I just received this and I just had to post it...Enjoy... This is a basic Economics lesson for all, and well worth the read. Sometimes Politicians exclaim, "It's a tax cut just for the rich!", and it is just accepted to be fact. But what does that really mean? Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, which is difficult for most of us to understand especially the way it's usually explained to us, we hope the following will help. Please share this with your friends as you see fit. Tax Cuts - A Simple Lesson In Economics This is how the cookie crumbles. Please do yourself the favor of reading it carefully. Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh $7. The eighth $12. The ninth $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the same restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"? The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal. So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings). Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "But he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even HALF of the bill! And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean. David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D Distinguished Professor of Economics 536 Brooks Hall University of Georgia
*cough* payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, cough, medicare *cough* BTW, with his last line, is professor Kamershcen proposing that without massive tax cuts, rich people will start to use offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share? Yeah, thank god for those tax cuts, that will never happen now. BTW again, Prof. Kamerschen doesn't account for the fact that the check is 500 billion more than 10 bucks. Who's going to pay for that?
C'mon Liberals...This explanation, is as basic as it can get...I posted this with the intent to educate, but I'm afraid that those to whom this explanation was intended will still not understand, and therefore we will still be exploited by the liberals.
Such patronism out of the mouths of simpletons. rrj, silly examples like this might make for good republican email fodder, but there are any number of threads analyzing this and other tax related issues on a much higher level. Have fun reading them.
this has been going around for a number of years..attributed to a number of professors (in an attempt to give it validity) http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp its interesting, but useless as a model of the real world this model gives the richest guy (10% of the people at dinner) 50% of the "tax cut" ($10 of the $20) Bush's tax cuts give the richest 1% a 29.8% share of the tax cut in 2004 and 44.8% of the tax cut to the richest 5%
LOL, that was the first place I looked but couldn't find it, I guess my mistake was by searching by the name of the professor.... .
Don't the conservatives on this board get tired of being routinely slapped around. This is not to say that all conservative positions are without merit, just that it seems the conservatives that participate on this board routinely post suspect material that is easily refuted and in the process make themselves and their positions look foolish. I actually have some admiration for their consistency and tenacity. The ones that stick around deserve credit for not retreating to right wing echo chambers like Free Republic.
Anyone who does not goosestep the liberal line on tax policy is a simpleton. Why is, then, you believe that govt and not individuals are better stewards of their own money? Why are you anti-achievement, which is what liberals are when they actively support confiscatory tax rates? Pathetic.
People who post dubious chain emails full of junkonomics and then claim that they are "educating" us are simpletons, rather amusing ones at that. You would be the same, except you're just not as amusing as you used to be, Yosemite. You need a new act.