Mark & Juanita wrote in message . ..
On 26 Aug 2004 10:22:39 -0700, (Nate Perkins)
wrote:

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! wrote:

On the contrary, I follow politics closely and watch and read lots of
news outlets. Tax cuts that are 100% at the expense of the national
debt are not a tax cut.


That's false reasoning. If tax cuts help the economy the deficit is
reduced as well.

Do the tax cuts help the economy? They are all borrowed money against
the deficit, which effectively increases long term interest rates. A
short term tax cut done in a broad-based stimulative way does help the
economy during recession. A long-range deficit tax cut that is
unsustainable has as much chance of hurting the economy as it does to
help it.

You assume this is a zero-sum game. i.e. if less money is taken from the
taxpayers, then less is available in the future for the government. The
tax cuts enacted in the early '80s show the fallacy of this argument. The
top tax rate was cut from 50% to 28% which should have resulted in a
devastating loss of revenue for the tax coffers. What happened in reality
was that the money not taken from taxpayers was either spent or re-invested
in the economy in revenue producing ventures. Those revenue producing
ventures produced increased tax revenue that far exceeded the amount "lost"
by the tax cuts.

I agree that to the extent a tax cut is stimulative and results in
future economic growth then it is a good idea. You will have to show
me evidence that Bush's tax cuts are stimulative enough to even come
close to paying for themselves. The rising deficits are evidence to
the contrary.

Even Reagan understood this concept, which is why (in addition to
cutting taxes) he also had to raise taxes three times to slow the rate
of deficit growth. Even then, deficits skyrocketed under him. Even
GHWB understood that you had to slow the debt, which is why he broke
his "read my lips" pledge and lost the reelection.

Only Dubya seems to fail to understand the need to bring down the
debt.

They are a loan that you are taking out to
help subsidize the guys who really got the big tax cuts.

Like who? The evil rich? Why shouldn't they get a tax cut as well?

Sure they should. When we can afford it, everyone ought to get one.
We can't afford it, though.


When WE can afford it? i.e. you believe that somehow you have a claim
upon the fruits of the labors of someone else who happens to make more
money than yourself?

You believe that somehow you have a claim upon only a *portion* of
government services? Which aircraft carrier is the one you bought?
Which section of road is the one that's yours? "We" is our nation.
"We" are all using these things, and "we" are all obligated to pay for
them.

Shifting the
tax burden from the upper class to the middle class (maybe you saw the
GAO report of a week ago?) is bad economic policy,

That liberal hysteria. The are angry that money doesn't get
distributed the way they want. The tax burden is growing because
government is growing and there's less earners per entitlement
recipients. Punishing the achievers has an adverse effect as
history proves. That's bad economics!


As a percentage, the tax cuts benefited all taxpayers equally. The fact
of the matter is that in 2001 (the latest data for which IRS figures are
available):
The top 50% of wage earners pay 96% of all federal income taxes yet
only earns 86% of all income
The top 10% of wage earners pay 65% of all federal income taxes yet
only earns 43% of all income
the top 5% of wage earners pay 53% of all federal income taxes yet
only earns 32% of all income

Now, regarding the argument that an increasing burden is being placed on
middle class taxpayers from 2000:
The top 50% of wage earners paid 96% of all federal income taxes
yet only earned 87% of all income
The top 10% of wage earners paid 67% of all federal income taxes
yet earned 46% of all income
the top 5% of wage earners paid 56% of all federal income taxes yet
earned 35% of all income

So, although the total burden to the top wage earners did go down, so did
overall share of income. How can this be? I thought the rich kept getting
richer under the Bush regime?

Data is available from 2003 that shows a different result. Otherwise
wouldn't you blame the 2000/2001 data on Clinton? I mean don't most
of your numbers precede most of Bush's tax "cuts"? Several links have
already been cited in other messages on this thread, but here it is
again: http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/13/news...on_taxes.reut/

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