For years now we have let the left frame the narrative that the rich in this country don’t pay their fair share. Even our President has joined in this effort to demonize the very folks who are the engine of our economy, the small business owners.
“The revenue we’re talking about isn’t coming out of the pockets of middle-class families that are struggling — it’s coming out of folks who are doing extraordinarily well and who are enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born. If you’re a — if you are a wealthy CEO or a … hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they have ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s.” – President Obama, June 29, 2011.
So a wealthy CEO or a hedge fund manager are making too much money and not paying enough.
Really?
For the honest answer to that question, let us turn to an organization that isn’t always very friendly to the United States, even though it was formed, in part by the US.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organization in which the 30 member countries discuss, develop and analyze economic and social policy. While all of the member countries are considered to be economically advanced and collectively produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services, membership is limited only by a country’s commitment to a market economy and a pluralistic democracy.
The OECD was actually born to replace the OEEC, or the Organization for European Economic Cooperation which itself was created to administer the Marshall Plan. In 1961 the OECD was formed to takeover from the OEEC, with the emphasis being to develop strong economies in its member countries.
In a 2008 study released by the OECD, it found that America had the most progressive income tax system in the industrialized world. By looking at the richest 10% in each country, they found that America has the greatest share of personal and payroll taxes combined than in any other country in the world, for the richest 10%. In the US, the richest 10% pay a whopping 45.1% of their income in taxes; more than every other industrialized country in the world.
The next step is to see how much of the market income is earned by that top 10%. In America, they earn 33.5% of the market share of income. When you take those two figures and find the ratio of taxes to income, a surprising statistic pops out. Those evil rich people in America pay more in taxes in relation to their income than any other country, also.
No other country places that much of a burden on their top income earners, yet to hear the left – and our President – tell it, those evil rich people just need to turn over more of their income because it is only fair.
How dare we let the left frame the debate like this. We are not suffering from an income problem in this country; we are suffering from a SPENDING problem. But Obama still wants to increase taxes on small business owners, who are in many cases among the top 10% of income earners in America. This of course will only worsen the situation economically here in the US, for if the small business owners are afraid that more of their private property will be confiscated, then our economy will continue to drag along on the bottom.
Thomas Jefferson said it best –
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21128.pdf
@Greg:
Greg, you are making my point while missing yours entirely. I am well aware of the fact that tax rates have been higher in the past, and the wealthy elitists from both parties finagled loopholes for themselves to shield as much of their income as possible from the taxman -and that the middle income folks didn’t make enough to benefit from said loopholes. That’s not a justification for raising tax rates – it’s an indictment of the inherent criminality of basing taxation on the ideology of Marx’s class warfare. We could make our economy go beyond anything we’ve ever seen by doing away with the progressive income tax and converting to either a simple federal sales tax or a straight single rate for everyone flat tax with no exemptions. The only reason these two far more equitable methods won’t be implemented is because it takes power away from our political overlords, and would require a reduction in ridiculous federal spending, which is the smokescreen used to buy the votes of the lazy and uneducated. Keynesian economics have NEVER worked. Socialism is failing all over Europe (Greece, Portugal, Ireland and now apparently Italy) because as Lady Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
Don’t confuse me with being a republican partisan, please. I am well aware that the shenanigans happen on both sides….I puked a bit in my mouth when Gingrich did that asinine commercial on the couch with that troll Pelosi. It is conservative, constitutional republicanism in which I believe, but since there is no political party that completely professes what I believe, I have to hold my nose and vote for the least marxist SOB on the ticket.
Bottom line – you can try to play strawman arguments all you want, Greg, but you refuse to recognize the utter morale bankruptcy of using the government to steal wealth from someone who earned it to give it to someone who didn’t all for the purpose of gaining/keeping political power. Yes, we have to pay some taxes for the federal government to have the funds to do what it is constitutionally designed to do. But the federal government has no business whatsoever using tax dollars to pay for abortions or viagra, or to fund any kind of art, or to give $20 billion dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood cabal about to take control of the government of Egypt. The brilliant design of our constitutional republic is clearly laid out in “The Federalist Papers”. You might want to consider taking a good read of that book to understand why people like me have had enough of being taxed to death, and are not at all interested in giving any more money to a spoiled brat who tripled the federal deficit his first year in office, and has almost double the unemployment rate of the previous 2 presidents, and continually spouts marxist drivel when he’s reading his teleprompter.
