So, it looks like Bush thought the tax cuts were for the rich too... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml <I>Everything came to a head for O'Neill at a November 2002 meeting at the White House of the economic team. “It's a huge meeting. You got Dick Cheney from the, you know, secure location on the video. The President is there,” says Suskind, who was given a nearly verbatim transcript by someone who attended the meeting. He says everyone expected Mr. Bush to rubber stamp the plan under discussion: a big new tax cut. But, according to Suskind, the president was perhaps having second thoughts about cutting taxes again, and was uncharacteristically engaged. “<B>He asks, 'Haven't we already given money to rich people? This second tax cut's gonna do it again,</B>’” says Suskind. “He says, ‘Didn’t we already, why are we doing it again?’” Now, his advisers, they say, ‘Well Mr. President, the upper class, they're the entrepreneurs. That's the standard response.’ And the president kind of goes, ‘OK.’ That's their response. And then, he comes back to it again. ‘Well, shouldn't we be giving money to the middle, won't people be able to say, ‘You did it once, and then you did it twice, and what was it good for?’" But according to the transcript, White House political advisor Karl Rove jumped in. “Karl Rove is saying to the president, a kind of mantra. ‘Stick to principle. Stick to principle.’ He says it over and over again,” says Suskind. “Don’t waver.”</I> So... to everyone who defended the tax cuts as not being for the rich, what now? Fun stuff!
We're subsidizing some of the imbalance, as it were, by spending the Social Security surpluses on the deficit. Which the Bushies promised not to do. http://slate.msn.com/id/2093707/ , , , In the 2000 campaign, Vice President Al Gore said we should sequester the Social Security surpluses in a "lockbox" to prevent appropriators from spending them. Bush agreed in principle. But that commitment went out the window soon after the inauguration. In his first three budgets, Bush (who had the good fortune to take office at a time when the surpluses were growing rapidly) and Congress used $480 billion in excess Social Security payroll taxes to fund basic government operations—about $160 billion per year! . . .
Most people who get fired from the job don't typically portray things in the most objective light. O'Neill's commentary is nothing more than sour grapes. On the issue itself, the tax cuts have unquestionably led to fantastic recent economic performance (best quarter in 20 years) and a stock market at multi-year highs. Don't you liberals just hate it when things go right for Americans? It burns you up inside when America doesn't fail. The tax cuts are spurring economic growth.
Most people who get fired from the job don't typically portray things in the most objective light. O'Neill's commentary is nothing more than sour grapes. T-R-A-N-S-C-R-I-P-T-S. The tax cuts are spurring economic growth. http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=1425 <I>The president is working to grow the economy and create the largest number of new jobs possible for America’s workers. He has proposed a jobs and economic growth plan that would help create 510,000 new jobs this year and a total of 1.4 million new jobs by the end of next year. </I> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3916152/ <I>Weak holiday hiring by retailers was to blame for holding back job gains. Analysts were surprised by the anemic job growth because they expecting companies to add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs to their payrolls last month. But the net gain was just 1,000 jobs — which is “quite shocking,” Cheney said. “I would certainly have not expected anything resembling that.” Employment in the nation’s stores, malls and even gas stations dropped by 38,000, the report said, and manufacturing continued a 41-month slide by losing 26,000 jobs. The nation’s factories have been on life support, and the sector shed about a half million jobs in 2003. The economy has lost about 2.3 million jobs since President Bush took office... Friday’s report showed that employers have added just 277,000 new jobs since July, cutting earlier estimates of growth in October and November. </I> Yeah, those tax cuts are really doing what was promised. Or not.
LOL, business cycle, look it up. I don't feel like explaining to you for the thousanth time how a payroll tax holiday would have been more equitable and had a greater stimulus effect, so I won't.
Oh good grief. Class warfare from the liberals again... Must I post my FACTS and prove to you people once again that in the US, ONLY THE RICH PAY INCOME TAXES . 96% of the tax receipts are from the top 50% of wage earners. 36% are from the top 1%.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8423-2004Jan11.html Here's the main man: . . . Bad Guys and Evildoers Political pressure is the intended outcome of every meeting. Although members represent disparate causes, Norquist said, "they play nicely together." He calls it the "leave us alone" coalition. Unlike groups on the left, which fight among themselves for government aid, he said, the right unites over its disdain for government. Norquist sits in the middle of the table, ticking down a list of presenters. His features are pointy and directional, giving him a look of forward momentum. His eyebrows appear to be blown back by a headwind. In rapid succession, people take the microphone and make their appeal. On the estate tax: "Let's team up," urged Richard Patten, executive director of the American Family Business Institute. "We can amplify our separate armies and kill the death tax." On judicial nominees: "Blast-fax your media list," said Kerri Houston, vice president of policy at Frontiers of Freedom. "If this thing doesn't blow a hole through the Beltway, we're in big trouble." After a presentation by Matt Schlapp, the White House director for political affairs, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, exclaimed, "This is an administration that cares not just about the president, but about all the other races. I've never seen such coordination." Coordination, though, assumes cooperation. For those who do not cooperate, Norquist plays enforcer. Democrats are "bad guys," but errant Republicans are "evil." When the House voted to pass school vouchers in September, Norquist growled, "Who voted wrong on that?" A Hill staff member distributed the Republican blacklist. On the Internet access tax vote, he targeted two Republican senators from Tennessee and Ohio: "We're trying to get [Lamar] Alexander and [George] Voinovich to behave. Any advice appreciated." . . . Tuna Fish and Hand Lotion And yet Norquist's bachelor townhouse bears evidence of a man whose ideological core is hard. The art in his living room is early Ronald Reagan. His Costco-brand shirts hang in a closet under a picture of former Senate leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) signing a no-tax pledge. He is often described as an eccentric. For a bedside table, Norquist uses a giant green canister for Kraft parmesan cheese. He displays what he hopes will be the world's largest collection of airsickness bags. At staff meetings, employees say, he holds court while variously sitting on a giant red plastic ball, eating tuna from a can, rubbing his feet against a massager and sniffing hand lotion as he kneads it into his fingers. He excuses himself to go to "the ladies room." His manner is charming, though bitterness creeps into his voice when he talks about classmates at Harvard, where he attended college ('78) and business school ('81). As a Republican, Norquist felt isolated among the students, whom he calls "Bolsheviks." At a reunion in the early 1990s, he said, he told a classmate: "For 40 years we fought a two-front war against the Soviet Union and state-ism. Now we can turn all our time and energy to crushing you. With the Soviet Union, it was just business. With you, it's personal." He leaves the impression that perhaps some of the 18 hours a day he devotes to establishing a permanent Republican majority has to do with punishing college tormenters. As for being socially awkward, his mother had advised him when he was growing up in Weston, Mass., to "dance with the wallflowers." If you do, she said, you will be at the center of things . . . Democrats used to anger him, Norquist said. He's past angry now. "Do you get mad at cancer? We'll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We're not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover's world. I feel about the left the way [Donald H.] Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis." And after Norquist purges the United States, there is the rest of the world. He says this with the confidence of a man who uses a black laundry marker as a pen. He has helped start Wednesday meetings in Canada, New Zealand, England and Japan. He has learned to be patient: "I now understand you can't just explain to the idiots how to do it and to see it your way, because they're too foolish to see it." Norquist knows he will survive politically, as sure as he outlived Reagan and Gingrich. He will always be relevant, he said, because he embodies the issue that unifies Republicans: lower taxes . . .
Class warfare from the liberals again... Actually, if anything, it's class warfare by the Republicans, as Bush is the one claiming the tax cuts were for the wealthy (the entire point of this thread). ONLY THE RICH PAY INCOME TAXES . 96% of the tax receipts are from the top 50% of wage earners. So now the top 50% of Americans are classified as rich? Nice.
And the tax cuts Bush put forth did not go to help the top 50%, they went to the top 1% predominantly and will go to even richer families if the estate tax is repealed. The only class warfare here is the war being waged on middle and low class Americans by the GOP.
Thats incorrect, I just did my taxes on turbotax this weekend for 2003 using my numbers from 2002. Get this, I am paying $1800 B]LESS[/B] tax this year due to Bush's tax cut. And I am no where close to the top 1%. I dont know the numbers but I might not even be in the top 50%. The rest of America will see right though this liberal "Tax cut for the rich" falsity when their refund checks start coming in.
God, texx, have you learned anything? Why are you practicing the same old lame, pathetic Republican distortion tactic that I have exposed on multiple occasions in the past in these fora --artificially confine the debate to income taxes in order to strengthen your cause, deliberately ignore regressive social security and medicare taxes as well as property taxes that would otherwise weaken your argument: a really dishonest tactic. BTW, even if we assume that your fantasy land universe where the rich subsidize the rest of us, how come their increasing share of overall wealth has accelerated to the level not seen since the Gilded age? Your arguments in this area are so tired at this point, even your buffoonish President sees through this shallow logic. Just give it up and admit defeat.
Ahhh Samuel always nice to hear your frustrated rants. The topic was income taxes, so I talked about income taxes. That would be great if Bush could lower property taxes too, but since that's handled on a city level I'll just recognize that as another of your errors. Social security and medicare taxes? So the rich should pay for everybody's retirement and health care now, also? Wow Sam that's rich. And your point about the wealthy people's accelerating % of the overall wealth. Your logic once again falls apart by making the faulty assumption that lower taxes are the only way to increase one's share of wealth. Nevermind anything relevant such as productivity, investments, etc. Admit defeat to Samuel Fisher? I scoff at that!
But you didn't even say what you were ostensibly trying to say correctly, what you meant to say, at least, from the data you cited, was "THE RICH PAY A LARGE PART OF THE OVERALL INCOME TAX BURDEN NOT INCLUDING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE TAXES"; but it came out: "ONLY THE RICH PAY INCOME TAXES" A bit of a disconnect between the two, no? Typical republican distortion tactic. I also note that you said this "96% of the tax receipts are from the top 50% of wage earners. 36% are from the top 1%." when what you meant to say was this: " 96% of the federal income tax receipts not including social security, medicare, or other taxes are from the top 50% of wage earners. 36% are from the top 1%. " You have the edit function, use it. Or else be labeled as a wanton and reckless twister of truth. The choice is yours.
You may see $1800, but the ultra rich are getting the VAST majority of the dividends Bush is paying out. Remember that the costs will end up being covered by increases in costs to the middle and lower classes. Because of the fiscal irresponibility of this administration, I have taken an effective pay cut and the only reason I will see more in the form of tax refunds this year is because our child arrived on 12/29. I am not advocating to raise taxes on the rest of us, just the top 1%. They are the ones who owe the biggest debt to society and they are the ones who should pay that debt rather than lobbying to shirk that responsibility.
Too bad you don't know that you're a sucker. You got a lower reduction in both % and $ terms than people making more money than you:
Yes, those evil 1%. Those that are responsible for taking advantage of the capitalism afforded to them by createing and running companies that employ most of the other 99% of America. What other nation gives the lower 50% of the country more for thier tax dollar then the United States?
Those that are making more then me are the ones that got suckered. They were, and still are paying both a higher % and $ then me.
