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Forums - General Discussion - Obama: Cut the deficit by taxing the rich

axt113 on 14 April 2011
Kasz216 said:
axt113 said:
Kasz216 said:

Also, taxing the rich more is a BIG risk.

Because well... when times are bad, the amount of money the rich pay in taxes shrink heavily... because the rich are hurt the most by economic crashes.

So, the times when you need money the most... you will have the least amount of money availible... and when you need the least amount of money, you have the most.

Isn't this how we got here?


Actually the rich emerged from this recession in a better position than anyone else

Not according to the statistics. The Gini coefficent grew slower, and in some years dropped.

When the economy was healthy the gini coefficent grew fast.  Espiecally under Clinton and the .com boom.

From wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#US_income_Gini_indices_over_time

  • 2000: 46.2
  • 2005: 46.9
  • 2006: 47.0 (highest index reported)
  • 2007: 46.3
  • 2008: 46.69
  • 2009: 46.8

Income dispartiy may have declined .2 from its peak (a tiny amount) but it didn;t stop the wealthy from getting richer

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/22/us-wealthreport-idUSTRE65L36T20100622

 In North America, the ranks of the rich rose 17 percent and their wealth grew 18 percent to $10.7 trillion.

At the same time the  country is experiencing 8.8% unemployment and the middle class is seeing wages pretty much stagnate

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm

Basically this decade under tax cuts we saw low economic and job growth and eventually a massive recession, while the rich got richer, and even with a minucule decline from their peak are still doing far better than the middle and lower class right now, and they have also not led to increased revenues for the government.  Seems to be no reason to keep them in place, lets go back tothe Clinton era level, you know the years of peace and prosperity, where the government had a surplus and people were employed.

 



Rumors indicate that it is planning on following the first approach, sticking a new, motion-sensitive controller onto an existing console. Our perspective is that this is the worst of the three options.

-Clayton Christensen back in 2007 already knew Move would be a bad idea

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mrstickball on 14 April 2011
axt113 said:
mrstickball said:
axt113 said:
mrstickball said:

The issue isn't raising taxes on the rich. That really won't help. Every time we've lowered taxes for the rich, the percentage of income taxes we've gathered from them has actually gone up. Not down.

The real issue is cutting of subsidies and tax credits to the rich. Some of the richest people pay less than the middle class because they are given huge credits because of one thing or another. They have great accountants, too.

In reality, if we imposed a flat tax that offered virtually no subsidies, no incentives for particular behaviors, we would likely collect a lot more, and would ensure that those not paying wouldn't be able to dodge taxes.

Furthermore, fixing the tax code won't fix the entire problem. We had a $1.5 trillion deficit in the last year alone. Put it this way, under George W. Bush, our debt increased by $5 trillion dollars. Obama's increase in the deficit was 1/3rd of that in just one year.

To fix it, we do have to increase revenues by reforming the tax code, but also slash every single budget that the government has. Jon Stewart's Ryan rebuttal is a tragedy, because you can't really project future revenues all that well by changing the tax code, because we've seen that it rarely follows along expected forecasts. The only known quantity in a budget are actual outlays in spending, which is far more stable. Therefore, the more responsible thing to do is to cut spending. Of course, a lot of people hate doing that, because you can tax and reduce spending on anyone, until it effects you. We've seen that happen to horrible results all over the Western world when the government has had to introduce austerity measures.

And if you want information about tax rates and correlation of tax revenues:

Stick, by your own chart, we recieved more money from the rich in the late 90's when taxes were higher than we ever recieved from them in the 2000's

The Bush tax cuts were started at the very bottom of that trough, not before. Therefore, you could also say that the tax cuts led to a significant increase in the top 1% paying their share of taxes. Having said that, the reason that taxes among the top 1% dropped so quickly was likely due to the .com bust in the late 90's which damaged the stock market and hurt a lot of wealth at the top end.

Furthermore, you can see a significant increase in taxation among the top 1% after the Reagan-era tax cuts. Thats why we have the argument of the laffer curve. Furthermore, you can also note that tax income from the bottom 95% dropped significantly during the late 90s, which shows that the tax burden really moved from the top 1% to the top 5%, which was still taxing the rich. So we are still recieving ever-more money from the rich. Pay attention to the red line, its the most important


No actually the first act, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, actually occurs before the bottom of that trough, as the trough bottoms out around 2003, you could argue that the 9/11 events and the collapse of the tech bubble plays a role, but its clear that the tax cuts helped to reduce our revenue, in fact our revenue never gets back to pre tax cut levels, destrorying your argument that tax cuts increases our revenue.

 

Your argument just proves that the Clinton era tax rates are the ideal rates

Define 'ideal rates'

We still collected far more money after the Bush tax cuts than ever before:

And as stated (which you failed to read), the tax burden has continued to increase drastically for those in the top 5% of income earners after Bushes tax cuts. If you believe that Clinton-era taxes are optimal, then I must ask you why you believe that burden should be borne by the 95% of earners, as the charts strongly state that we're collecting far more taxes from the top 5% than ever before. Taxes have gone from the top 5% paying for 58% of all revenues to approximately 70%.

Here's the chart of the percentage of taxes paid from the top 5% to illustrate the point:



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

axt113 on 14 April 2011

First off, a few notes, if you look at the lines, the tax revenues have fallen actually down to about 2000 levels, not to mention, those are not adjusted for changes in GDP, nor for changes i nthe wealth levels of the rich, you argue that the rich are paying more of the portion of the taxes, the problem is, it has not kept pace with the changes in their wealth, they hav gained wealth faster than they have increased any percentage of the total taxes paid, if tax rates were returned to Clinto levels, they would bepaying more and the tax revenue generated would be higher.



