Pretending to be human
^ I'll play a bit of Devil's Advocate and say Obama, to me at least, ordered the troop escalation in Afghanistan of his own volition.
edited 24th May '11 9:00:45 AM by Exploder
The Shadows Devour You.
The Surge? Yeah, that one is on Obama. On the other hand, the alternative was letting the Taliban walk all over the forces there. The military needed more resources and Obama gave them.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.
More like giant cherries
Don't forget the massive tax cuts Bush saddled us with.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
OH BUT DON'T YOU REMEMBER?! TAX CUTS RAISE REVENUE DURP HURP HURP.
(yeah, no).
edited 24th May '11 9:24:45 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
How In the world anyone with basic economics knowledge can assume tax cuts equals greater revenue has no idea what the word revenue means.
"Tax cuts cause economic growth. Growth leads to higher revenues. Therefore, tax cuts generate revenue!"
Pro-Freedom Fanatic
In theory, income tax cuts on the working and lower middle classes increase disposable income for consumers. That boosts consumption: More sales tax revenue!
Unlike government spending (it often serves other purposes), consumption is all stimulus for the economy.
edited 24th May '11 12:56:27 PM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.
The problem is that cuts on income taxes don't help out the unemployed. Meanwhile, money from the government in the form of unemployment checks are some of the best stimulus around.
victorinox243
In times of crisis, people are less willing to spend money. Just giving more people more money to dispose of won't suddenly encourage them to blow all their surplus on the economy.
People waste in times of good, and save in times of bad, when it should be the other way around. But then of course the economy wouldn't grow as fast, would it?
Lost in Space
There are two problems. One, cutting taxes for the lower/middle class may have a stimulus effect, but if doing so also causes social programs to be cut and/or government employees to be laid off, you're taking with the same hand that you're giving. The lower the person on the income scale, the less the benefit of the tax reduction and the greater the effect of the loss of services. In other words, you're taking from the poor to give to the rich.
If you reduce taxes and don't reduce spending, then you're in a pure stimulus cycle, but of course this raises debt, which, Keynesian theory aside, is counterproductive in the long term, or needs to be balanced by corresponding tax increases when you're in a growth cycle.
The second problem is that lowering taxes on the rich has a far smaller stimulus effect than by lowering them on the poor/middle class. This is because they aren't going to spend the money; they save or invest it. Rich people saving money doesn't help things in the short term. It might make the stock market go up a bit, and it makes lots of money for bankers and investment managers, but it has a much lower net gain in terms of economic output.
In short, and despite Repubs' screams of outrage, taxing the rich is far better for an economy than taxing the poor. Conversely, giving money to the poor has far more immediate benefit than giving it to the rich.
edited 24th May '11 1:34:23 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Moar and Moar and Moar
Yup. It all has to do with churn rates. Money churns faster for the poor than it does for the rich. The more churning there is, the more tax income that comes in. That said, there are other things at play, for example an economy where there's a shortage of investment capital could probably use a tax cut for the rich.
That said, one way or another I strongly believe talking about tax rates is entirely the wrong place to be looking at this.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
The Shadows Devour You.
Nonetheless it highlights how completely ass-backwards the Republicans seem to have got things.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.
OMG NO NOSECONES
Fighteer: Using that logic (and I think I can agree with it) one would think that giving middle and lower-income families a tax break while increasing the taxes on the rich would be ideal, among other things.
Just a matter of finding points on the income scale to divvy up the lower/middle from the rich.
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.
And that's why Socialism is the best thing EVAR!
Eye'm the cutest!
More like giant cherries
But socialism leads to communism.
And communism leads to immigration.
And immigration leads to sharia.
???
Panic!
edited 24th May '11 6:29:00 PM by storyyeller
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
:
, 82% in 2001-2009, and with long-term fallout projected to account for 60-80% in 2013-2019 unless major repeals are enacted.Combined deficits from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2006 were less than 25% of that.
- 2000: $23 billion
- 2001: $141 billion
- 2002: $429 billion (Bush's first budget)
- 2003: $562 billion
- 2004: $594 billion
- 2005: $551 billion
- 2006: $546 billion
- 2007: $500 billion
- 2008: $703 billion
- 2009: $759 billion
- 2010: $3.54 trillion (Obama's first budget, including economic intervention)
- 2011: $366 billion (up to May 6th 2011)
, lower-class Americans are so poor that the bottom 50% account for less than 3% of income tax, while the top 5% account for 60%, the top 1% for 40%, and the top 0.1% _alone_ for 20%!
edited 24th May '11 6:32:03 PM by EricDVH
I don't think you presented those numbers accurately.
The deficit figures? I purposely avoided inflation correcting them or using a percentage of GDP to head off complaints, even though I feel such things would be more meaningful.
Oh nvm, I misinterpreted the numbers, they may sense now. So, the top 5 to 1% account for 20% of income?
edited 24th May '11 7:10:01 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
No, the top 0.1% account for about 20% of income tax revenue. That is, the richest ~140,000 Americans out of the total ~140,000,000 taxpayers. The 1-5% figure you're looking at is for the top 5%'s returns minus the top 1%'s (since the top 1% are, of course, part of the top 5%,) the figure would more accurately be labeled “top 2-5%.”
edited 24th May '11 7:52:52 PM by EricDVH
If the top 5% pay for 60%, and the top 1% pay for 40%, then that means from 5 to 1 percent, there's 20% that's accounted for. That is, the top 5% excluding the top 1% pays for 20%.
And the top 1%, excluding the top .1%, would be 40% - 20%.
So it's 20%, 20%, 20%.
edited 24th May '11 7:55:33 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
Lost in Space
What's lacking is credit for people without significant financial resources, which is one of the major factors in the continuing weakness of the housing market. From a long-term point of view this may be healthy, as the banks don't want to get burned twice, but from the point of view of a recovery it's putting a huge damper on things.
A significant shift of capital away from the rich folks and businesses that are hoarding it and to individual consumers could turn the economy around in a heartbeat.
edited 24th May '11 9:24:51 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The question is what prompted that spending. Obama came into office during a major recession and was already committed to the programs Bush put into place to stimulate the economy, never mind two wars. So, he presided over the loss of federal revenue from reduced GDP, the need for massive stimulus to get us out of said recession, and the need for troop escalations in Afghanistan, none of which were his fault.
Tom, your rhetoric implies that your preferred solution to the recession would have been to pull the rug completely from under the country's finances, reducing us to a 19th century economy and possible resulting civil war. It also seems that you and the Tea Partiers in Congress continue to want to take us there. Compared to that I'll accept big deficits.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"