Again not going to be surprised you don't have the caliber to learn all the skills to enrich yourself since everybody know you are the champion of robbing Peter to pay Paul scheme, like hmm...social security.
Deficit reduction plan......Obama's got a plan
- Thread starter Scarey
- Start date
I'll be more specific.
At what income level do you consider "richest Americans"?
Do you file your business taxes as an individual or under corporate taxes?
OTB
With a properly written tax code it shouldn't matter. If you claim your business income as personal income then you should be able to offset it with expenses--whatever you don't offset you should be taxed on. If you run it as a corporation then the retained earnings in the business should increase the value of the company and you should have to declare it as a gain. The tax code should be written so that these two scenarios generate an equivalent amount of tax.
Are there loopholes in the tax code? No doubt. Your argument should be directed at closing those loopholes.
Either way it makes sense to talk about taxes on the rich.
The 2% level works very well here, always did.
No need to 'fuzzy' up things as you attempt to do....
I think we should consider the following (I'll bold the relevant points):
The rich aren’t paying enough taxes. Obama said in his speech that he and Warren Buffet are undertaxed, and so he wants to increase taxes on the rich, what now is euphemistically being called a “balanced approach.”
But the president needs to know that the “rich”—which he defines as those making more than $250,000, about 2 percent of earners—already pay the lion’s share of income taxes.
According to the National Taxpayers Union’s analysis of Internal Revenue Service figures, in 2008:
The top 1 percent of income earners (adjusted gross income of $380,354) paid 38 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 5 percent of income earners (AGI of $159,619) paid nearly 59 percent of all federal income taxes.
While the bottom half of earners (AGI of $33,048 or less) paid only 2.7 percent of all federal income taxes.
And those numbers have been fairly consistent for a decade; in 1999 the top 1 percent paid 36 percent of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid 4 percent.
Unlike the president, I don’t know where we should draw the line on who is considered “rich.” But when the top 5 percent of earners pay nearly 60 percent of all federal income taxes, it’s pure class-warfare demagoguery to claim they aren’t paying enough.
Higher taxes mean more government revenue. President Obama can be accused of a lot of things, but being an economist isn’t one of them.
He needs to meet one: Kurt J. Hauser, chairman emeritus of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Hauser has tracked federal revenue as a percent of GDP and shown that since World War II it has remained remarkably stable, about 19.5 percent of GDP. Regardless of what the tax rates were—income tax rates went as high as 91 percent in the 1950s and early ‘60s, or what Obama might call the “good old days”—federal revenues have hovered around 19.5 percent of GDP for the past 60 years. It’s called Hauser’s Law.
To be sure, there were some upticks in those six decades where tax revenue hit 20 percent of GDP, but those were during economic booms, not the result of tax increases. And there were two major downticks where revenue fell to about 15 percent of GDP—with 2008-9 being the latest. But those low spots were the result of economic downturns, not tax cuts.
The point is that if President Obama were to succeed in raising taxes on the rich, it is extremely unlikely that would lead to more government revenue—just the opposite.
The best, and perhaps only, way to increase government revenue is a vibrant, growing economy. A larger GDP means that 19.5 percent of GDP, Hauser’s Law, would be a larger absolute number. Plus, rapid economic growth could bump up federal revenues to 20 percent of GDP again as more workers and businesses making more money pay more taxes. But there is virtually nothing in the president’s plan to spur economic growth. Nothing!
from: http://blogs.forbes.com/merrillmatt...assumptions-in-obamas-deficit-reduction-plan/
OTB
The rich aren’t paying enough taxes. Obama said in his speech that he and Warren Buffet are undertaxed, and so he wants to increase taxes on the rich, what now is euphemistically being called a “balanced approach.”
But the president needs to know that the “rich”—which he defines as those making more than $250,000, about 2 percent of earners—already pay the lion’s share of income taxes.
According to the National Taxpayers Union’s analysis of Internal Revenue Service figures, in 2008:
The top 1 percent of income earners (adjusted gross income of $380,354) paid 38 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 5 percent of income earners (AGI of $159,619) paid nearly 59 percent of all federal income taxes.
While the bottom half of earners (AGI of $33,048 or less) paid only 2.7 percent of all federal income taxes.
And those numbers have been fairly consistent for a decade; in 1999 the top 1 percent paid 36 percent of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid 4 percent.
Unlike the president, I don’t know where we should draw the line on who is considered “rich.” But when the top 5 percent of earners pay nearly 60 percent of all federal income taxes, it’s pure class-warfare demagoguery to claim they aren’t paying enough.
Higher taxes mean more government revenue. President Obama can be accused of a lot of things, but being an economist isn’t one of them.
He needs to meet one: Kurt J. Hauser, chairman emeritus of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Hauser has tracked federal revenue as a percent of GDP and shown that since World War II it has remained remarkably stable, about 19.5 percent of GDP. Regardless of what the tax rates were—income tax rates went as high as 91 percent in the 1950s and early ‘60s, or what Obama might call the “good old days”—federal revenues have hovered around 19.5 percent of GDP for the past 60 years. It’s called Hauser’s Law.
To be sure, there were some upticks in those six decades where tax revenue hit 20 percent of GDP, but those were during economic booms, not the result of tax increases. And there were two major downticks where revenue fell to about 15 percent of GDP—with 2008-9 being the latest. But those low spots were the result of economic downturns, not tax cuts.
The point is that if President Obama were to succeed in raising taxes on the rich, it is extremely unlikely that would lead to more government revenue—just the opposite.
