Nice sweeping generalization. Now, show me where I've made that claim. Since, you're fond of linking to the taxfoundation site, allow me to do the same. Note that the chart shows Obama's plan raising the top marginal income rate by 4.6% and the rate for capital gains and dividends by 5%. Each of these qualifies as a few percentage points. So, yes that's what the Democratic candidate is "talking about here". You're the one going off on wild tangents. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/23165.html By the way, Obama hasn't discussed the $1=$1 concept. That's my idea as a committed 'demand sider'. The things that confounds me here: why are you acting like it "keeps getting redefined" by only one party? This is what I posted in another thread: "With regards to seniors, the problem stems not so much from the net levels of entitlements received, but rather the abysmal administration of programs targeted toward this demographic. Having said that, given the inexorable 'greying of America', a rational examination of entitlement amounts cannot be considered 'out of bounds'." More people should probably read and understand this book: http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Generational-Storm-Americas-Economic/dp/0262112868 So, now that I've agreed to bring senior entitlements into the bounds of this discussion, can you do the same with the entitlements of employees in the public sector? There are some who would suggest that 'Conservatives' hate everybody but themselves. Is either one of these assessments fair? Personally, I think that people who resort to such rhetoric are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. This is the type of person who sticks a shitload of pork into a bailout plan. Or, changes the nomenclature to 'rescue plan', lest the public start questioning the underlying intent.
Easily, the amount of data on the net supporting this is overwhelming. I should have kept my previous charts, etc on this data. Its Sunday am now, and I'm too lazy at the moment. I'll post a bunch of stuff for you tomorrow when I'm bored mid trading day. I am an economist BTW. Just don't work as one. Please note that I am not speaking about anything related to the Laffer Curve and income taxes. Measuring revenue effects from cap gains is much easier and immediate (usually apparent the following year). It was very obvious the last two times rates changed. Here is the only article I happened to have on file. its a basic argument for low cap gains tax that most of you have probably already heard: Myths & Facts Of Capital Gains Tax Cut Myth: Lowering capital gains tax rates will not help the economy. Fact: Cutting capital gains tax rates is the single best tax policy to improve economic growth. * Capital gains play a unique role in fostering economic activity, especially by entrepreneurs in high-technology areas. * In fact, many economists believe that the optimal tax rate on capital gains is 0 percent. * Because government first takes money through corporate income taxes, taxation of capital gains (and dividends) represent double-taxation of investment returns and should be eliminated. Myth: If there is a capital gains tax cut, it should be temporary and it should not be available to all investors. Fact: Only a permanent capital gains cut available to all investors - include those who invested long ago -- will stimulate new investment and revive economic growth. * A temporary cut will induce people to sell assets, but it will not stimulate new investors who will face today's high rates again in the future after the temporary reduction has expired. * A temporary cut will "lock-out" new investment and will hurt economic growth. * The induced selling without incentives for new investment will further depress stock and other asset prices and will not stimulate new investment. By unlocking held assets and inducing people to sell investments, a temporary cut may increase tax revenue - it may not, though, because asset prices will be lower - but it will not help stimulate economic growth. * A permanent cut will provide the incentives for people now to sell long-held unproductive assets and for people now and in the future to make new productive investments. Myth: Cutting capital gains tax rates will cause stock markets to fall. Fact: Cutting capital gains tax rates will, as it has in the past, cause asset values, including stock markets, to rise. * Some people claim that lowering capital gains tax rates will cause the stock market to fall, because people would sell their investments. By this silly logic, if people want to increase stock market values, then there should be an increase in capital gains tax rates, because, then investors would be less willing to sell investments. * In fact, lowering capital gains tax rates increases the prices of stocks and other assets. Stock markets reflect the collective actions of people looking forward. * Lowering the cost of capital by decreasing tax rates on investment returns will increase asset values. * For example, the 1997 cut in the top capital gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent increased stock prices by approximately 8 percent. Myth: Capital gains tax cuts benefit the "wealthy." Fact: Capital gains tax cuts improve the entire economy. * Capital gains tax reductions stimulate economic growth, which benefits the entire country. * Capital gains taxes