posted
Except he hasn't lowered taxes. Oh sure, he lowered taxes on the FEDERAL level, but that caused taxes on the LOCAL levels to rise. For example. Here in Arkansas, sales tax was just over 8%. Until this year. Now, in Springdale it is (looks ar Price Cutter reciept) 9.50%. In Fayetteville (looks at JCPenny reciept from this past weekend) it is 9.250%. Some other places nearby is 9.825%. Add that to the list of things taxable this year that weren't previous to this year (some services and goods were untaxed) a 3% surcharge on your income tax added at the beginning of this year, property taxes were upped this year (quite significantly I might add) all in order to take up the slack the Fed cut from the states. Susie made 23k last year. After all the taxes and everything added on (surcharge) she got back a whopping total of 200 dollars back. Thats on the income. Not counting the 640 dollars we just wrote a check for on the house for property tax.
So, in essence, taxes have NOT been lowered . Just shuffled around a bit.
Just my own opinion from observation. Your mileage may vary.
Posts: 986 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Could you give some evidence for the causality between the two? Might your sales taxes have gone up anyway if Bush's tax cut hadn't gone through?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Whether or not there is causality here, don't you think it's a little disingenuous to point to these tax cuts as good news for the middle class when they only represent a very small part of the big picture?
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
In general, tax cuts don't ever do much for the middle class. But it gives the people with lots of money more money to invest, which gives companies more money to spend, which they usually do. It's that whole trickle down economics theory thing. Considering we are in the middle of a horrible depresion after the huge market crash after 9/11, I'd say what Bush has done is working. But that's just what I'm seeing. Someone with more knowledge of the whole process might have a different outlook on it.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Seems to me like trickle down is just a lame excuse folks use to give themselves a whopping tax cut. Then they will say, this will really benefit you, the middle class... And, it may not... I think it would be more logical to cut taxes for the middle class and lower class so that THEY can have more money to invest and spend instead of, say, a corporation that has a great deal of tax loopholes and resources or very wealthy..
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Perhaps. Trickle-down economics is far from universally accepted. But I'm not an economist, so I can't really elaborate here.
The point, though, is that in the debates Bush repeatedly pointed out how much the middle class got back from his tax cuts. If you're going to endorse a policy like that, state the real reasons for it, not these dubious quotes about how much the middle class benefits.
[ October 14, 2004, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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quote:Could you give some evidence for the causality between the two? Might your sales taxes have gone up anyway if Bush's tax cut hadn't gone through?
The problem -- which could become a political problem for Bush -- is that many states believe they have reached the point where they cannot shrink any further. Even a few Republican governors have had to raise or extend taxes to balance their budgets, in addition to making spending cuts, and more states are preparing to do the same. The National Conference of State Legislatures issued a report on Thursday saying essentially that the budget cutting of the last two years has not worked for most states, and now the big cuts are coming in programs that residents most value, like those financing education.
Many state officials say it is painful and even infuriating for them to be forced to raise taxes while Washington, which is not required to balance its budget, debates how many billions to cut federal taxes.
"It's extraordinarily frustrating, because we're being forced to take contradictory actions to the federal government," said Angela Monson, a Democratic state senator from Oklahoma who is president of the national conference. "And on top of that, they're imposing mandates on us without picking up the tab."
Many state officials say that every federal tax cut winds up hurting them, because most state tax codes are linked in some way to federal rates for income, estate and capital gains taxes. But Democrats have made little headway in blaming Bush for the states' problems.
Rep. John M. Spratt of South Carolina, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, calculated that the first round of Bush tax cuts in 2001 lowered the states' revenue by a total of $75 billion, and predicted the coming round would make things even worse.
"State and municipal governments are coming to us for money at a rate I've not seen in 20 years in Congress," Spratt said. And he said of the Bush administration: "They're just indifferent to the problem they're causing."
The administration and its allies in Congress now appear destined to approve at least a $350 billion tax cut. And the administration is getting some support from a few Republican governors.
"If you just pour money into the states, it increases their spending," said Gov. John G. Rowland, R-Conn. "In the end, only tax cuts will provide the economic stimulation to grow our revenue bases."
But just a few weeks ago, Rowland signed into a law a half-point increase in his state's personal income tax.
Just one example. Pretty straight forward correlation. Fed cuts aid to states. States tighten their budget. Fed makes more demands on states without compensation. States raise taxes.
NCLB? Thats one example of the fed demands without compensation.
Posts: 986 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Dubya has pushed through a major tax increase onto the American public through spending all surplus SocialSecurity&Medicare revenue (which was supposed to pay off the debt on the promissory notes held by the SocialSecurity&Medicare Trust, then build up a surplus to partially cover the BabyBoomer's retirement) and increasing the NationalDebt to cover the Republican porkbarrel overspending well beyond the revenue provided by SocialSecurity&Medicare tax, personal and corporate income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, and other federal taxes.
Kinda like going on a major credit card shopping binge, while pretending that the debt will never have to be paid back.
Which is true of Dubya and his fellow "haves and have mores", who received most of the tax breaks. It will take a sixty vote majority to roll back those tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans. And between Republicans and BibleBelt Democrats who would oppose a restoration back to preDubya levels, that majority ain't likely to be in the Senate any time in the near future.
So SocialSecurity&Medicare taxes will be raised to pay off the debt. The less wealthy one is, the greater the decrease of ones disposable/discretionary-spending income. The poorer one is, the greater the decrease in one's survival income . The overwhelmingly vast majority will also pay a greater percentage of tax on their income through the stepped indexing of the income tax. Inflation and less-than-national-average-increase-in-wealth increases the majority's apparent non-inflation-protected income pay, pushing working taxpayers into ever higher income tax brackets.
Which won't affect the "haves and have mores" much at all. There is a maximum payment on SocialSecurity&Medicare taxes. If one earns more income, if one gains more wealth (which isn't considered the same as income) than the amount which would generate that maximum payment, one's SocialSecurity&Medicare payment decreases as a percentage of total income and/or wealth-gain.
Basicly, nearly all of those who have supported Dubya are gonna pay through the nose for Dubya's orgy of Republican spending. Of course, most of the rest of us are too: but at least we ain't delusional about repayment, or who is gonna be taxed for it.
posted
How do you target a specific class to recieve the cuts? I thought that you just cut taxes and everyone gets the same percentage of their money reduced but the wealthy get more money reduced since they have more money. For anyone who knows alot about economics, is that wrong?
Posts: 853 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Maybe he should just do away with taxes all together since taxes are such a "liberal" idea.
Actually, that's not far from the truth. Almost any taxation programs at their start have come from the more liberal side of the fence. I don't agree that getting rid of them altogether is a conservative view, though. That's going a bit too far.
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Jaime, I believe the answer lies in tax brackets. Here is a tax calculator that shows where the cutoffs lie, depending on the year and whether you're filing as single, head of household, etc.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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