BS gimmick talk like that is accomplishing what no socialist revolutionary ever could. You are biting off your nose to spite your face. Rich Republicans just can't see beyond your wallets and do what's best for your own long-term wealth. After this decade's American collapse, the Chinese template which the world will begin imitating in the 2020s will not be as capitalist as the American template and will have a lot fewer rich people. As you kill the American economy you won't completely kill capitalism, but you are making a Chinese hybrid the new dominant paradigm. And you're vastly decreasing the wealthy class in the new subordinate U.S. You'll agree with me by the end of this decade, but it will be too late to recover momentum against China. Then I give it till 2030 for them to clearly become Number 1.
if you think the Chinese state will be even recognizable from what it is now by 2030, we have entirely different views of geopolitics. You're railing on about a couple of percentage points in the upper tax bracket (difference between what, 35% and 37%? I haven't looked at it in a while) while 47M people don't pay ANYTHING towards that 1.1T in federal income tax receipts (put towards defense, infrastructure, the interest on the debt that the Medicare is racking up). You realize you get more by taxing those 50k-and-under workers 11% then by taxing those making 250k an extra 2%, right? And there's a heckuva lot more people making 50k and under than those making 250k. Or are you advocating that the "fair share" for the "rich" is >50% of their salary, while keeping almost half the workforce from paying a cent?
I calculate that in the 5 minutes it took you to write that nonsense, we got .5% closer to being China's biggest asskisser in the world. The lowest amounts by U.S. class in 60 years are coming from which class again? You already know, it's the rich, not the poor. The poor and middle class have seen no reduction. The big change is from the rich and corporations. But you already know that, because it's been posted over and over. Put the country and capitalism ahead of your little gimmick argument.
it's hard to see a reduction when YOU DON"T PAY A SINGLE PENNY IN INCOME TAX. Edit: Actually, I'm wrong. It seems that, with credits, the government is actually giving back more in returns than the people paid in tax, and in effect paying some people to be here. So I guess you could count that as a way to get a reduction. I'm still waiting for a response to the math above. I know you can understand it....I'm confused why you're choosing not to.
Yes there are a lot of people paying 0% income tax, and they are paying 15.4% payroll taxes which fund the general operations of the US government. Been that way since Reagan and the Democrats passed the "tax cuts" that were revenue neutral in the 80's. Most of the super rich pay 15% capital gains tax on the bulk of their taxable income, less than people in the 0% tax bracket.
I wrote that badly. Let's try again. According to many articles posted on this board, current government revenue from the rich is the lowest amount per rich taxpayer practically in history, or at least in the last 60 years. The poor and middle class have seen no reduction. The big reduction is from the rich and corporations. If you want small deficits, return to the tax rates when we had small deficits. Your argument about the poor paying no tax is irrelevant (a more polite word for "gimmick"), because that was true when deficits were small. In summary, the thing that has changed (=the cause of the increased deficits) is the change in how much the rich pay, not the poor, which hasn't changed.
It's easy. Simply reinstate the policies in place when deficits were small. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. This country had a normal tax rate for the rich, then under Reagan it was lowered, then under Clinton it was brought back to normal, then under Bush it was lowered. This country had a small deficit, then under Reagan it became giant, then under Clinton it became negative (an actual giant surplus), then under Bush it returned to the giantism of Reagan. A correlation--what a coincidence! But here's what Republicans say. 70% of the wealth is held by the top 2%, so let's solve the deficit by increasing taxes on--wait for it--the other 98% who own, in comparison, nothing. Let's get more from those impoverished louts at the bottom. They're hiding a treasure of money. That's where to find it.
Utter nonsense. The govt. spends 40% of GDP and has NEVER taxed as much as 20% of GDP. If you return to any prior rate of taxation, the govt. is still spending close to $2 for every $1 it takes in. The 40% of GDP spending is highest the govt. has spent in the last 60 years. Face it, the govt. is addicted to spending ever increasing amounts of money, screw the taxpayer. They cannot tax the tax payer enough, so they borrow nearly as much a year as Clinton spent in a year. We had small deficits because social security ran huge surpluses. Those surpluses have disappeared because the program is a ponzi scheme. In a ponzi scheme, yesterday's investors are paid by taking money from today's investors. There just happen to be far too many of yesterday's investors to be paid off than there is money to be taken from today's investors. So instead of $200B in surplus masking the deficit, the program is costing us $100B. That is a net -$300B to the bottom line that is only getting worse as more baby boomers retire. Things were great when 1/2 govt. spending was for a program that was in the black. Now that it's in the red, there's no money left to spend on much of anything else, without borrowing obscene amounts from the Chinese. All of the tax cuts in history don't add up to $300B. If you think the deficit can be made up by raising taxes, think again. Doubling everyone's taxes won't cover the negative.