@Babydoc:
Great answer, Babydoc.
Deficits for the last ten years:
2011 $1,500 Billion – Obama
2010 $1,300 Billion – Obama
2009 $1,400 Billion – Obama
_______________________________
Total $4,200 Billion – Obama
But….let’s blame Bush!
2008 $240 Billion- Bush
2007 $161 Billion – Bush
2006 $248 Billion – Bush
2005 $319 Billion – Bush
2004 $412 Billion – Bush
2003 $374 Billion – Bush
2002 $159 Billion – Bush
___________________________
Total $1,913 Billion – Bush
babydoc, I am all for a simpe flat tax, no exemptions, none; not for your children, your mortgage interest, not for future expenditures. None of it. A simple formula for business is that businesses make X and it cost Y to produce the product; X minus Y equals profit and that is what taxes are paid on.
Greg seems to be of the opinion that if you pay $1.00 into the federal government, a $1.00 is dumped back into the economy. But that is not true. 40 cents of that dollar lands with a big thud in D.C., never to be seen again. It’s called “administrative” costs, so perhaps it is time to get rid of some of the administrators.
People like Greg will also complain about our military costs but will never take on the costs of welfare benefits to non-productive citizens. There is a good book out that explains how the government robs us of what should legally be ours, the result of our labor and ideas: Stealing From Each Other The book is pretty heaving on economic data and kinda hard to read, but well worth your time.
Well, I guess Doug answered my question for Greg. Yes, an increase in taxes on the top 5% of wage earners, back to the Clinton-era tax rates, would only bring in around $70 Billion more a year. Compared to what the deficit is, that is a minimal, and completely useless amount. And, what’s more, the negative effect of taking that money out of the economy is unknown. It may do nothing, but then again, it may initiate a further contraction of private investment, driving unemployment higher, and resulting in no change, or lower federal revenue than before. This is why it is stupid to talk about such tax increases in relation to the federal deficit. What does that leave? Simply put, the desire to enact such a tax increase as some sort of equalization of outcome, based on envy.
And what about all of the tax credits available to the lower income earners, including those that end up giving more back to those people than they paid in taxes to begin with?
Why don’t we just remove ALL deductions, and ALL credits, from the tax code, lower rates within each bracket to the average effective tax rate, and then see what happens.
@ Greg
Nice. So the hardworking, blue-collar people you claim to champion that make those pens would face some layoffs. Now that’s the way to stick it to the rich Greg. You’re a genius!
@retire05:
It’s somewhat worse than that now, retire05. A percentage of each dollar goes towards servicing the debt, or, paying the interest on the debt, like to other countries such as China. Much of that money does not find it’s way back into our economy here, but rather, helps out those countries with their own economies, and ends up working in direct opposition to our economy.
And considering that the tax increases on the “rich” (top 5% of wage earners) would only gather $70 Billion or so a year, all of that money would go towards servicing the debt, and only a small portion would be returned back to our own economy. Not exactly the kind of wealth redistribution Greg had in mind, is it?
@johngalt:
Good point about the rich only yielding Obama about $70 billion/year in more revenues.
Most Obama supporters don’t realize Obama doesn’t mean the top 5% of earners when he says ”the rich,” he means everyone who pays taxes.
Closing the loopholes he lists (when one of his Admin actually does list a few) will hurt home owners, small businesses, two earner families and so on.
The ”rich” can always quit working or move their earnings offshore or into tax-exempt accounts.
The real meat of the money in all of Obama’s plans comes from guys like ”Joe the plumber.”
@Nan G:
Yep. And people like Greg don’t get that. They hear “rich” and think of corporate CEO’s raking in millions. What he is thinking of is the head of C-Corporations, and only the large ones, at that. As of 2003, over 5 million corporations filed tax returns, however, the overwhelming majority of those are small, such as authors and music artists, and the smaller parts of major corporations. Of the major corporations, we are only talking about a number in the 10,000’s or so, and many of those do not have CEO’s who bring in multi-million dollar salaries.
