Posted on 05/01/2007 7:39:22 PM PDT by sdnet
While the occupation of Iraq is the major topic of debate in the 2008 presidential race, the candidates have also taken positions on George Bush's fiscal policies. We see Republican candidates supporting Bush's tax "cuts" and being asked to sign a pledge, a pledge they will all, except for Ron Paul, violate, promising not to raise taxes, while Democrats decry Bush's tax "cuts" and promise to at least consider rolling back the tax cuts should one of them take power.
(Excerpt) Read more at smallgovtimes.com ...
Ignorance at its finest. The "RonPaulists" should be proud to be at 1%.
Even JFK is laughing from his grave over this one!
IBTZ
Good post.
He and the Republican Congress cut my payroll taxes a couple of times. I’m very, very afraid of what an overabundance of Congressional Democrats is going to do to my paycheck.
So it’s settled then. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts will not result in any tax increases!
I’ve seen a lot of “tax cuts” over the course of my lifetime.
The only two that actually cut my taxes were Reagan and Bush. Every other tax cut always had some exception or rule that left me out—and I imagine a lot of other people.
Taxes and spending are the same thing. Bush didn’t cut taxes, he greatly increased them like no administration since LBJ. And took out a loan to put off paying for them until someone else is in office.
Ron Paul and Joe Bi(n*La)den are running neck and neck at 1%.
Quiet, don't tell anyone that.
Lower capital gains tax rate, more people in the workforce, lower unemployment rate...
My taxes are lower today, before the Bush Administration came into office, then they were prior to the Bush Administration.
And I have the documentation to prove it conclusively.
The cut in tax rates led to long term growth, raising tax revenues beyond what they would have been with higher tax rates.
The tax cuts worked, and they worked well. Watch and see, as the deficit has shrunk over the past 3 years.
FY revenues outlays balance 2000 2025.5 1789.2 236.2 2001 1945.9 1820.6 125.3 2002 1777.8 1929.2 (151.3) 2003 1665.5 2018.2 (352.8) 2004 1707.3 2082.1 (374.8) 2005 1888.2 2167.3 (279.1) 2006 2037.1 2247.1 (210.0) 2007 (est) 2103.3 2305.4 (202.2)
Sure deficits have shrunk in the past three years, because 2003 and 2004 ran the highest deficits in real dollars since World War II. A moderate disaster is an improvement on a big one.
The tax cuts were great and certainly beneficial to the economy, but the spending cuts that didn't go along with them have increased federal debt at the end of this year by $1,900,000,000,000.00 2007 dollars and a big tax hike - not just expiration of the cuts relative to 2000, but additional increases - is coming next administration to pay for it.
It’s kind of silly to look at things in real dollars, when GDP today is well over 10 times what it was during WWII.
Tax revenues, as a share of GDP, were at 18.5% last year, higher than they were in 2000, before the Bush tax cuts!
You can try to raise tax rates to 50%, but you’re just going to stunt GDP growth (taxing a bigger piece of a smaller pie) and encourage more noncompliance. We’ve had top tax rates of 35-90% since WWII, and rarely has the federal treasury collected over 20% of GDP. In fact, the 18.5% last year is above the historical average.
Someone has to cut spending. But Congress is as much at fault for that as the President is.
The $2 trillion in debt pales in comparison to future SS/Medicare liabilities that are going to hit when the boomers retire. The only way to manage to pay for all this is to enlarge the pie, and that means promoting pro-growth policy even with some short term cost.
Tax revenues in 2000 were 20.9% of GDP. Tax revenues for the 5 years 1997-2001 averaged 20.0% of GDP.
The $2 trillion in debt pales in comparison to future SS/Medicare liabilities that are going to hit when the boomers retire. The only way to manage to pay for all this is to enlarge the pie, and that means promoting pro-growth policy even with some short term cost.
This doesn't make sense. All of the financial irresponsibility that has gone on the past 6 years isn't a short term cost that will pay off in the future, it's a short term benefit borrowed against the future. We have huge entitlement costs just around the corner, and the response was promising even more entitlements and taking huge loans to play nation builder in Iraq and build bridges to nowhere.
They are going to raise the top rates to 50% to pay for this crap, and it's going to work just as well here as it did in Europe.
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