Ah, the old escape. The ratio of debt to GDP. Do GDP units pay the debt or do humans? All that matters is the ratio of debt to the population. The predictive power of GDP has never materialized in reducing debt. As for Social Security decreasing the deficit, Republicans are the big advocates of merging it all together because it hides what their presidents did. Democrats are the ones who want to separate the two in budgeting.
Bullshit. GDP is what the govt. could tax if it taxed everything 100%. This is its significance. I didn't write about debt to GDP ratio, I wrote about spending to GDP ratio. When govt. spending was 20% of GDP, the economy boomed. When govt. spending is 40%, we resemble the old Soviet Union, just before it collapsed under its own weight. If GDP were $1, and the govt. taxed 10%, it could spend $.10 and have a balanced budget. If GDP were $100, and the govt. taxed 10%, it could spend $10 and have a balanced budget. It doesn't take much in the way of math skills to get it.
Sure, let's go back to when Medicare wasn't around, there hadn't been a "War on Poverty", Social Security was 2%, unemployment was capped at 13 weeks and military spending was 15% of GDP. I'll tax the superrich 70%, b/c like you said they'll just start living off of capital gains. Highest progressive bracket is a dumb way of looking at how much the rich are taxed, but if it gets us everything in the first sentence, then I might go for that. The "difference" is that the "poor" are sucking up a much greater percentage of spending than they were when the government spending was lower (which, amazingly enough, corresponds with your time of "reduced deficits"
No, just go back to the late 90s. Cut expenses and increase revenues to what we had then. I realize new expenses will be hard to cut, maybe impossible, but the late 90s are a good start. You don't have to go back to the 50s.
Late 90's. Just think about that for more than 10 seconds. The late 90's was the end of the largest stock market bubble in human history. Tax revenues were at record levels as those evil rich folks were paying massive taxes on their "gains", soon to turn into a bloodbath. The Clinton era of "balanced budgets" was a temporary situation built on bubble economics that were unsustainable. Additionally, politicians piled on more promises of future spending. That was the real disaster of that era. And the Bush Admin that followed. Not what was spent at the moment as much as what was piled on for the future. The future is now.
Lol what a great response, it amazes me what these democratic superfans try to make up when their story crumbles. Not to mention debt-to-GDP adjusts for population like you proved. Fuck the Soviet Union and these modern day communists in Congress.
It was a permanent solution that extended into 2001. The end of the bubble did not end the surplus, as Republican myth claims. What ended the surplus was the 10-year giant tax cut for the rich, enacted in the first months of the Bush Administration. Republicans now want to go back to spending levels at the end of the Bush Admin. I say, go back to both the spending and tax rates on the first day of the Bush Administration. Let's see you tell me how the former is good but the latter is impossible. As for Denny's GDP ratios, that's all obfuscation to obscure clear debate. Republicans bring that stuff up and the discussion always dies. It isn't helpful in figuring out where to specifically go. It's just some predictive taxonomy to find order in history.
Denny owned you dude sorry, 40% of GDP doesn't cover 20% of the tax revenues we will get. And have always gotten no matter what tax rates are. Stop defending Obama's coward policies. :] Bush is a loser that spent money, Obama is a loser that spends even more money. Bush isn't even a fiscal conservative.
How did he or you show that returning to Clinton times wouldn't solve the problem? The problem was clearly all solved, then you Republicans fucked it up, robbing the surplus with your giveaway to the rich that you still won't cancel. If your way is better, then our economy is beautiful now, isn't it? History has already recorded that you're the ones owned.
How many times are you going to keep spewing this, even after I kicked your ass on this discussion a few weeks ago? The Bush Tax Cuts were for $1.35 trillion over 10 years. Our deficit is $1.6 Trillion for 1 year. But go on blaming the Bush Tax Cuts for the huge deficit. Didn't you say you're an accountant? Must be out of work after your clients saw your math skills. The discussion dies because you democrats can't formulate a logical rebuttal against the real facts.