The majority of the taxes on the “rich” will, as you pointed out, affect guys like “Joe the Plumber”, an individual small business owner and most likely a Sole Proprietor, S-Corporation majority shareholders, LLC’s and others who bring in just north of $250k in taxable income. In essence, the job creators will be the ones feeling the pinch of any such tax increase.
@Nan G
How did Bush manage to only stay in office for 7 budget cycles? Didn’t Fiscal Year 2009 start in October, 2008 when he was still in office? That is his budget too.
The 12 month running deficit in March 2009 back to April 2008 was already $950 billion, and the spending level was already $3.3 trillion in 12 months. That is all pre-stimulus Bush policies. Most of the increase in the deficit since then is because of tax cuts to the payroll tax that were part of the stimulus bill.
You also do not have the right number for Fiscaly Year 2011. The current deficit through June, with three more months to go is $970 billion. Its likely another $200 billion will be added to that.
Lets make this real simple:
1993 – $1.153 trillion taxes, $1.409 trillion spending (Bush 1.0’s last budget)
2001 – $1.991 trillion taxes, $1.864 trillion spending (Clinton’s last budget)
2009 – $2.104 trillion taxes, $3.520 trillion spending (Bush 2.0’s last budget)
2011 – $2.298 trillion taxes, $5.559 trillion spending (current budget, 12 months ending June 2011)
You can’t double spending, hold taxes constant, and hope for a balanced budget to stay. Also note, where is all of Obama’s “big spending? The rate of spending by the government has been flat since June of 2009 in the range of $3.43 to $3.64 trillion. This suggests that there hasn’t been any extra spending at all.
The Republicans have no credibility on the deficit issue. Every Republican president from Nixon on has increased spending at an annual rate of 7-10% per year for their entire term in office while furiously cutting taxes. They’ve had 28 years in the White House to show us their fiscal policy and this is the results. They haven’t vetoed any spending bills of any significance. At every turn they furiously spend more money on military programs, agriculture subsidies, foreign aid, “disaster” relief, corporate subsidies, and veterans welfare programs – call it Republican Welfare, its what it really is. The simplest explanation of this is that the Republican’s who’ve won election to office wish spend our country into bankruptcy.
Andrew,
think again, these CONSERVATIVES TELL IT AS IT IS,
and no bulshit, no lies, as you will soon read for yourself, and should have read again
and what you know come from a unknown source, that you’re taking as correct,
but just do your homework, before coming and try to demolish our CONSERVATIVES.
@Andrew:
You’re right, I should not have added the 7 numbers up as if they were Bush’s entire 8 years of budgets.
I pulled stats from a ten-year tab instead of one by president.
In all fairness, however, neither the 2000-1 nor the 2001-2 budgets carried any deficits.
They were in surplus.
Here is a graph.
Should I subtract from Bush’s total deficit the amount of his surplus from the 2001-2 year?
$1,913 billion
-$128 billion
________________
$1,785 billion
retire05:
We don’t take in enough every month to pay those things. In February, March, May, July, August, October, and November, the US takes in around $150 billion per month. In January, April, June, September, and December takes in $250 billion per month thanks to quarterly and annual tax payments. Even when the budget was balanced, we ran monthly deficits in the first 7 months listed.
Come August 3, the US will have about $10 billion in the bank and will need to mail out $30 billion in Social Security checks. The borrowing limit will have been met, so $20 billion in checks will have to sit until tax money shows up to pay for them. In the meanwhile, other bills will come due, and will have to sit in the queue to await payment until tax money shows up. When the interest bills come due, it will be waiting in line along with the rest of the contractual obligations of the US Government and we will default by not making a scheduled payment on time. The alternative you suggest is that we violate other contracts or obligations with the $5 billion per day in cash available in August. I guess we can see how that holds up in court if it is even tried. Why you you think bondholders are more entitled to their interest than government employees are to their pay, or government contractors to their invoices?
