriced contracts, you're getting SCREWED!

I see America's future. It's Brazil.

Quote from RedDuke:

I still do not get why people get so fired up about taxed.

Lowest of income chain barely pay any, so it does not matter to them at all.

Middle class gets the largest bill (% wise), but few thousand a year in tax cuts and subsequent tax increases do not change their lives even one bit (you might buy 2 plasma TV instead of 3).

7 figure earners get the largest bill ($ wise), and it is where the cuts matter, but there are so many various legal tax avoidance schemes.

So on the grand scheme of things it is a nice political argument, but it is not something that truly changes economic condition, no matter what government says.

 

[dddooo]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

The deficit was eliminated when a Republican congress was voted in in '94

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 was passed by the 103rd United States Congress [controlled by the dems] and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It has also been referred to as the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993

Republican Warnings
"The entire bill was very controversial. Many Republicans warned that many of the bills provisions would result in economic catastrophe and that deficit would actually increase. The recently elected President Clinton was criticized by many for what was perceived as a reversal of his campaign pledge to cut middle class taxes although in actuality taxes increased on only the top 2% of taxpayers. Many Americans initially were supportive of changes in the tax code to help the economy and lower the deficit (according to public opinion polls taken at the time). Nonetheless, by the mid-term elections of 1994, many American voters were galvanized by the Republican charge that the Democratic Party had raised their taxes, though Republican warnings of a recession never materialized."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

Nice try, no cigar.

 

[cgroupman]

No one likes to pay taxes, employers don't like to pay employees, everyone wants to keep all the money.

Taxes are simply the Government's source of revenue. If your family suddenly has to cover unforeseen expenses, they have to either cut somewhere else, or get another job or hope for additional income from existing sources, right?

Government spent way too much money the last few years, we can debate whether it was well spent or not, but regardless, the money has to come from somewhere. That "somewhere" is the collective us, as in Americans. Business and personal, not a big deal.

Don

 

[FightTheFuture]

Quote from dddooo:

Ireland's top income tax rate is 42 percent. The top corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent...In 2004, government expenditures as a percent of GDP decreased 0.1 percentage point to 34.3 percent...According to the Ministry of Finance, the government consumed 14.4 percent of GDP in 2004.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Ireland

Ireland has free universal healthcare and free higher education and you sir don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, but please, kind sir, did I say anything about what kind of tax? Was I not referring to business and therefor corporate tax rate? Just think what would happen if they cut income tax. That was the 1st paragraph, then I started talking about the US.

I just repeat whatever I see on the liberal left wingy PBS. Did you see PBS's Wide Angle last July about Ireland? Interesting.

Thank you, kind sir for allowing me to converse with you. I shall remember this day forever.


September 27, 2006 6:12 AM

The Irish Economic Miracle
One part fiscal; one part openness.

By Reuven Brenner

How did Ireland go from being among the poorest places in Western Europe to one of the richest? How did it attract the headquarters of 1,000 international companies? How did it come to rank, by some measures, among the EU’s top 15 original members? With per capita GDP estimated at $37,800 (U.S.), Ireland is now tops in Western Europe.

To begin, the obvious: In 1986, Ireland slashed spending in areas such as health expenditures, education, agricultural spending, roads and housing, and the military, while abolishing agencies such as the National Social Services Board, the Health Education Bureau, and regional development organizations. By 1993, government non-interest spending declined to 41 percent of GNP, down from a high of 55 percent of GNP in 1985. Subsequently, it significantly lowered corporate tax rates to 12.5 percent, at a time when the lowest corporate rates in Europe were 30 percent and U.S. rates stood at 35 percent. Since 2004, Ireland also has offered a 20 percent tax credit on research and development.....

 

[dddooo]

Quote from FightTheFuture:

Oh, but please, kind sir, did I say anything about what kind of tax?

This is what you said: "The average person in the US works 5-6 months of the year paying various taxes. Federal, SS, state, city, local, property, sales, excise, utility.........The higher the taxes are, the less incentive for people to work longer hours..." And you used Ireland as an example of how taxation should work.

