Posted on 05/10/2006 12:31:37 PM PDT by MikeA
House and Senate GOP conferees finally agreed yesterday on extending the 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains for two more years through 2010. This means you can expect lots of media and liberal rhetoric about "the deficit" and "the rich," but the real news is how well these lower rates have been soaking the rich to fill government coffers.
The latest evidence is Treasury's monthly budget report for May that tax receipts were up by $137 billion, or a remarkable 11.2%, for the first seven months of Fiscal 2006 through April. That's more than triple the inflation rate. And it comes on top of the $274 billion, or 14.6%, increase in federal revenues for all of Fiscal 2005, which ended last September 30.
These columns have been documenting this trend for the last couple of years, as well as the revenue tide flowing into state budget coffers. Overall state revenues climbed by 8% in 2004 and nearly 9% in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, and more and more states are piling up big surpluses. We've reported this news because politicians like to disguise these tax windfalls so they can spend it all with impunity and still plead poverty. Journalists contribute to this ruse by focusing their budget coverage on deficits, rather than on the spending and revenue trends that are the actual components of any budget.
The current revenue rush also refutes the prevailing Washington consensus that the federal deficit is the result of the Bush tax cuts. In fact, this revenue tsunami is the direct result of the expansion that took off in earnest at about the time the 2003 tax cuts passed. Lower tax rates have since had precisely the result that supporters predicted, though don't look for that story on page one any time...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
You do not need to be a subscriber to access their site this week. The chart referenced in the article can be viewed there are well.
It seems the "tax cuts for the rich" actually soaked the rich.
The Journal had a more in-depth piece on just this last week by Stephen Moore which shows far from giving the wealthy a break, the Bush tax cuts actually shifted more, not less, of the tax buurden onto their shoulders. That can also be accessed for free on the Journal's website: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114670305012743294.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The lefty websites and commentators are going crazy trying to refute these stories in the WSJ. They aren't doing a very good job of it. "Facts are stupid things."
Bookmark. I will be using this when seeing my family over Mother's day.
bump
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114670305012743294.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Use the link above to access an even better article on this from the Journal last week. It's more in-depth.
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
Unfortunately, the extension mentioned here is only temporary, not to mention the fact that the tax burden is on its way back to pre-Bush administration levels as many of the tax cuts implemented expire over the next four years.
What government gives with one hand, is taken away with the other. That is the perennial game with the income tax system playing the electorate like a finely tuned violin.
"As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government." . . .
"The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system."
"In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation."
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright and replace them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
If there is anything more blatant than these lies I don't know what it is. The prevaricators who maintain these preposterous positions should be forever known as dishonest muckrakers.
BUMP
There are many people that simply do not believe behavior is affected by tax rates.
Their logic is that the same income tax base would have existed and therefor a higher rate would have brought in even more revenue.
They cannot be convinced that the income tax base would have been smaller due to the disincentive of a higher tax rate. They refuse to embrace dynamic scoring of tax changes.
The Laffer curve has been proven empirically many times in history, but economic cycles are slow and complicated by a lot of factors. It wouldn't surprise me if another century of empirical evidence still wasn't enough to convince some people.
I had an argument not long ago with both Dems and Republicans that insisted there was no way I would pass up a promotion even if the pay increase would be taxed at 75%. They simply could not wrap their heads around the concept. Promotions always involve extra risk, responsibility, time, and effort. There is a point where the rewards do not outweigh those costs. Some people just plain don't believe it.
Yes ... don't they sound remarkably like the SQLers we see on these threads???
Yes. The only difference is the editors avoid third grade play ground rhetoric and two against one tactics. Beyond that little variance.
That's because the editors involved are probably smarter than the morons who inflict their nonsense upon us in such meaningless torrents - all for the purpose of trying to retain the Status Quo ... just like the editors of the piece.
Are the tax cuts intended to stimulate economy? The prime interest rates were raised several times in the row. Does it make sense?
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