@Nan G:
Bush was sworn in to office in January of 2001. Bush’s first budget was Fiscal Year 2002, starting in October 2001. The FY2002 budget ended with a $158 billion deficit. Bush’s main effect on the FY 2001 budget was his tax cut in May 2001 lowering tax receipts and thus lowering the surplus that otherwise would have occurred. You can see this in that the surplus peaked at $277 billion in April 2001, just before the tax cut started. One year later, tax receipts fell 12% and spending had risen 7%. Bush’s record is of massive spending increases and tax cuts that have held tax recipts flat since 2001. We collected the same amount of taxes in Fiscal Years 2001, 2005, and 2009. Tax receipts started, have averaged, and ended around $2.15 trillion each year for the 9 years his tax cuts have been in effect while spending was doubled. That’s why we have trillion dollar deficits.
@ILOVEBEESWARZONE
Are you joking? The numbers I quoted come straight off the US Treasury monthly statement of outlays and receipts. On the other hand most of what is spun out of conservative sites is straight out horsecrap.
@Andrew:
Nope. The fiscal 2009 budget was never presented to Bush for his signature.
So, you see what really happened with Obie’s supposed Immaculation present?
The 2009 budget was written almost exclusively by Dims.
The 2009 budget contained more spending than GW Bush requested.
The 2009 budget was passed by both the Senate and the House…with a “Yea” vote from then Senator Obama…but was NOT signed into law by GW Bush.
The 2009 budget was then augmented with 8% MORE spending signed into law March 11, 2009 by…wait for it…President OBAMA…via the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act .
All of this happened while Obie, the Dim Congress, and an eager lap-dog media machine heaps the blame on Bush.
So, nice try on trying to push 2009 off on Bush, but, your arguments are crushed under factual reality.
Aye:
The government keeps right on spending money whether there is a budget resolution or not. In the 12 months from March 2009 back to April 2008 before the 2009 Omnibus bill, the US Government spent $3.3 trillion. You do understand how this works right? There doesn’t need to be a budget for the government to spend money, and the president does not sign budget resolutions.
President Bush proposed spending $3.1 trillion in Fiscal Year 2009. Its available to see here:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html
Actual spending was higher than this total because of the recession that had already started increased spending on unemployment insurance and food stamps by $100 billion and of course the spending allowed by the Wall Street TARP bailout increased spending by $300 billion to bail out banks, finally more people retired and claimed Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid than budgeted, raising spending another $100 billion.
And of course, tax receipts were no where near the fantasy of $2.7 trillion Bush projected. Actual taxes collected were $2.1 trillion.
As far as stimulus goes, when you compare actual 2009 spending to what Bush proposed, you see $15 billion in extra education spending, no extra transportation spending, and $5 billion of extra disaster relief. I suppose some of the $30 billion in extra Medicaid spending is stimulus too. There isn’t any other stimulus spending to be found comparing the Bush proposal to actual spending. The numbers are all readily available on the omb.gov website – just look at the FY 2009 budget and the actual spending for FY 2009 shown in the FY 2011 budget.
So please, peruse the numbers, and see the facts for yourself. Bush doubled spending and held tax revenues constant during his 8 years in office. Thus, enormous deficits.
@Andrew:
Nope. There has to be either a budget, a continuing resolution, or some other form of spending legislation approved by Congress and signed into law by the president in order for the government to spend money. Congress doesn’t get to just spend whatever they want whenever they want.
Ummm…it’s apparent that someone doesn’t know how this whole thing works.
The House controls the purse strings ie all spending bills must originate in that chamber. Those bills are then sent to the Senate for consideration. The final reconciled version of the spending legislation is then sent to the WH for the signature of the president.
You should catch up on basic Civics 101 before you trot in here and make a fool of yourself.
Uh oh…too late.