Obviously you were wrong, the average person in Ireland works more time paying taxes than the average american taxpayer. And higher income taxes in Ireland clearly don't discourage them from working longer hours either.

Corporate taxation is an entirely different matter which I frankly don't want to debate in this thread, I only wanted to correct your erroneous claims.

PS don't forget their 21% VAT (value added tax) if you actually want to compare apples to apples and analyze the real tax burden of the average Irish taxpayer, keep in mind that they also have a 20% inheritance tax, free universal healthcare, free higher education, subsidized public transportation - all the things you rightwingers hate so much.

 

[Arnie]

The deficit is a function of the economy. It's not a zero sum game where a dollar increase in taxes will result in a dollar decrease in the deficit. Fact is, without the tax cuts, the deficit would be higher, not lower. The tax cuts resulted in increased receipts due to an expanding economy. Where this Congress and Bush failed was in not controlling an acceleration in the increase in spending.

 

[dddooo]

Quote from Arnie:

Fact is, without the tax cuts, the deficit would be higher, not lower.

Even your very own republican conservative Laffer curve disagrees with this statement.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Quote from dddooo:

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 was passed by the 103rd United States Congress [controlled by the dems] and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It has also been referred to as the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993

Republican Warnings
"The entire bill was very controversial. Many Republicans warned that many of the bills provisions would result in economic catastrophe and that deficit would actually increase. The recently elected President Clinton was criticized by many for what was perceived as a reversal of his campaign pledge to cut middle class taxes although in actuality taxes increased on only the top 2% of taxpayers. Many Americans initially were supportive of changes in the tax code to help the economy and lower the deficit (according to public opinion polls taken at the time). Nonetheless, by the mid-term elections of 1994, many American voters were galvanized by the Republican charge that the Democratic Party had raised their taxes, though Republican warnings of a recession never materialized."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

Nice try, no cigar.

So the Democrats raised taxes in '93. IThat doesn't refute what I said, namely that the Republican congress elected in '94 clamped down on Clinton's budget-busting spending palns and balanced teh budget. If the Dem's had not raised taxes, the economy might have grown even faster.

The key to controlling the deficit is controlling spending, because congress will spend every cent it can get its hands on and borrow more. That is a historical fact, and a few anamolous years during the greatest bull market of all time do not disprove it.

 

[dddooo]

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

So the Democrats raised taxes in '93. IThat doesn't refute what I said, namely that the Republican congress elected in '94 clamped down on Clinton's budget-busting spending palns and balanced teh budget. If the Dem's had not raised taxes, the economy might have grown even faster.

The key to controlling the deficit is controlling spending, because congress will spend every cent it can get its hands on and borrow more. That is a historical fact, and a few anamolous years during the greatest bull market of all time do not disprove it.

From the same article:

"The bill, which both raised taxes and cut government spending, has been credited as the major cause behind the deficit reduction and eventual surpluses during the 1990s, by sources such as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. "

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Quote from dddooo:

From the same article:

"The bill, which both raised taxes and cut government spending, has been credited as the major cause behind the deficit reduction and eventual surpluses during the 1990s, by sources such as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. "

The CBO may be nominally non-partisan but they are rabidly anti-tax cut. They use static calculations to "prove" that tax cuts cost money and tax increases raise revenue. They say it is too hard to factor in the effects on the economy so they just ignore them. Any analysis they come up with is automatically flawed. They were particularly bad in '93 because they were under Democrat control.

The '93 bill certainly did not cut government spending, not as normal people use languae. It might have cut teh rate of increase in spending, but that would have been blown out of the water if Dem's had retained controlof congress. If hillary-care socialized medicxine had gone into effect, there's no telling how deep a hole we would be in now.

We can debate this endlessly. People just have to ask themselves, does government do a good job spending money? Do they throw it away on crap no person would spend their own money on? Is a bigger, more intrusive government a good idea?