Democrats set to impose largest tax hike in history, take $2,000/year from you

Are tax receipts not up following the tax cuts?

 

Why cann't they cut all the stupid porks? I vote to let the Alaska senator live on the bridge he want to build that goes to nowhere. Man sometimes it make you think a good king is better than this congress.

 

Unfortunately, no. Well, I don't know about this year's numbers, but in 2005, I think we finally got close to where we were in 2000 in terms of tax revenue, and that was with 4 1/2 years of economic growth. So we're probably now up a bit from 2000 (probably still below 2000 when you consider inflation adjusted dollars), but the economy is also about 25% bigger, the population is bigger, and thus basic government expenses are higher even if you didn't have any expansion of programs.

 

Actually, scrap the parenthetical part. I believe the tax revenue numbers are already in inflation-adjusted dollars. So we got close in 2005, and are probably above 2000 numbers now, though not nearly as much as the growth in the economy or what the trickle-down theorists predicted/hoped for.

Historically, since around 1950, I believe there are something like 6 years that tax revenue dropped on a year-to-year inflation adjusted basis, and 3 of them were amongst the last 7 years. That includes tax increases, cuts, recessions, expansions, etc.

So, on a theoretical basis, certainly cutting taxes can increase tax revenues (as the Reagan cuts did), but these did not. It may be as simple as that we're on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve right now, or it may be related to 9/11 effects or that they weren't well structured cuts to get that effect (or any number of other things).

 

Oh this will be fun..

And yet it's much higher than before the tax cuts. If you lose $20 and make back $10 of it, that's not considered a net positive.

Of course, every single one of the Bush projections thus far has been way, way off.

And higher than when Bush got into office.

Care to look at how much new household debt was added during that time

And yet, despite a strong economy for 3 years at that point, tax receipts were notably lower than 2000. See point #1.

Not sure the relevance to tax receipts. It does, of course, show that the GOP cries of "Democrats are destroying the military!" in the 1990's turned out to be hogwash, but that's a separate topic.

Ooops.

 

Curious does the budget take into account the cost of the Iraq war? Or is it some more fancy work by this admin to take the 300 billion soon to be 400 billion plus cost of the war out of the equation?

 

Yeah like all of the taxes are going to Katrina refugees...

 

Except ads are another way to generate money for Clutch. Since you don't know my ad-clicking habits, nor do you know anything about the site costs, you're not really in much of a position to discuss whether its a net deficit or not. Nice try, but you're so far out of your element, it's just sad.

 

My understanding is no as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are listed as special appropiations.

 

That's what I thought, good work Bush admin!

 

They are not included in Budget Bill passed by Congress, but they are represented when you hear about the total Budget. The deficit that is quoted by the Fed is an honest figure.

 

So when they say the deficit is smaller it includes the cost of the war then?

 

The current deficit includes the current cost of the war. I have no clue about future deficits and future costs of the war.

 

Are we or are we not running a $300 billion plus deficit? Is the debt still approaching $10 trillion or is it more than that now?

 

Yep. Even if you take Boner at his word and assume his stats are correct, take the total he's suggesting, figure out what percentage of total current taxes that is and then apply that percentage to the following chart. Anyone want to bet that for the people on this chart (You couldn't keep the high brackets on the chart or the lower numbers would literally not show) the applied percentage doesn't come close to the $2,000 per year suggested?

 

OK, let's call it a tax increase. But the only rates that will rise when the tax cuts expire will be for those in the top bracket. Saying the "average" taxpayer will see an increase is just wrong.

And we should note that these were put forth by Republicans and signed by Bush as a way to manipulate the deficit numbers. They had a chance to make them permanenet at the beginning. If an expiring provision is a tax increase, then blame the Republicans who wrote and passed the bill.

 

I have some serious doubts if we will see any permanent reducution of the deficit with any of the latest tax and budget plans. Too many of the projections seem overly optimistic. What is the problem that many seem to be missing is that lowering the deficit is good but we are still spending money we don't have.

Economists will argue back and forth about the debt and how much of a percentage of the GDP it is but IMO that is misleading since if we had to pay it back we wouldn't institute a one time tax on our GDP to pay it back. In the meantime it keeps on growing and even if we had a zero deficit it will still compound. The national debt is one of those problems like Global Warming that most people don't think about since the consequences of it seem so far away yet at the rate we are going they could potentially be very disasterous.

Right now much of our economy including the government is being fueled by global credit. Credit that countries like the PRC and Asian Tigers are willing to extend because they understand that helps to fuel their own economies. What happens though when the PRC and economy becomes as large as the US? At that point there is going to be less impetus to continue to fund US debt and if the flow of credit to the US is slowed we will see dire consequences for us.

Until we can start addressing the debt all the talk of tax cuts or tax increases is just tinkering around the margins, like bailing out NOLA during Katrina with a pail.

 

[Nitpick]This isn't true. If we had zero deficit, we would be making all of our interest payments and the debt would remain the same.[/Nitpick]

Otherwise, I agree completely. Also, it blows my mind that we let a few banks set the interest rate at which Congress borrows that money.