@Aye, #67:
Yeah, right. In 2006 the debt ceiling was raised by a nearly unanimous vote of a republican Senate majority. (Only 3 republicans objected.) Senate minority democrats unanimously–and entirely symbolically–voted against it. The republican majority House didn’t even vote on raising the debt ceiling. The House majority dodged the need to take a vote that might appear inconveniently inconsistent with their fiscal responsibility pose by cleverly attaching the debt ceiling issue to the previous year’s budget. This allowed the republican Senate to handle the entire matter.
@ Aye:
Budget resolutions are non-binding joint resolutions of Congress passed to provide guidance to the Appropriation Committees in setting the actual spending levels mandated into law by Appropriation Bills. The President does not sign the Budget Resolution. The Appropriations Committees then pass bills to the chambers that set actual spending levels for various parts of the government. These bills do not have to have any relation at all to the Budget Resolution should Congress so choose. The President signs or vetoes the Appropriation Bills, not Budget Resolutions.
A Continuing Resolution is a short term Appropriation gimmick to continue government spending at current levels approved in the last Appropriation bill until new bills can be passed by both chambers.
Congress can also appropriate money outside the regular budget process as it frequently has done with funding for the Iraq and Afghan wars and for disaster relief spending.
Spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Debt Interest occurs under a permanent appropriation outside of the regular budget process as the levels of spending for these items are set by the choices of US Citizens under the law with respect to their retirement and the interest rates prevailing in the market place.
A budget resolution is not necessary for the US Government to spend money – only appropriation bills.
Andrew, the OECD study in 2008 is named “Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries”, and was also reported on by Scott Hodge at the Tax Foundation back inOct 2008. Of course, a Dem hefty majority Congress would want to hear little of this since it is au contraire to their favored dialogue.
Since the full report is only available by subscription or purchase, perhaps showing you the table to which anticsrocks refers in the original post may give you some comparison insight.
Here’s the link to the full size table”
Now here’s the hoot… the OECD Sec’y Genera, Angel Gurría , gave a speech noting how growing inequality stifles upward mobility growth after this 2nd study on the subject.
Interesting tidbit from the “did you know?” quick excerpts from the study on the OECD source page….
Needless to say, the riots in both Greece and France in the recent past about austerity measures to reign in their fiscal woes… France also being one of the five “most equal” income nations… seems to make a laughingstock of the OECD’s generalizations. It would also be remiss *not* to point out that Greece, Mexico and the UK – where incomes became “more equal” – are also in far more serious fiscal jeopardy than Canada, Germany, Norway and the US.
True to all forms of failed socialist systems in the past, “equalizing” a society economically is a short cut to national prosperity suicide. It is only a matter of time before the system collapses upon itself, as history proves over and over. Therefore, tho the OECD Sec’y Gen spoke lofty words, even recent historic fiscal events make a mockery of his feel good assumptions just a few years ago.
The OECD agenda is quite clear with these remarks in the speech…
Nothing can be more overt than that stated agenda… a redistribute of wealth, seized by the central government, then doled out via a plethora of social welfare programs. Yeah… worked real well in Greece. And all that “equalizing” has done more for unrest and distruption of civil society than allowing those that excel to reap their rewards for doing so.
Perhaps that question is one you should be asking while standing in front of a mirror. You *do* know that the POTUS cannot appropriate/spend, and that is a Constitutional authority given only to the Congress, yes?
So what’s all this BDS nonsense? I say it’s a political red herring, and an expression that you are far more partisan than you are analytical. It’s a common affliction amongst the O’faithful.
News flash. President’s propose budgets. Those budgets can be approved, altered, or refused by an Congress in session. And the largest increase in our spending coincidently happened after Pelosi and Reid seized dangerously high power in both chambers after the 2006 midterms. Suggest you start looking at the figures you rely upon to blame this on Bush, and start putting the blame for all our fiscal woes where they actually belong… on decades and decades of Congress… the majority of which since the New Deal Era were under the control of the liberal arm of the Democrats.
Can one also assume that you are also distraught over the bogus projected GDP growth that this admin and Congress provided to the CBO in order to pass what will end up yet another entitlement program downline.. as was the stated goal by this POTUS… O’healthcare? This is your opportunity to redeem yourself with a modicum of consistency.
@Andrew:
You seem to be saying that Congress can appropriate and then spend money however they want…with or without the signature of the president.
