Let's see, lately I'm intentionally stooping to approximately a level 10x yours in terms of integrity, honesty and respectful rhetoric. I think I used to be at about 30x. I do not insult McCain for his age, but yes, if I mention that aspect, like some mention Islamic sounding names, mixed race heritage, Ivy-league educations, and so forth, I do so to enjoy fighting fire with fire. I adore really old people. I'm not sure I want to vote for one, without knowing a lot about his health, and a WHOLE lot about his VP choice. I like that your talking points now include "San Francisco" in every post. Let's see here... as far as we know, you are single, you shave your chest, and are now obsessed with our fair city. Interesting... If you are "wedge issue" curious, I hope you will explore this openly and honestly, instead of ending up in a "wide stance" hypocrisy. I can recommend some excellent bars in SF, for your next visit!
BTW, in case some right wing screwball tries to (stupidly) tie the bush tax cuts to increased tax reciepts, it might behoove those persons to evaluate the tax reciepts since the great depression, which have doubled every decade. Bush's tax reciept increase will be the lowest of any decade since 1940. This little revelation usually drives bush aoplogists to rapidly shut their mouths, lest they look more like the misinformed and/or disengenuous douchebags they are. Incidentally, this discrepency holds true for Reagan's ghastly economic policy as well.
Look out! It's the wrath of Rhad!... "To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee"...
Not true, but I'll grant this is the preferred conservative approach to dealing with the problem. If you want to tax wealthier people more, go for it, but to charge them more for their Medicare makes them not want to support the program. Universal programs have more political support, that is why policy wonk conservatives hate them. For instance. Charge people different rates to go to their local school based on their income would be the type of conservative who hates public schools wet dream. Good way to rile wealthier parents up against the school system. Charge the wealthier folks to borrow books from the public library, but not less affluent folks.
According to that right-wing nut Clinton appointee David Walker, Medicare will be broke in 2017 without massive overhaul.
Talking about doing homework, TJ. Supply-side Spin June 11, 2007 Sen. John McCain has said President Bush's tax cuts have increased federal revenues. But revenues would have been even higher without them. Summary Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has said that the major tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 have "increased revenues." He also said that tax cuts in general increase revenues. That’s highly misleading. In fact, the last half-dozen years have shown us that we can't have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers. The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are lower than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth. And federal revenues actually declined at the beginning of this decade before rebounding. The growth in the past three years that McCain refers to brings revenues back in line with the 40-year historical average as a percentage of gross domestic product. It’s unclear how much of the growth can be attributed to the tax cuts. Capital gains tax receipts did increase greatly from 2003 to 2006, but the CBO estimates that they will level off and decrease in the next few years. The growth overwhelmingly resulted from a sharp rise in corporate tax receipts, the cause of which is a topic of debate. http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html
The interesting part is, the total income shares for the top 1% income earner actually went up during the bush tax cut. Would you rather middle class income earner pick up more of the shares?
"Would" have been higher? So you are countering my FACT with a HYPOTHETICAL? You sir, are ridiculous to even attempt such an intellectually disingenuous argument. That what happens when lawyers try to talk numbers... no cred
Just so you know, gay bashing and senior-citizen bashing permanently removes you from the moral high ground which you have previously attempted to occupy. I think that describing Snob-ama's values as San Francisco values struck a nerve with you possibly. As a man of character and integrity, I wish you improved mental health and prosperity. Keep on Sizzlin' HO HO HO
at least you don't see goiters Elaine: Mrs. Oliver? Mrs. O: Yes my dear. % Elaine looks around the room, trying to find Mrs. Oliver. She pans % around and wham-o!! She sees that Mrs. Oliver has a rather, er, um, % unsightly physical problem (to put it mildly). Elaine: Ooh! Mrs. O: What's the trouble? Are you alright? Elaine: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Mrs. O: It's my goiter, isn't it? Elaine: Did you say goiter? What goiter? Mrs. O: This football-shaped lump jutting out the side of my neck. Elaine: Oh, *that* goiter. Hey... Heh heh heh... Whaddya know... Mrs. O: Does it bother you? Elaine: Bother me? Oh, phhbt... Why would a little goiter like that bother me? No, not a bit. It's nothing. It's nothin', it's um, in fact, it's um, it's very distinctive, y'know? Um, I mean you want to know something? I, I wish I had one. [pause] Really.
