NYTimes: it is necessary to raise taxes on the middle class

No, I'm not saying they don't have any impact, but I'm saying you're kidding yourself if you're telling me that 20-25% is a drop in teh bucket.

Yes, and empirical evidence has shown that those effects are very tiny. Certainly, much less than the negative impact from the budget cuts that you are saying we divert our attention to instead.

 

If the impact is really on the top .1% regarding savings, then I would agree as I know thy aren't spending that saved money. But I still think saying college is more expensive due solely to tax cuts is a stretch. I will rescind my drop in the bucket comment but stand by the rest.

 

I accept your rescission, and agree that college is not more expensive solely due to tax cuts; that system is broken for many other reasons.

 

I love how the goal posts for being rich keep moving. First it was 1%, then it was 2%, now it's 5%.

I'm sorry, but $175,000 is not "rich." That's easily attainable for a married, middle class family.

 

175 is good for a city like Houston. It just depends on where you live.

Also, there is a difference in between being "rich" and "wealthy".

 

What has he not done?

 

I love how you get stone-cold busted as wrong and you just quibble at the margins without really bothering to examine your point and why it's not valid.

Anyway, move the goalposts to wherever you want them. The fact of the matter is that the Bush tax cuts have real costs that are fiscally significant, and that the benefits of these cuts disproportionately flow upward, to the top 5, top 1 and top 0.1 percent.

By the time you get to the top 0.1%, you're probably only talking about 1% of the annual budget deficit due to lost revenue....pardon me, but why the **** should that matter?

It's a drop in the bucket, so therefore we should take the money from somebody else, so that people who are very rich ($1.6 million annual income and up) arent affected. In what universe does that logic make any sense at all?

Why don't we just lower taxes on them to zero then, since it's also probably a drop in the bucket? And actually if you take any small slice of 1% or so, it's also a drop in the bucket. So let's make all taxes zero. Good idea?

 

Have you bothered to examine your invalid point?

 

Uh, so then where are the rest of the deductions?

Did they actually pay 42% of their income in taxes, or did they take deductions which made it much lower?

Yes or no.

And then you can move on to the rest of my questions.

EDIT - just a guess here did you actually take the deductions out of their income when calculating their tax liabilities, and so you're factoring their income at 600,000 or whatever, when it's actually $1 million? and then telling us that they pay 40% of their income in taxes, since it's 250k on 600k, instead of 20% or so of whatever their actual income is?

That would be exactly in line with the empirical data about effective tax rates if so. And basically it's laughable if that's what you did.

 

I missed the late night salvo. Let's see.

 

I don't accept this premise that tax cuts "cost" the government anything. This implies that all money is property of the government. It implies that everything that manifests from one's physical/mental labor in the form of money is also the government's, and that we should be thankful for whatever percentage we're allowed to keep.

The problem is NOT tax rates. The problem is spending. The real debate is where to cut spending, which is a much more worthwhile debate to have.

 

It doesn't imply that at all. It implies that both revenue and expenses are equally important in budgetary matters.

I see that you dispute this premise. Good luck with that.

 

Medicare, SS, interest, and military consume the majority of the federal budget. Medicare and SS are promised to seniors. Do you want to cut those two programs? DO you want to default on the debt? People keep saying cut costs, but all those little programs combined won't dent the overall tax expenditure of the US.

 

Actually if you drop the taxes to zero on the rich, you'll bankrupt the government. Seeing as how they are paying 40% of ALL federal taxes. (70% if you include the top 5%).

BUT, I'll also play data ball - Using non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation

https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3715

2 year extension of ALL current tax law = about $500 billion a year (the payroll tax cut is included in this publication)

Of that $500 billion a year, the "costs" of the 33% and 35% bracket reductions is about $61 billion.

The itemized deduction credit "costs" $21 billion (and that hits a lot more people than just the rich).

The capital gains 15% rates (which again, hits lots more people than just the rich) "costs" a combined $48 billion.

Those are the "rich" provisions in the Bush/Obama tax cuts. A combined $130 billion out of $500 billion per year.

Like I said, scored as about 1/4. The 10% bracket alone costs $45 billion and child tax credit is $35 billion per year.

Hell, even if you count the estate tax costs at $30 billion a year (which it will never even come CLOSE to bringing in) you still have $340 out of $500 taht goes to the poor.

Hurts to be wrong, doesn't it Sam?

 

This is the quandry. And this is why I am baffled by people who believe in a benevolent government and who want to put even more trust in the same temporary politicians who long-term are bankrupting our country. Both parties are to blame, certainly.

Something must be done, and yes, if we're going to be honest these programs will have to be reformed in whatever capacity...there's a number of suggestions out there that aim to leave seniors who have been promised these things unaffected, but anything that's proposed is met with ridiculous scare tactics from the left about pushing grandma off the cliff, forcing seniors to eat dog food, and children breathing dirty air and drinking dirty.

Meanwhile, we have a sitting president who won't lead or even address any of this.

 

Medicare, Medicaid, SS, Welfare, and Interest (all mandatory spending that can't be cut from the "budget") consume 67% of the federal budget.

By 2016 that will be 75% (these are Obama's numbers not mine). http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

We spent more on Medicare and SS last year than we did for the entire Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Those programs will each cost more than $1 trillion a year by 2020 without changes in law.

Military spending will be around $550 billion by 2020.

You absolutely have to find a way to cut or reform both SS and Medicare (and Medicaid). Sorry, boomers. You didn't breed enough of us to pay for your retirement.

 

Right, because we have vast income inequality. Thanks for pointing it out!

It hurts from laughing at somebody who proudly thinks that $260 billion out of $500 going to the rich, with most of it skewed towards the super rich, proves your point that either 1) the cost is insignificant or 2) it's not ridiculously disproportionately skewed to the top.

Pride goeth before the fall, brah.

 

Somebody needs to learn how to do basic math. 500 - 160 = 340.

Here's a link that might help you. http://tutoring.sylvanlearning.com/math_tutoring_programs.cfm

 

Good catch.

Is 160 a drop in the bucket?

 

Is $340?