If that’s what you’re arguing, then you’re even more lost than you first appeared to be because nothing gets spent without the signature of the president.
@Greg:
It’s really sad when you beclown yourself like this over and over again.
The House most certainly did take a vote on the debt ceiling issue…when they voted on their budget.
@MataHarley, #70:
If I’m reading the chart correctly, it shows that in the United States the top 10% have the greatest total share of market income of all nations listed, except for Italy. Of the top 10 nations listed, in Germany–arguably a nation on relatively solid fiscal footing–the top 10% have the lowest total share of national market income.
@Aye:
Yeah. The year before.
Senate Clears $781 Billion Debt Limit Increase
From the same article:
A republican president, with controlling republican majorities in both the House and Senate, as I recall…
Aye:
I said the President does not sign Budget Resolutions. He does sign Appropriation Bills. Do you even understand the difference? You are very tiresome.
@Greg:
In mid November…
It doesn’t really matter when though because by your own words, you’ve disproven your original claim that the House dodged a vote on the issue.
@ Mata Harley:
Aha! Thank you.
Above, FloppingAces writes: “In the US, the richest 10% pay a whopping 45.1% of their income in taxes”
The OECD study, which is based on IRS figures available at IRS.gov notes: “Share of taxes of the richest decile … US – 45.1%”
I.e., The percentage of total taxes paid to the government paid by the top 10% of wage earners, not the percentage of their income paid in taxes. This is such an elementary error, but it is hardly surprising that doctrinaire types would fall for the idea that the rich pay 45% of their income in taxes. As I mentioned, I am one of the rich 10%, and I pay about 9% of my income.
The reason for the percentages shown in the OECD study and the IRS studies is because total US taxation is very light compared to other countries, and it is especially light on much of the middle class and vritually nonexistant for the poor. So the rich pay a lot of what little taxes are collected in the US. Their percentage of the tax burden has increased rapidly since the mid-1990’s because of Republican tax policies which have favored the types of income earned by the wealthy (very high salaries, S-corporation income, royalties, capital gains and dividends), and exempted the middle class from much of the tax burden through the $1000 child tax credit and marginally lower bottom rates. So income for the very well off has increased rapidly, as has the number of wealthy people. Thus, lots more tax receipts from them. This is a sign of their very rapid income growth, not their oppression by high taxes.
“So what’s all this BDS nonsense? I say it’s a political red herring, and an expression that you are far more partisan than you are analytical. It’s a common affliction amongst the O’faithful.”
Hilarious. I’ve never voted Democrat in my life.
GREG, they voted on the DEBT ceiling for BUSH, is that what you mentioned?
now how much was the debt ceiling at the time?
Andrew, I say, a BUDGET RESOLUTION should be necessary to limit a PRESIDENT who is
declare to go in unreasonable spending sprees !!!
in order to protect this NATION ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER, UNTIL THE NEXT ELECTION.
@Andrew:
Interesting….
Since I was curious about how you might be able to pull off such a coup, I did some calculations to see how the numbers would come out.
For FICA and Medicare, based on an income of $150,000 your taxes would be $8796.00 More ($17K) if you’re self-employed.
I then ran some federal income tax numbers. I keyed in the $150K income number that you tossed out. I keyed in really high IRA contributions, high deductions, and a wildly high number of child dependents (5):
Strangely, even with those wildly high numbers the calculations are still much, much higher than what you’re trying to convince us that you paid:
So, why don’t you tell us all the secret to paying in approx 9% (federal income, FICA, and Medicare) on an income of $150K?
Aye:
You got the right number of kids, you got deductions and 401K stuff roughly right in total but you seem to be forgetting about pre-tax health care premiums not being taxed. Oh, and you aren’t taking advantage of capital loss harvesting in the stock acount (sell some of your losers to offset income, hold your winners), and you forgot the residential energy credit available for certain home improvements and the making Work Pay tax credit (for two). And don’t forgot about the tax free nature of certain qualified dividends now if you have the right income.
