OBAMA'S MOUNTAIN OF DEBT (PICTORIAL LOOK)

[CJ7]

the tax cuts bush passed are deff not the cause of the mass deficit, but nthey are a very large percentage of the problem.

Marry them with paying for 2 wars of attrition, passing 1100 spending bills in 1700 days, and special interest earmarks out the gazoo for 5 years, and you have the entire answer.

Reagan, spent tons of $ on the cold war, and cut taxes at the top. Lowering revenue and spending big $ never has and never will work in an economy.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CJ7

the tax cuts bush passed are deff not the cause of the mass deficit, but nthey are a very large percentage of the problem.

Marry them with paying for 2 wars of attrition, passing 1100 spending bills in 1700 days, and special interest earmarks out the gazoo for 5 years, and you have the entire answer.

Reagan, spent tons of $ on the cold war, and cut taxes at the top. Lowering revenue and spending big $ never has and never will work in an economy.

The Bush tax cuts (over 80% of which went to lower income groups, as I said earlier) account for somewhere between 25% and 30% of the current fiscal deficit. Rapid spending increases (under both Bush and Obama, and multiple congresses controlled by both parties) account for most of the deficit. The wars account for about 10% of recent years' deficits, although that number was considerably higher before the deficits became so swollen.

When you said that Reagan "cut taxes at the top", do you mean that you think most of the 1980s tax cuts went to the wealthy? That isn't the case; during that period as well, most of the tax cuts went to the middle class.

In fact, most people don't realize this, but the 1986 tax reform act actually raised taxes on the wealthy, and by a significant amount. A lot of his wealthy donors were pissed off about that, but he and other administration officials stuck to their guns.

(Yeah, I know. That's the opposite of what most people think! Don't believe everything you read.)

I certainly agree with you that cutting taxes while running up big spending increases is certainly a good way to destabilize an economy. But we've been doing it for years, as both the Democrats and the Republicans have simply become "free lunch" parties.

[Little Stevie]

Originally Posted by CJ7

the tax cuts bush passed are deff not the cause of the mass deficit, but nthey are a very large percentage of the problem.

Marry them with paying for 2 wars of attrition, passing 1100 spending bills in 1700 days, and special interest earmarks out the gazoo for 5 years, and you have the entire answer.

Reagan, spent tons of $ on the cold war, and cut taxes at the top. Lowering revenue and spending big $ never has and never will work in an economy.

+1 along with corporate manipulation of many of the tax and depreciation codes they paid lobbyists to create.

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

The Bush tax cuts (over 80% of which went to lower income groups, as I said earlier) account for somewhere between 25% and 30% of the current fiscal deficit.

Eighty percent of a dollar is 80 Cents. 20% of a thousand dollars is $200.00

Nice try, Cap'n.

The wars account for about 10% of recent years' deficits.

Not true - go back to the CBO and look again.

There are many more tax benefits available to the wealthiest among us than to the bottom 50%.

Try the annual earnings ceiling on S.S. tax contributions on wages. Try interest on home mortgages. Try depreciation on luxury auto used for business. Why should some poor bloke earning $30K a year be OK with my depreciating the sound system on my company Mercedes or its many other luxury features. Why not only allowing a "generic black sedan with no alloy wheels, etc" amount of depreciation to everyone?

Why do almost 19,000 U.S. Corporation office in the Cayman Islands in name only while small businesses may not be able to avail themselves to those same tax advantages? Why must Fox "News" overuse the term "job creators" when only 6% of ALL small businesses have any employees besides the principle or owner?

Start counting those as the "Bush Tax Cuts", too, because many were modified under his tenure. Remember the one-year $100,000 depreciation stimulus by Bush that artificially created a market for Hummers because, they qualified a "work trucks" for oil & gas landmen, "gentlemen tax break ranchers" and "Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus Shalionaires"?

[CJ7]

mea culpa for using TOP.

http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-g...t/reagtxct.htm

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

The Bush tax cuts (over 80% of which went to lower income groups, as I said earlier) account for somewhere between 25% and 30% of the current fiscal deficit. Rapid spending increases (under both Bush and Obama, and multiple congresses controlled by both parties) account for most of the deficit. The wars account for about 10% of recent years' deficits, although that number was considerably higher before the deficits became so swollen.

When you said that Reagan "cut taxes at the top", do you mean that you think most of the 1980s tax cuts went to the wealthy? That isn't the case; during that period as well, most of the tax cuts went to the middle class.

In fact, most people don't realize this, but the 1986 tax reform act actually raised taxes on the wealthy, and by a significant amount. A lot of his wealthy donors were pissed off about that, but he and other administration officials stuck to their guns.

(Yeah, I know. That's the opposite of what most people think! Don't believe everything you read.)

I certainly agree with you that cutting taxes while running up big spending increases is certainly a good way to destabilize an economy. But we've been doing it for years, as both the Democrats and the Republicans have simply become "free lunch" parties.