Rumors indicate that it is planning on following the first approach, sticking a new, motion-sensitive controller onto an existing console. Our perspective is that this is the worst of the three options.

-Clayton Christensen back in 2007 already knew Move would be a bad idea

mrstickball on 14 April 2011
axt113 said:

First off, a few notes, if you look at the lines, the tax revenues have fallen actually down to about 2000 levels, not to mention, those are not adjusted for changes in GDP, nor for changes i nthe wealth levels of the rich, you argue that the rich are paying more of the portion of the taxes, the problem is, it has not kept pace with the changes in their wealth, they hav gained wealth faster than they have increased any percentage of the total taxes paid, if tax rates were returned to Clinto levels, they would bepaying more and the tax revenue generated would be higher.

Can you give some data to back up your claims that income among the top 5% is outstripping the percentage of taxes recieved from them?



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

IamAwsome on 14 April 2011

This is one thing that should have happened years ago. Now Obama is fixing Bush's mess.



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Baalzamon on 14 April 2011

Sorry, but this isn't going to happen.  With all of the pork spending, and overspending on stuff we have now, especially considering politicians seem to think a lot of this is necessary, I personally don't think it is even possible for us to break even on our budget, at least for a while.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

Baalzamon on 14 April 2011
IamAwsome said:

This is one thing that should have happened years ago. Now Obama is fixing Bush's mess.

You honest to god think what he is saying is actually going to happen?

Since everything was supposedly Bush's fault, why the fuck have the Democrats who were in power of Senate and House since 2007 not fixed stuff already.  They have had 4 years already!!!!  If people are going to continue fucking blaming the republicans and bush for wreaking everything, then fucking fix it.  You have had 4 years, and have shown you do not have the ability to fix it either.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

Kasz216 on 14 April 2011
axt113 said:
Kasz216 said:
axt113 said:
Kasz216 said:

Also, taxing the rich more is a BIG risk.

Because well... when times are bad, the amount of money the rich pay in taxes shrink heavily... because the rich are hurt the most by economic crashes.

So, the times when you need money the most... you will have the least amount of money availible... and when you need the least amount of money, you have the most.

Isn't this how we got here?


Actually the rich emerged from this recession in a better position than anyone else

Not according to the statistics. The Gini coefficent grew slower, and in some years dropped.

When the economy was healthy the gini coefficent grew fast.  Espiecally under Clinton and the .com boom.

From wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#US_income_Gini_indices_over_time

  • 2000: 46.2
  • 2005: 46.9
  • 2006: 47.0 (highest index reported)
  • 2007: 46.3
  • 2008: 46.69
  • 2009: 46.8

Income dispartiy may have declined .2 from its peak (a tiny amount) but it didn;t stop the wealthy from getting richer

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/22/us-wealthreport-idUSTRE65L36T20100622

 In North America, the ranks of the rich rose 17 percent and their wealth grew 18 percent to $10.7 trillion.

At the same time the  country is experiencing 8.8% unemployment and the middle class is seeing wages pretty much stagnate

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm

Basically this decade under tax cuts we saw low economic and job growth and eventually a massive recession, while the rich got richer, and even with a minucule decline from their peak are still doing far better than the middle and lower class right now, and they have also not led to increased revenues for the government.  Seems to be no reason to keep them in place, lets go back tothe Clinton era level, you know the years of peace and prosperity, where the government had a surplus and people were employed.

 


I like how you quoted an article that proved you wrong, on the hopes that I wouldn't click on it.

I also don't understand your issue with the number of millionaires growing.  I mean that's a good thing not a bad one?

If anything, the number of millionaires going down would be a bad sign.


I mean, I'm not sure you quite grasp how the economy works, and I don't mean that in an insulting way, I mean I literally don't think you understand.

The  economy is not a fixed system.  Wealth is created and it is destroyed, so wealth % growth by a single group means nothing.... ESPIECALLY when that group's numbers are growing.


This is exactly why the gini-coeefficent exists... to judge such things.



IamAwsome on 14 April 2011
Baalzamon said:
IamAwsome said:

This is one thing that should have happened years ago. Now Obama is fixing Bush's mess.

You honest to god think what he is saying is actually going to happen?

Since everything was supposedly Bush's fault, why the fuck have the Democrats who were in power of Senate and House since 2007 not fixed stuff already.  They have had 4 years already!!!!  If people are going to continue fucking blaming the republicans and bush for wreaking everything, then fucking fix it.  You have had 4 years, and have shown you do not have the ability to fix it either.

Do you know how big the defecit is? Do you really think it will take ONE term for the economy to be back on it's feet again? It took around three terms to ruin the economy, so it will take more to fix it. It's not ike the democrats sit around and do nothing.



mrstickball on 14 April 2011
IamAwsome said:
Baalzamon said:
IamAwsome said:

This is one thing that should have happened years ago. Now Obama is fixing Bush's mess.

You honest to god think what he is saying is actually going to happen?

Since everything was supposedly Bush's fault, why the fuck have the Democrats who were in power of Senate and House since 2007 not fixed stuff already.  They have had 4 years already!!!!  If people are going to continue fucking blaming the republicans and bush for wreaking everything, then fucking fix it.  You have had 4 years, and have shown you do not have the ability to fix it either.

Do you know how big the defecit is? Do you really think it will take ONE term for the economy to be back on it's feet again? It took around three terms to ruin the economy, so it will take more to fix it. It's not ike the democrats sit around and do nothing. 

You are right. They've greatly increased the rate of which we're going into the deficit since they were elected to a majority in both the house and senate in 2006.

It may take more than 1 term to get things done, but we've seen that between Bush and Obama, you can really screw a country up in 4 or 6 years. We could likely do a lot of great austerity measures in 4 or 8 years with the right people.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.