Its all about managing the bottom line and working the numbers to your advantage under the law. That is what Bush wanted us to do when he gave us this tax code.
AYE,
I think that Andrew, with the bracket he’s in, might be a LAWYER for the DEMOCRATS.
JUST by the way he is covering for them
AND by the way he brought the PRESIDENT BUSH, in his excuses for the present leadership
over spending, with nothing to show for , MAYBE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES , BUT NOT IN THIS AMERICA
oh btw thank you,
Aye:
A Democrat lawyer? Ugh! Are you kidding me? I think you are semi-illiterate and of a wholly excessive conspiratorial bent. I am an engineer for a major engineering/construction firm.
Why are you so afraid of facts?
@Andrew:
Wow. Really?
You know, it’s kind of comical for you to accuse me of being semi-illiterate.
Especially considering that you’re right in the midst of showing everyone here your semi-illiteracy…and you’re not even smart enough to know it.
Go back and read the comment you responded to. Then, read through it again if you’re still confused.
@Andrew: You said:
You’ve got to be kidding right? I mean Obama increases spending in his first year in office by EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT and you jump on that claiming that there is no deficit spending since the federal government has kept spending at that level.
Did your momma drop you on your head or something???
Try using REAL numbers, it actually helps and is lower in calories…
Sheesh
@Andrew: You said:
Wanna cite some references?
@Andrew: You said:
What??
So when Obama spent the following…
$787 billion stimulus package
$410 billion omnibus spending bill
$700 billion Wall Street bailout package
$3.6 trillion budget
$1.2 – $3 trillion for Obamacare
…it had NO EFFECT on the deficit?
What are you smoking?
The deficit was rapidly climbing before Obama entered the White House in January 2009. That was already the case by mid-2008. Federal revenues were already rapidly falling by that point. Rising spending plus falling revenue equals increased deficits. You don’t suddenly turn either around on a dime. Particularly when it looks as if the whole thing is coming down around your ears.
The stimulus package kept the economy from collapsing. No one thought it would return the economy to pre-2008 conditions overnight.
Republicans may demonstrate what would have happened if federal spending had been cut in 2009 by producing the same effect next month. They could effectively cut the funds flowing into a weakened economy by 40% almost overnight. If that happens, I predict that very few people will like the results.
Andrew, check on 82, I’m the one who said that you look like a lawyer for DEMOCRAT,
now why do you insult AYE because you did not read the right comment.
very much like A DEMOCRAT. WHO COME HERE TO DEBATE.
@Greggie: You said:
If you would ever pay attention, the majority of folks here at FA are not Republican shills, although there are quite a few Obama shills here, GREG.
We are upset over the way the GOP did things while they were in charge. That is, in part, what the Tea Party is all about.
GREG remember that the DEMOCRATS where a majority also at that time and like MISSY once gave a link, they where in charge of passing the bills and sneaking some of them insides to pass it,
so where did that majority end up, having all their own bills passed,while some of PRESIDENT BUSH
where altered. so don’t blame BUSH on that.
anticsrocks, hi,
you know instead of giving some idea to help solve this president spending’s problems,
they will go and bring BUSH , WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS DEBT CEILING.
they cannot face it and take the responsibility for it
bye
@Greggie: You said:
Prove it.
Less than 6% of the stimulus package was for infrastructure, or “shovel ready” projects.
Tell me, how did that save the economy??
@anticsrocks:
That is what really gets me about nearly all of Greg’s posts. That he believes that simply because conservatives here criticize Obama, he somehow needs to defend him by bringing up things the GOP has done. And much of the time, it’s things that conservatives aren’t too happy about.
@ilovebeeswarzone: I hear ya, beezy. The lazy thing for them to do is to blame Bush. That is all they have since their golden boy, Obie is a spend-aholic to the Nth degree.
@johngalt: Yep, just like ms beezy pointed out, it is much easier for them to blame Bush. Now they are expanding that to blaming the entire GOP.
They are simply lazy, intellectually.
