On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 04:05:16 GMT, Chris Wood wrote:
In article ,
Mark & Juanita wrote:
[ snip ]
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.
No they don't.
See below.
The
top tax rate was cut from 50% to 28% which should have resulted in a
devastating loss of revenue for the tax coffers.
And it did.
No it did not, you might not like that fact, but it is a fact.
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.
Myth, not fact. Look here for the facts:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0.
No, fact, not myth.
From your own reference. Table I, revenues, the Reagan tax cuts started
in 1982. The following are the revenues for just prior to following:
Year Revenue ($B)
1980 517.1
1981 599.3
1982 617.8
1983 600.6
1984 666.5
1985 734.1
1986 769.2
1987 854.4
1988 909.3
1989 991.2
Now, you will note that in 1983, the year after the tax cut, revenue did
go down, however, in subsequent years, revenue continued to increase even
in 1986, the year that there was a recession.
[ snip ]
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
This statistic only looks convincing until you realize that they leave
out almost half of the taxes on incomes. They are leaving out Social
Security/FICA.
??? Half the tax on incomes? This is simple math, 7.5% is NOT 1/2 of 28%,
thus SS/Fica cannot by any stretch of the imagination amount to 1/2 of the
taxes on incomes paid by wage earners. The "rich" pay SS/FICA on the same
amount of income as everybody else. Only after exceeding a certain
threshold do they no longer pay the OASD portion, but continue to pay the
Medicare portion. Then again, if you contend that government revenue went
down after the Reagan tax cuts, I can see how you would also say that the
7.5% is half the tax on incomes. Now, before you jump in here and scream
about the fact that SS tax is really 15%, 7.5% of that 15% is NOT being
paid by the taxpayer, but by those eeevil corporations employing those low
wage earners. The fact is, the "rich" are still paying the same amount of
SS/FICA as all other wage earners, since no one's SS taxes are being cut,
the "rich" are going to also pay a larger share of the SS/FICA taxes as
well since they earn more.
Again, the statistics given are for INCOME taxes.
[ snip ]
Chris
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