I'd actually be interested to get more facts about this. What does it look like when you remove the capital gains tax revenues from the picture. The reason I'd be interested in that is because I suspect the late 90s were filled with capital gains taxes from a specualtive bubble. Also, I'd be interested to see when the recessions occurred over the last 6 decades and how that impacted it. Obviously tax receipts are going to go down in a recession, so if you're driving out of a hole at the beginning of the measurement period (or said differently are inflated at the end of the last period), the growth is going to look bad. I could go research these things, but I'm sure someone else already knows the answers or is more curious than me.
If you want to go this route, then Clinton's tax increases also raised tax revenue. So you're suggesting that if we lower OR raise tax rates, revenue will rise? Oh, and by the way, tax revenues actually went DOWN when Bush cut tax rates. In fact, of the six years since the 1950's that tax revenues decreased, three have come under the Bush administration. Tax revenues only went up if you wait about 5 years - and of course, that still ignores the fact that due to inflation, those increased tax revenues were worth less than the original. Depending on the effects of this recession and how this final year goes, after 8 years of the Bush adminstration, we might actually have lower tax receipts and a lower stock market than when Bush came into office, once both are adjusted for inflation. That would put this administration amongst the worst performers for an 8-year period in American history. Combine that with uncontrolled spending during full Republican control and some of the worst job growth numbers over an 8-year period, and you have about as bad an economic record as possible.
I would be sooo down for gasoline hoarding before the "tax break" ends. Who's with me? It'd be like waiting in line for a PS3! Source? I'm too lazy to search and this might be handy in debates.
Here's the 2000 and on tax receipts: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104753.html Unadjusted for inflation - so you have to estimate inflation there. But even nominal dollars, it took until 2005 to get back to 2000 tax revenues. I don't have the 1950's thing offhand - I found and posted it on here a long time ago - you might be able to find it through the search function.
McCain's $3.3 Trillion Tax Cut, Budget Pledge at Odds By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Indira Lakshmanan April 18 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's plan to cut taxes and balance the budget wins praise from fellow Republicans. Economists and nonpartisan analysts say his numbers don't add up. McCain's proposal, outlined April 15, would extend President George W. Bush's tax cuts, reduce the top corporate rate, repeal the alternative minimum tax and double exemptions for dependents. Price: $3.3 trillion by the end of a President McCain's second term in 2017, according to figures from his campaign and the Treasury. The Arizona senator said that would be offset by eliminating pork-barrel spending, freezing a portion of the budget, and saving from Medicare spending. He could cut the budget by $100 billion a year ``in a New York minute,'' he said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. Robert Bixby, executive director of the Washington-based Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates budget restraint, said ``the huge imbalance'' in McCain's plan ``is that the tax cuts are specific and large and the spending cuts are small and vague.'' Once, McCain was a deficit hawk, Bixby said, but ``strange things happen when people run for president.'' Tax Cuts Extending Bush's tax cuts would cost $1.5 trillion through the end of a hypothetical second McCain term, according to Treasury Department figures. His proposal to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent would cost $100 billion a year, McCain's campaign estimates. Doubling the exemption for dependents to $7,000 a year would cost another $65 billion annually and the AMT repeal adds another $60 billion a year, his campaign said. McCain released tax returns today that showed he paid $5,413 in AMT in 2007 and $6,979 in 2006. McCain's spending cuts, combined with increased revenue from economic growth, total $1.5 trillion over eight years, leaving a $1.8 trillion net increase to the national debt. ``This is really a massive increase in the deficit,'' said Joel Slemrod, an economist specializing in tax policy at the University of Michigan. Two Washington research groups said McCain's plan would cost more. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated his tax cuts would total $5 trillion over a two-term presidency. The Tax Policy Center, run jointly by the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, said they would cost at least $5.7 trillion. McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin dismissed such estimates as ``fantasy-land budgeting.'' McCain's proposals, Holtz-Eakin said, would balance tax and spending cuts to meet his balanced-budget goals. Romney's Reaction ``The numbers add up,'' former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in an interview. In an interview today on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' McCain said budget slashing is essential because ``we Republicans presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society,'' referring to a series of government entitlements, including Medicare, that were enacted in the 1960s. To help pay for the tax cuts, Holtz-Eakin said he would save $30 billion a year by eliminating so-called ``rifle shot'' provisions. Those include items such as tax breaks for small insurance companies. A Treasury Department report Holtz-Eakin cited as the source of his estimate states $27 billion could be raised by eliminating narrowly used tax preferences spread over a decade, not a single year. The Discrepancy When asked about the discrepancy, Holtz-Eakin replied that McCain would start with those provisions and target others like them to recover $30 billion annually. Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center and a former Clinton administration Treasury official, said that is unrealistic. ``We looked for loopholes when I was there and couldn't even come up with $10 billion a year,'' he said. McCain, 71, said he would offset the costs of lower corporate tax rates by freezing spending growth for a year on items unrelated to defense, veterans or entitlement programs like Medicare. So-called discretionary spending, which includes programs such as medical research and space exploration, makes up 18 percent of the budget. McCain said the freeze would save $15 billion. There's a precedent. Former President Jimmy Carter attempted to implement ``zero-based budgeting'' that would have forced each agency to undergo an annual review and start from scratch. The idea ``didn't really work,'' Bixby said. Tax Reduction To balance the rest of the cost of the corporate tax reduction, McCain would eliminate spending on lawmakers' pet projects, known as earmarks, added in the last two years. That would save $35 billion. McCain also assumes $20 billion in additional tax revenue stemming from stronger growth. The senator said he would also eliminate $65 billion worth of federal programs, including $2 billion in savings by charging affluent Americans more to participate in Medicare's prescription drug program. McCain's campaign said a 10 percent tax credit for research for businesses and a provision that would allow companies to expense equipment purchases in the first year of use would come at no added expense. Treasury Report A Treasury Department report said those come with a cost. Extending a permanent research credit would cost the government about $13 billion a year, and a less generous form of his expensing provision would cost more than $34 billion annually, according to the report. And McCain's AMT repeal estimate falls short of an analysis prepared last year by the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which put the cost of repeal at $100 billion a year. The AMT was created in 1969 to prevent 155 wealthy Americans from avoiding federal income tax and now ensnares about 4 million people. McCain's plan doesn't address the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which now total more than $12 billion a month. He also said he'd back a permanent overhaul of the estate tax that exempts the first $10 million from any tax and subjects the rest to a 15 percent rate. Such a policy would cause the government to forgo $278 billion during an 8-year presidency, according to the Tax Policy Center. The estate tax is being temporarily phased out. It will impose a top rate of 45 percent on estates valued at more than $7 million a year for couples in 2009, will disappear in 2010, and return in 2011 with a top rate of 55 percent on estates valued at more than $1 million. Ultimately, said Stan Collender, a former analyst for the House and Senate budget committees, it would take substantial cuts to Medicare and Social Security to balance the budget with the tax cuts McCain is proposing. Even then, ``there's no way McCain could balance it by the time he leaves, unless he doesn't leave for 25 years,'' Collender said.
I don't think that he wants to encourage people to use more gas. I think that he realizes that people who commute to work everyday have a certain fixed level of gas that they use. I think that McCain is concerned that gas prices will approach $3.75 in the summer, and dropping the $0.18 a gallon tax will counteract that to a degree. I know that if gasoline continues to increase the way it has, a good number of my clients will no longer be able to afford their Chapter 13 plan and will consequently lose their homes.