Free lunch mongers, indeed.

an interesting view of wars/tax cuts

Some commentators blame major legislation adopted in 2008-2010 — the stimulus bill and other recovery measures and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit. Those other policies may be less conspicuous now, because many were enacted some years ago and they have long since been absorbed into CBO’s and other organizations’ budget projections.
Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [7] By 2019, we estimate that these two policies will account for almost half — nearly $10 trillion — of the $20 trillion in debt that will be owed under current policies.[8] (The Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 also will substantially increase deficits and debt, but we are unable to quantify these impacts due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues, which will account for less than $2 trillion (less than 10 percent) of the debt at that time. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers


(disclaimer; the cbpp article does not dismiss the sitting prez)

[CuteOldGuy]

Uh, Louie. The bottom 50% don't pay any taxes. It's hard for them to experience tax relief when they don't pay. Many do get the refundable tax credits, which are really welfare payments.

Again, we can waste time placing blame, or we can fix the problem. I'd rather see us argue about who gets the credit for getting the economy on a stable footing.

[CJ7]

However, being exempt from income tax does not mean you’re exempt from federal taxes. Everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes, contributions to Medicare and Social Security that come out of every paycheck. There are also excise taxes on some goods and services, most notably the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline. The Congressional Budget Office found that earners in the lowest quintile, where most of those with no income tax liability fall, shouldered 4.3 percent of the payroll tax burden in 2005 and 11.1 percent of the excise taxes. Their effective tax rate (which is calculated by dividing taxes paid by total income) in those categories, according to the CBO, was in fact significantly higher than the rate of the top quintile, although that top one-fifth of the population had a much higher effective tax rate for individual and corporate income taxes.

[CuteOldGuy]

Very good. Excise taxes. The payroll tax has been significantly reduced. They also pay sales taxes. So what's your point? The rich pay those as well. The difference comes in the income tax, and there the bottom 50% pay nothing. The top earners pay much more than that. Unless you are a friend of Obama, like General Electric, and pay nothing.

You are mixing apples and oranges. Again, nice try.

[CJ7]

GE didnt pay jackshit when the cheerleader was in offise either

dont nice try me pal, whine to the CBO

[CuteOldGuy]

Another nice try. Why didn't Obama fix it? I thought he was on the side of "little guy". He is no different from any other random politician.

[CJ7]

why didnt the republicans fix it prior ot Obe, they had the floor for 5 straight years? corporate taxes have been declining since the 60's

[CuteOldGuy]

Blame Bush. Nice try.

[Texas Contrarian]

Stevie,

With regards to your statement (post #33) that "80% of a dollar is 80 cents, and 20% of a thousand dollars is $200", what is your point? That simply looks like a non sequitur to me. If you disagree, then please explain, especially since you followed that statement with "Nice try, Cap'n."

My point was simply that according to CBO estimates, extending all the Bush-era tax cuts would have a 10-year "cost" of about $3.7 trillion, whereas reinstating the 1990s rates only on those households with incomes above $250K would "cost" the Treasury approximately $3 billion over the next decade. That seems clear enough to me. (Of course, their estimates utilize static analylis, so total 10-year revenues of top-bracket rate increases would be less than $700 billion. After all, we do live in the real world!)

The rest of your laundry list of items hardly makes a penny's worth of difference in the overall scheme of things. And for that matter, most of the "breaks" (and a lot more in years gone by!) have been avaialble for many decades.

And you had a quibble with my statement that the cost of the wars in recent years represented about 10% of the fiscal deficit. Since the latter has been running about $1.3-1.5 trillion in recent years, and since the cost of the wars has averaged somewhere in the $130-150 billion range for some time, how is my estimate very far from the mark?

CJ7, thanks for posting that report (post #34). It's a concise but informed look at the issue. A lot of people think that just because the top-bracket rate came down all the way from 70% to 28% during the 1980s, the wealthy got a "huge" tax break. That's not true at all. The simple fact is that few wealthy taxpayers were paying an effective tax rate more than a small percentage of 70%. Using leverage and accelerated depreciation, for example, it was easy to shelter most, or in some cases virtually all of your income from taxation. The 1986 tax reform kicked out almost all significant deductions and exclusions.

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by CJ7

However, being exempt from income tax does not mean you’re exempt from federal taxes. Everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes, contributions to Medicare and Social Security that come out of every paycheck. There are also excise taxes on some goods and services, most notably the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline. The Congressional Budget Office found that earners in the lowest quintile, where most of those with no income tax liability fall, shouldered 4.3 percent of the payroll tax burden in 2005 and 11.1 percent of the excise taxes. Their effective tax rate (which is calculated by dividing taxes paid by total income) in those categories, according to the CBO, was in fact significantly higher than the rate of the top quintile, although that top one-fifth of the population had a much higher effective tax rate for individual and corporate income taxes.

You did not write this. You stole and did not give credit to author. Like I said a Fraud.

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

You did not write this. You stole and did not give credit to author. Like I said a Fraud.

idiot.