@Greg:
I think you are missing the point of that chart, Greg. While Germany may have the lowest total share of market income for their top 10% of earners, they also have the lowest tax burden placed upon those top 10%. When those two numbers are compared to one another, you get that last column, or, the ratio of tax burden to market income. Notice that Germany has the lowest, at 1.07, and the US has the highest, at 1.35. No other country is in the 1.3 range. What this means, Greg, is that while in the US, the top 10% have the second highest share of market income, that their share of the tax burden far outstrips all other countries.
So, don’t hold Germany to the standard we should strive for, otherwise you would need to start promoting either lower taxation for the “rich”, or the placing of at least some tax burden on the bottom 50% of wage earners in the US.
@johngalt, #97:
Actually I haven’t missed that, but my theory about why this might be so is probably different: Where income is more evenly distributed across all economic levels of society, there’s reduced need for governmental social programs to address the negative consequences of more grossly uneven distribution. People in general have an increased capacity to meet their own needs. A higher-paid labor force is more able to look out for its own needs. That reduces the need for taxes.
There’s another important element to Germany’s more favorable fiscal situation, I think: Germans are frugal. Their economy isn’t so dependent upon consumerism. They’re not constantly encouraged to buy what they cannot afford.
@Andrew:
Just a little clarification on your post #77.
-One, I’m sure the author of this article, anticsrocks, meant to say that the US’s top 10% pay for 45% of the total tax burden, or something close to it, since he is quoting from that very report, and chart. That you take his misspeak as some kind of conservative, or Republican talking point, is a mistake, on your part.
-Two, your paragraph discussing the low tax burden overall of the US taxpayers, doesn’t lead to a conclusion that the “rich”, only, need to pay higher taxes. Rather, based on your words, and the numbers from the OECD chart in Mata’s post, the only conclusion that one can end up with is that the poor to lower-middle class in this country need to start carrying a higher tax burden upon themselves, particularly considering that the US is tied for 37th out of 100 countries for highest marginal tax rate on individuals. Canada, which is ranked 7th on that list in the OECD chart, has a tax burden/share of income ratio of 1.22, however, they are ranked 61st out of a hundred countries in highest marginal tax rates with a rate of 29%, which is 8% or so less than ours.
-Three, the tax code has long been used by both political parties to pander to certain groups within the different classes. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are innocent of that. We have tax credits for school, for having kids, for being “poor”, for disabilities, and numerous other credits. Then, on top of that, there are forms upon forms, and lines upon lines, for people to list all manner of deductions. Both of those, combined or separate, lead to a lower effective tax rate for everyone. And the fact that you admitted pretty much tailoring your finances to take advantage of as many of those as possible, just shows the lengths that some people will go to in order to gain an extra buck or two.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to disparage you in doing so. However, when you have politicians only mentioning the tax breaks that certain people get, and the agreement by their supporters that those should stop, at the same time they are gaining tax breaks of their own, is hypocritical, and shows how flawed the tax system is.
I say do away with all of those tax breaks. End ALL deductions and end ALL tax credits. For everything. Then, lower the marginal rates to the average effective tax rates for all tax brackets. No more paying out more money to a person than they paid in taxes throughout the year. Make everyone who works have some sort of skin in the game.
anticsrocks:
“You’ve got to be kidding right? I mean Obama increases spending in his first year in office by EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT and you jump on that claiming that there is no deficit spending since the federal government has kept spending at that level.”
Bush’s last budget for fiscal year 2009 proposed spending $3.1 trillion. Actual spending that fiscal year was $3.5 trillion and I noted the reasons for the increase (increased unemployment insurance and food stamps – $100 billion, increased social security and medicare claims – $100 billion, and Bush’s TARP bailout for Wall Street Banks – $200 billion). Spending in Fiscal Year 2010 was actually $75 billion lower than in Fiscal Year 2009. So Obama’s very first budget actually cut spending year over year for the first time since the Eisenhower administration in 1955. The Republicans in Congress keep claiming they want to do that, but they had 6 years under Reagan and 12 years under Clinton and Bush and they never proposed anything of the sort.
The facts are all right there for anyone to see on omb.gov – the Office of Management and Budget Website. You can see it for yourself there, or you can wallow in igorance and stupidity. Your choice.