OT: Rating the President

[Fian]

Explain to me how requiring the rich to pay less taxes is a subsidy to them? Personally, I think it is shameful how we are exploting the rich and using class warfare to justify it. Even with Bush's plan, many people with kids will end up RECEIVING money from the government instead of paying income tax. A family of 4 with two kids that makes 40k a year will pay almost no income tax. The top 50% of those in the US pay almost all of the income tax. (See www.rushlimbaugh.com for figures and analysis (he quotes the IRS I believe))

[rextorres]

Well this chart is income tax this chart does NOT include Social Security tax.

Rush (conveniently) forgets to mention that everyone pays 8.9% of their income to Social Security for the first 77k of income so the %s are deceptive. So someone making $20K pays ~ $1900 BEFORE deductions and 40K pays $3800 BEFORE deductions and someone making $1million pays 77K x 8.9% (whatever that is). There are a lot more people making less than 77k.

All this is supposed to go to Social Security and theoretically your supposed to get that back when you retire BUT it is all being lumped together together in the general fund to pay for non social security line items (that is what the lock box is all about BTW for those of you who don't know) - so Rush's figure is partly right because even though it seems like the wealthy are paying a huge amount more - they are not.

So since the tax cut applies only to income tax not Social Security tax someone making 20k doesn't get any tax cut but still pays the same rate of 8.9% for social security. Someone making a million dollars gets a 3%(?) tax cut.

Voila the millionaire subsidy.

EDIT: If the resident had been sincere about giving "the people back their money" he would have also lowered the Social Security tax but he didn't. Why not? The Social Security tax is 44% of revenue AND is mostly paid by lower income people.

[ February 05, 2003, 23:40: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[Fian]

OK, I will agree that everyone does pay other types of taxes. You could also have mentioned the gas tax as well (and probably the employer side taxes as well). So long as the cost of Social Security don't decrease, I don't see a reason to decrease the Social Security tax (in fact with the prescription drug benefit maybe we should be thinking about expanding it). In my opinion, the Poor/Middle Class should pay Social Security tax as it is a benefit that they are receiving, just like I paid into a 401k plan for my retirement as well. One other reason that social security and gas taxes have not been discussed in a reduction is that they haven't been raised recently, unlike income tax. In a lot of ways, Bush's tax cut is a repeal of Clinton's tax hike, who IIRC, placed the lion's share of the tax increase on the "rich." So this is the way it always seems to work. On a tax increase, most of the tax increase is placed on the rich. On a tax refund, people complain if most of the tax increase goes to the rich. As a result, the difference between the wealthy at 39% and the poor at 10% has become severe (forgive me if I have the tax brackets wrong). And with inflation people keep getting pushed up to higher and higher tax brackets.

Bottom line: If we like to raise taxes against the rich, then we should also reduce their taxes when we are looking at a tax refund.

[rextorres]

O.K. Let's say the millionaires deserve a tax cut because they have been taken advantage of by the system.

W is claiming that EVERYONE is getting a tax cut. What he is doing, however, is giving the top 5% a tax cut and financing it with the money collected through the social security tax which is meant to be used for social security.

If your in the top 5% make over 128k I suppose you'd want this, but if your not then your being duped into thinking that your getting a tax cut and the money your putting into social security and supposed to get back is being spent.

As I mentioned Social Security amounts to 44% of revenue which people forget and it is NOT being put away for social security.

EDIT: If you don't care about Social Security fine just tell people that the money they're paying for Social Security isn't for Social Security and call it what it is: Income Tax.

[ February 06, 2003, 00:50: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[Fian]

"O.K. Let's say the millionaires deserve a tax cut because they have been taken advantage of by the system."
OK, we agree here. (:

"W is claiming that EVERYONE is getting a tax cut. "
My understanding is if you pay income tax, OR have children, you are getting a tax cut. To be honest, if you aren't doing either, and are at a workable age, you are a drain on society, and certainly don't deserve to be getting even more money from the government.

"If your in the top 5% make over 128k "
I probably make just under 100k a year, so no, I am not in the top 5% by your numbers. I am not pushing this because it benefits me. I push it because it is the right thing to do. If I ever do make it to the top 5%, I would like to think I was treated fairly.

"but if your not then your being duped"
More of this class warfare argument. Rich versus poor. Well, in America the Rich are the ones persecuted, because they make a smaller voting block than the poor. I for one, would like it to stop, and start giving back to them some of the money that has been taken away.

"If you don't care about Social Security fine just tell people that the money they're paying for Social Security isn't for Social Security and call it what it is: Income Tax."

My understanding is that when you go into deficit spending (which we currently are), you do raid Social Security funds. For a while there when we had a surplus, we were not raiding Social Security funds. It therefore appears to me (and in case you haven't noticed yet, I am not an expert in federal budgets, but my guess is you aren't either (: ), that the 44% of the money that is SS, is not considered a part of the budget money. Only a small fraction is raided when you run into deficit spending. George Bush's plan is that this tax cut will spur the economy which will raise tax revenues, which will make borrowing from SS unnecessary. If we can actually manage to avoid deficit spending for some time, we might be able to better analyze whether the current SS taxes are too high based on the demand of the SS system. If we find, that we can meet the needs of SS with a lower tax rate on it, I am all for cutting it. However, at this point, there is more concern that SS will be inadequate and therefore the tax rate raised. If that occurs, cutting it right now for "everyone" would be sending the wrong message about Social Security.

[Dralasite]

Here something I don't understand. How is W's tax policy different from Bush seniors? I don't think they call it "trickle down" economics anymore (its "supply side" now, right?), but I can't tell how it is different, if it is.

[Fyron]

(sound familiar? lower taxes on the wealthy make people want to borrow by lowering interest rates)"

Maybe you need to read an economics text book too. Those 2 things are in no way directly related. Lowering interest rates does not _always_ cause problems. In fact, sometimes it is the best thing to do for the economy. It depends on the current issues at hand. And, the president has NO influence/control over interest rates.

The main cause of the depression was lack of regulation of the stock market and banking institutions.

No, that is not true. There were many things that caused the depression, not just 2. Overproduction as a result of WWI caused a lot more damage than lack of regulation. Regulation in no way equals prosperity. Too much regulation does more harm than not enough regulation (unless you want to support the huge corporations at the expense of small businesses, of course).

I guess trying to help these people doesn't fit into your philosophy, but a revolution probably would have been worse

Don't pretend to know my philosophies based on an occasional post or two.

the New Deal helped alleviate the tensions.

My argument was that FDR's actions did nothing to help the economy. The GDP continued to fall throughout most of the first and second New Deals. Only WWII saved us from the depression.

As far as the deficit goes - where did you get your info or did you just make that up?

Let's see... overspending + low tax revenue = deficit.

There was a spike during WWII - but based on how you feel about war that shouldn't bother you.

And how do I feel about war? I have made no Posts indicating how I feel about war. What do you base this on?