The Cost of the Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

**Charles Stover** · 26th July 2010 01:56 PM

The Republicans Approach To Jobless Benefits | Prose Before Hos

Cutting jobless benefits: saves $34 billion/year
Giving tax cuts for the wealthy: costs $200 billion/year

If that's not showing an obvious, irrational bias, I don't know what does.

Saying these tax cuts stimulates jobs is the biggest load of crap. It fills the bank accounts of the rich, and of course that stimulates the economy (what fallacious reasoning) because giving tax cuts to the poor will also stimulate the economy. In fact, it would stimulate the economy more by helping many get out of debt and/or buying necessities.
If the people who support the rich tax cuts actually were interested in creating jobs, instead of inflating their own bank accounts, how about giving tax cuts per new employee? Since that's actually rational in its promoting job creation.

**Devil505** · 26th July 2010 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by Charles Stover

The Republicans Approach To Jobless Benefits | Prose Before Hos

Cutting jobless benefits: saves $34 billion/year
Giving tax cuts for the wealthy: costs $200 billion/year

If that's not showing an obvious, irrational bias, I don't know what does.

Saying these tax cuts stimulates jobs is the biggest load of crap. It fills the bank accounts of the rich, and of course that stimulates the economy (what fallacious reasoning) because giving tax cuts to the poor will also stimulate the economy. In fact, it would stimulate the economy more by helping many get out of debt and/or buying necessities.
If the people who support the rich tax cuts actually were interested in creating jobs, instead of inflating their own bank accounts, how about giving tax cuts per new employee? Since that's actually rational in its promoting job creation.

Are you saying the GOP lies?..

**Charles Stover** · 26th July 2010 02:28 PM

No. I'm saying it can be split into three groups:
The ones who are rich and will do anything to make themselves more rich because, regardless of what they say otherwise, they care more about themselves than their country (however, would rather cite it as "I care more about myself than someone else," ignoring the fact that they harm the country as a whole through various factors such as pollution, a shit economy, and a shit market).
The ones who will support anything another conservative in power does.
The ones who are rational and don't support either of the above (i.e. the minority of the GOP).

That's just how they appear to me, though.

**Devil505** · 26th July 2010 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by Charles Stover

No. I'm saying it can be split into three groups:
The ones who are rich and will do anything to make themselves more rich because, regardless of what they say otherwise, they care more about themselves than their country (however, would rather cite it as "I care more about myself than someone else," ignoring the fact that they harm the country as a whole through various factors such as pollution, a shit economy, and a shit market).
The ones who will support anything another conservative in power does.
The ones who are rational and don't support either of the above (i.e. the minority of the GOP).

That's just how they appear to me, though.

I'm about as tough on the GOP as any member here but I think it important to specify which Republicans I consider un-American scoundrels.
When I rail against the GOP it is really aimed at GOP national leadership, not rank & file Repubs...... Many loyal Repubs (including some on this forum) are loyal to the old (non-existent) GOP that cared about our country & morality...as a party...... & these loyal old time Repubs are evidently hoping that the old GOP will re-emerge from the cesspool that the current GOP has become.
Maybe that will happen someday.......BUT...as long as the GOP leaders & spokesmen remain the same , there is zero hope of that happening.

**Macduff** · 26th July 2010 02:54 PM

Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having "taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.

The projected $5.6 trillion surplus between 2002 and 2011 will more likely be a $6.1 trillion deficit through September 2011. So what was the cause of this dizzying, $11.7 trillion swing? I've analyzed CBO's 28 subsequent budget baseline updates since January 2001. These updates reveal that the much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts).

The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts (3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.

Brian Riedl: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth - WSJ.com

**Charles Stover** · 26th July 2010 03:56 PM

I don't blame the tax cuts for the deficit.

If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors [that are stretched in importance and value (addressed in the first post)] would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade

"If there were no Bush tax cuts, I'm going to make the assumption that we'd be spending more on something else." Or, we could have just not given the tax cuts and not spent the money. It doesn't seem like a very fiscal policy to say, "We either lose money on tax cuts or lose money on something else."

**JayDubya** · 26th July 2010 04:01 PM

Flattening and reducing taxation is itself a goal; it increases fairness and decreases coercion.

Meanwhile, defunding government entitlements is not a defect; that's a feature.

* * *

Also: Tax Cuts For The Wealthy = ??? Certainly we're not talking about the income tax adjustments in 2003ish that brought down every single bracket, reducing many in the lowest bracket to a new, even lower bracket, and making it such that those marginally able to pay taxes before would begin to pay none...

Surely not, as that would be a terrible misnomer.

I'm certainly not rich, and I think I've liked the $1000ish per year the wife and I have saved on taxes since then.

**taxed** · 26th July 2010 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by Charles Stover

The Republicans Approach To Jobless Benefits | Prose Before Hos

Cutting jobless benefits: saves $34 billion/year
Giving tax cuts for the wealthy: costs $200 billion/year

If that's not showing an obvious, irrational bias, I don't know what does.

Saying these tax cuts stimulates jobs is the biggest load of crap. It fills the bank accounts of the rich, and of course that stimulates the economy (what fallacious reasoning) because giving tax cuts to the poor will also stimulate the economy. In fact, it would stimulate the economy more by helping many get out of debt and/or buying necessities.
If the people who support the rich tax cuts actually were interested in creating jobs, instead of inflating their own bank accounts, how about giving tax cuts per new employee? Since that's actually rational in its promoting job creation.

So, having less wealthy people is better for the economy?

**GrumpyOM** · 26th July 2010 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by Charles Stover

Cutting jobless benefits: saves $34 billion/year
Giving tax cuts for the wealthy: costs $200 billion/year

If that's not showing an obvious, irrational bias, I don't know what does.

If that's not a weird way of looking at it I don't know what is. Since when is letting someone keep the money they legally earned cost anyone anything?

**Devil505** · 26th July 2010 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by taxed

So, having less wealthy people is better for the economy?

Absolutely! Having a stronger middle class is best for the economy. The middle class actually spend their money instead of socking it away in tax shelters & overseas secret accounts. This country would thrive with just a strong middle class & no wealthy people...... but would quickly fail if the situation was reversed.