disproportionately hurt the elderly, low and middle-income investors who have less discretion over the timing of their capital gains. * Most people who report capital gains do not have high annual incomes. * People with high incomes are most sensitive to capital gains tax rates, because they possess the most flexibility and means to avoid high tax rates. When capital gains tax rates are high, people with high incomes do not sell their assets and realize their gains. * High-income people pay a greater percentage of capital gains taxes when capital gains tax rates are low than when capital gains tax rates are high. * High capital gains tax rates make capital scarce. When capital is scarce it goes to safe investments. Low capital gains tax rates make capital abundant. When capital is plentiful it goes to "riskier" investments - such as inner cities and disadvantaged areas. Myth: Lowering capital gains tax rates will not lead to more investment. Fact: Taxpayers are very responsive to capital gains tax rates. High capital gains tax rates punish and reduce investment. Low capital gains tax rates induce more investment. * Taxpayers have a choice over when to realize capital gains and pay taxes. High capital gains tax rates lead people not to invest and current investors to hold assets, increasing the "lock-in" effect. * Lowering capital gains tax rates increases new investment and unlocks long-held undesirable assets, thereby increasing capital gains realizations. * High-income taxpayers, who have great discretion over the timing of their investment decisions, are particularly responsive to changes in capital gains tax rates. Myth: Government cannot "afford" large and permanent cut in capital gains tax rates. Fact: Improving economic growth is the proper focus of the debate regarding capital gains tax rates, and greater economic growth increases federal tax revenue from many sources. * The correct goal of tax policy should be to maximize economic growth, not tax revenue. Consequently, the optimal tax rate is the rate that is best for the economy, and this rate is lower than the rate that provides the government with the most tax revenue. * The government should not act like a business trying to maximize revenue. Rather, the goal of tax policy should be to enhance economic growth and raise only as much tax revenue as is needed, not as much as is possible. More investment and greater realizations caused by lower capital gains tax rates * lead to increased capital gains tax revenue and more revenue from other taxes such as corporate taxes, personal income taxes, and payroll taxes. When predicting the budgetary effects of capital gains tax rate changes, it is necessary to account for behavioral responses by using "dynamic" rather than "static" scoring. Myth: Capital gains already receive preferential treatment because they are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. Fact: Double-taxation of investment returns and taxing inflation cause capital gains tax rates to exceed tax rates on ordinary income. * The government taxes investment returns - dividends and capital gains - twice, first as corporate income taxes and then as personal income taxes. * This double taxation causes capital gains tax rates to exceed ordinary income tax rates. * For example when a corporation earns $100 profit, the government takes $35 in corporate taxes, leaving $65 distributed to investors taxed at 20%. The government takes another $13 (20% of $65) in capital gains taxes, leaving investors with $52 and government with $48 out of the original $100 profit. Thus, an effective tax rate on capital gains of 48%. (Note: Since dividend are also subject to double taxation, but are taxed at ordinary income tax rates, the effective tax rates on dividends can approach 60%!) * The most counterproductive and unfair characteristic of the tax on capital gains is that it taxes inflation, because capital gains are not adjusted for inflation. The example above does not even include the fact that capital gains taxes include taxes on inflation, and, therefore, actually tax investors at even higher real tax rates - at times more than 100%! * For example, if an investment of $1000 rises in value to $1100, while prices generally have risen 10%, there is no real (after inflation) increase in value. However, an investor who sold this asset for $1100 would still have to pay taxes on the inflationary gain of $100. At the current top statutory rate of 20%, this investor would pay $20 in capital gains taxes on an investment that produced no real gain. The result, in this case, is a tax rate of infinity! * The policy of failing to adjust capital gains for inflation raises effective capital gains tax rates to levels substantially exceeding statutory rates and often surpassing 100 percent. * These high effective tax rates force investors to retain assets, increasing the "lock-in" effect. Moreover, the policy hurts economic growth by inhibiting new investments, because under current law inflation is a risk investors must bear. * The tax on inflation most severely punishes the elderly, low-income, middle-income, and less successful investors, because these people are less able to adjust the timing of their investment decisions than investors with higher incomes. * Indexing (adjusting) capital gains for inflation - as other countries have done - would eliminate the unfair and harmful tax on inflation.