The best, and perhaps only, way to increase government revenue is a vibrant, growing economy. A larger GDP means that 19.5 percent of GDP, Hauser’s Law, would be a larger absolute number. Plus, rapid economic growth could bump up federal revenues to 20 percent of GDP again as more workers and businesses making more money pay more taxes. But there is virtually nothing in the president’s plan to spur economic growth. Nothing!
from: http://blogs.forbes.com/merrillmatt...assumptions-in-obamas-deficit-reduction-plan/
OTB
LMFAO!!!! You do not disappoint
Thanks for fuzzying up the numbers bottie....
Guess it is time to take away from the Poor so our entitled Rich can get another Tax-Break, eh???
Thanks for fuzzying up the numbers bottie....
Guess it is time to take away from the Poor so our entitled Rich can get another Tax-Break, eh???
I'm an S corporation, which means that any money left in the business at the end of the year winds up on my K-1 and reported as personal income. And yes, I would consider the top 2% of wage earners the richest Americans. The fact that some are moderately rich and some are obscenely rich doesn't change that.
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That's always the liberals answer, tax the rich exponentially. Why do you think there's so many loopholes in the US tax system? Do they not think capital is mobile?
It's also a myth that rich people in the US don't pay enough taxes. A person who resides in California and makes $500K per year pays about the same amount of tax as their counterpart in Ontario. A resident of NYC pays even more (because there's also a city tax).
What has to happen is a simplification of the IRS tax code. Close the loopholes and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 to be in line with most other major economies. Bring spending back to 2008 levels and cut discretionary spending from there. Bye bye public broadcasting. Bye bye Planned Parenthood. Bye bye earmarks. Raise age of social security and medicare from current 65 to 67 for all those born in 1965 and sooner. And implement a national sales tax of 5% on all items except food and health care.
It's also a myth that rich people in the US don't pay enough taxes. A person who resides in California and makes $500K per year pays about the same amount of tax as their counterpart in Ontario. A resident of NYC pays even more (because there's also a city tax).
What has to happen is a simplification of the IRS tax code. Close the loopholes and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 to be in line with most other major economies. Bring spending back to 2008 levels and cut discretionary spending from there. Bye bye public broadcasting. Bye bye Planned Parenthood. Bye bye earmarks. Raise age of social security and medicare from current 65 to 67 for all those born in 1965 and sooner. And implement a national sales tax of 5% on all items except food and health care.
I agree there has to be a simplification of the tax code. In Canada too.
Correctly done a simplification of the tax code, eliminating all the loop-holes, would amount to a tax rise on the rich anyway--and the simplification in and of itself would have benefits.
When you say "bring spending back to 2008 levels" I hope you do mean adjusted for population growth and inflation. In nominal dollars that means the US budget should have grown by about 3.5% since then, to maintain the same level of real spending per capita.
Of course you would expect spending to increase during a recession through automatic stabilizers, such as welfare rolls, in canada unemployment insurance, and other programs that are tied to negative economic events. That stuff should self correct back to normal levels in a recovery though.
Correctly done a simplification of the tax code, eliminating all the loop-holes, would amount to a tax rise on the rich anyway--and the simplification in and of itself would have benefits.
When you say "bring spending back to 2008 levels" I hope you do mean adjusted for population growth and inflation. In nominal dollars that means the US budget should have grown by about 3.5% since then, to maintain the same level of real spending per capita.
Of course you would expect spending to increase during a recession through automatic stabilizers, such as welfare rolls, in canada unemployment insurance, and other programs that are tied to negative economic events. That stuff should self correct back to normal levels in a recovery though.
Well there you go.... you must live in a very low cost area.
Do you think it's acceptable that 48% of households pay zero or negative federal income tax?
OTB
Hard to argue with the WSJ here:
The Presidential Divider
Obama's toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.
Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.
The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.
Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.
Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.
The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.
Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare's gargantuan liabilities is that it is "just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse." His own plan is to double down on the program's price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out "unnecessary spending." Is that the same as "waste and abuse"?
Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won't harm seniors' care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan responds to President Obama's deficit reduction speech.
Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan's plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It's hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.
Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen "to find additional savings," whatever those might be, after a "fundamental review." These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.
Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on "the rich." Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts "for the wealthiest 2%," conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own "series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs." Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.
Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.
Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.
Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."
Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
The Presidential Divider
Obama's toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.
Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.
The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.
Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.
Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.
The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.
Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare's gargantuan liabilities is that it is "just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse." His own plan is to double down on the program's price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out "unnecessary spending." Is that the same as "waste and abuse"?
Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won't harm seniors' care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan responds to President Obama's deficit reduction speech.
Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan's plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It's hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.
Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen "to find additional savings," whatever those might be, after a "fundamental review." These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.
Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on "the rich." Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts "for the wealthiest 2%," conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own "series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs." Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.
Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.
Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.
Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."
Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
From an earlier post you would note that the long term Federal consumption of GDP is about 19.5%, I wonder how that compares with other rich nations, I'd guess we're on the low side.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV
Answer to above question, I assume this is all levels of government.
OTB
People pay taxes in a disproportianate way based on their incomes as I'm sure you know. Name a basic service or good that doesn't have a tax attached to it. The tax code is based, or used to be more fairly based, on a progressive scale. Now we seem intent on nickel and diming those with the least whenever we can. Easy targets.
Actually I think the easy targets are the middle class the left thinks are rich.
I also don't think these segments should be immune to Federal Income Tax:
Nearly 22% of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 end up with no federal income tax liability or negative liability as do 9% of households with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes/who_pays_taxes/index.htm
OTB
Yeah exactly. You don't pay enough tax. That's part of the problem. No shit you run huge deficits--your tax rates are too low. For everybody. Your link pretty much demonstrates that?
Of course it would help if you stopped fighting expensive Iraq wars--that would save a pretty penny--but so would putting your tax rates up to sensible levels.
When did anyone here suggest that people making between $50,000 to a $100,000 were rich?