Democrats and liberals claim that humans for some reason don't react to tax rates, the data says otherwise. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nice sweeping generalization. Now, show me where I've made that claim. I didn't say you made it, however it is an assumption of the left. Just raise rates and we'll get more tax money, people will just sit there and let the gov't rape them. As I showed in the cap gains chart, and a study done by an economist ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html ), you can't raise rates a few percent and hope to get much of anything. You can affect economic growth but you won't get the tax revenue. The left will get mad and the result will be a tax and regulatory war on the top earners, probably as well as most everyone else. Besides the problem is so much larger than a few percentage increase in rates will solve. You are a funny man if you believe a few percent tax raise solves it. Obama, Frank, and company will seek much more than that because they will have to (cuts are not in their vocabulary). They will dig in places you never knew existed to get the desperately needed revenue to maintain the welfare state. And we'll all go down the hellhole, but hey, it will be 'fair'. This is what I posted in another thread: "With regards to seniors, the problem stems not so much from the net levels of entitlements received, but rather the abysmal administration of programs targeted toward this demographic. Having said that, given the inexorable 'greying of America', a rational examination of entitlement amounts cannot be considered 'out of bounds'." More people should probably read and understand this book: http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Genera...c/dp/0262112868 So, now that I've agreed to bring senior entitlements into the bounds of this discussion, can you do the same with the entitlements of employees in the public sector? Sure, all for curtailing public employees entitlements, but the people on the receiving end are democrat constituents. As soon as you utter one sentence about cutting entitlements, out come the left's shoutdowns about how the cruel conservatives want to put old people on the street, balance the budget on the backs of the poor, take food out of the mouths of kids, are racist for not wanted to pay the medical bills of illegal immigrants, and all the other assorted crap they say. The bottom line, controlling this gets nowhere because of the left's politics. They now have enough dependents, control the rhetoric, and now we get Obama. There isn't any hope whatsoever- all you can hear from Obama is the need to raise taxes, and the need to help this group and that group. You may agree it's reasonable to control entitlements, but the demos sure don't. All we can do now is wait for the bankruptcy. The things that confounds me here: why are you acting like it "keeps getting redefined" by only one party because it's the demos that preach class warfare
* You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. * You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. * You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. * You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. * You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. * You cannot build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence. * You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could, and should, do for themselves. Abraham Lincoln
Dead wrong mav I'm the one spouting off? Maybe, but you are too...did you even read this whole doc? You linked me to a 123 page document, and its a good one. As I suspected though you either didnt read it, or simply posted the parts that worked the best for your points. Had you actually read the thing you would have seen the table that I attached, which shows that the top 20% actually receive the second most in government spending, only slightly behind the bottom 20% with the middle 60% taking in far less. This is only one table, im reading through the doc. This is a long document so it will take me sometime to get through it, but you obviously need to read it too.
I'm the one spouting off? Maybe, but you are too...did you even read this whole doc? You linked me to a 123 page document, and its a good one. As I suspected though you either didnt read it, or simply posted the parts that worked the best for your points. Had you actually read the thing you would have seen the table that I attached, which shows that the top 20% actually receive the second most in government spending, only slightly behind the bottom 20% with the middle 60% taking in far less. This is only one table, im reading through the doc. This is a long document so it will take me sometime to get through it, but you obviously need to read it too. That chart has nothing to do with what your original point- which was wrong. You said there was wealth transfer from the middle class to the the top. The top 20% pay much more in taxes than the middle 60%, the fact that they might get back a little more (it's not FAR less as you assert) is not relevent. What is relevent is the percentage of what they pay in taxes that is returned to them. If it is less than 100% then there is net transfer out. That is the case as the article points out and I already posted. The middle 60% gets more than $1 back for every dollar they pay in, and the top gets less. You are still wrong. "you can't raise rates a few percent and hope to get much of anything. You can affect economic growth but you won't get the tax revenue." Funny how raising rates just a few is not enough to generate any revenue, but it is enough to affect economic growth. Hmm. Thats easy. You telling me that you don't understand this also? hmmm, just hmmm. Maybe you havent noticed, but a lot of those "top earners" (by no means the majority though) made shit loads of money it what turned out to rape our economy. Regulation would have been nice. You mean the kind of regulation that republicans wanted but Barney Frank said was unnecessary? Typical liberal, substitute anecdotes for data and make policy. probably as well as most everyone else. Besides the problem is so much larger than a few percentage increase in rates will solve. That same "few percent" that will slow all economic growth? yup, but explaining would be a waste of time here I see. It's funny, Barney Frank was just on CNBC saying that he will encourage Obama to hold off on all taxes increases for a year. Why do you think he said that? "Obama, Frank, and company will seek much more than that because they will have to (cuts are not in their vocabulary). They will dig in places you never knew existed to get the desperately needed revenue to maintain the welfare state. And we'll all go down the hellhole, but hey, it will be 'fair'." making up random hypothetical scenarios is easy. oh boy do I wish it were random, but I have have looked at too much history to know better. They will start with the military because the left doesn't like the military. When they get done eviscerating the United States military, then they gotta go where the money is and kill the golden goose. Maybe so. but to single out the dems constituents without doing the same for the republicans is stupid. Hedge fund lobbyists and what not. Republicans will lower taxes for their rich supporters (and have) just as fast as you could accuse any dems of raising them to pay for entitlements for their supporters. At least obamas tax drop includes the vast majority of americans, including ones thatd don't support him or fit his typical constituent profile. The problem, once again, is that current entitlements are the road to ruin. By far those at the recieving end are demo constituents, and this problem is by far the largest fiscal problem we face. If you could get your liberal buddies to go after just hedgies, bad CEOs, millionaire entertainers and athletes, socialite heiresses, and other assorted maggots then I would be the biggest cheerleader. But what happens is that the real producers will get caught in the demo tax drag net and we will all suffer.