I think we need to be honest with ourselves. Taxing “the rich” doesn’t seem to work but trickle down economics doesn’t completely work either. It has been tried over and over and it always has the same results. If trickle down worked we would have seen close to zero unemployment under Bush. With the tax cuts and the deregulation put into place we should have seen an influx of jobs. Taxing the crap out of the rich doesn’t work either. It sure as hell doesn’t create jobs. I honestly think we need a happy medium somehow. I think “the rich should have a minimal tax increase. I also think the Government should cut spending in all of the pet projects on both sides. I think the Rats need to be willing to cut their Liberal Entitlement programs down. I honestly think unless we find a common ground nothign will change. I know this is controversal for some but our system is broken and needs to be fixed and neither side seems to want to budge. If we are ourselves aren’t willing to budge neither will the Dems and all we have is a pissing contest that is pissing away our fine country.
You owe me $1,000,000.
“but trickle down economics doesn’t completely work either”
You assume that the government can and should order everybody’s life. Freedom will not produce a perfect world just the best possible world. There will always be people who in your infinite wisdom don’t have as much as you think they should. You say that if “trickle down” (leftist speak for free or freer economies), we would have had close to zero unemployment under Bush. The size and scope of government and its spending went up under Bush. Prosperity is inversely proportional to government’s share of the economy.
Government control of our lives and economy keeps expanding. No matter who is in control. Consider that there are NO (zero, nada) spending cuts in the budget/debt deal. All lies and fraud.
Benjamin Franklin was right. “I observed that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves.”
The only thing the government should be doing in regards to the “wealth” issue is preaching personal accountability. It’s not up to the government to create wealth for individuals through taxing the rich, or trickle down, or whatever. Freedom to choose is the only thing necessary.
That’s one of the founding principles of this country & we need to get back to it. As the ole saying goes “for every person that climbs the ladder of success, there are twelve waiting for the elevator”. What we need more than anything are leaders that teach the importance of the ladder, not the elevator, & the importance of climbing that ladder personally, not having someone climb it for you.
This should be the only role of the government in this regard. Period.
We did. We had unemployment below 5%, which is close to full employment. There is not such things a zero unemployment because there is always a flux companies growing and downsizing. During part of the late 90s and part of the 2000s we were essentially fully employed.
With the tax cuts and the deregulation put into place we should have seen an influx of jobs.
We did.
There are a variety of other variables that affect the economy other than tax rates, but it is proven over and over again that a low tax burden, low regulatory burden, and less government interference produces the most economic growth and a better job market. Our tax rates are still high in this country, by the way. The Bush cuts only took about 3% off the highs during the Clinton years. It was a modest, comprised cut. In some parts of the county, people are paying out over 50% of their earnings to the Federal, state, and local governments.
Given that there are always “some” people between jobs, full employment is about 4.5% unemployed. It was pretty close to this number during most of Bush’s two terms. That’s damn near “full employment”.
Average unemployment rate for Bush and the GOP Congress was under 5%. Anything less then 5% is considered full employment by Economists since a certain % of people are either unemployable (druggies, mental handicapped etc) or in the process of switching employment. Trickle down has worked every time it been tried. Where it breaks down is that it is eventually abandoned by the DC political class for Progressive political dogmas.
Comparing Bush and the GOP economic record with that of Bush and the post 2006 Democrat Congress proves just how well it works.
The IRS recently published the fact that $235,000 Americans make $1 million or more in income. If you take EVERY penny of that income you can fund the Fed Govt for....about 30 days. And that assumes that if you take all the money, it has no impact on economic growth.
The only way to get out of this debt crises is economic growth coupled with spending cuts. The only way to get real sustained economic growth is to push serious efforts to massively increase domestic energy production
High energy prices are the fundamental drag on the US economy.
Part of the cause of high energy prices is our insane fiscal policies which weaken the dollar but also by the “green” energy dogmas the Obama Democrats have foisted on us the last 3 years.
High Energy prices have an radically negative effect on the economy. High energy prices destroy US Consumer Confidence and they eat up US Consumer’s discretionary spending dollars.
US Consumer spending is the engine that drives the World Economy. Without it any economic recovery will be anemic at best.
US Consumer have seen, in just the last year 40% inflation in the cost of energy. High energy prices effect not only the price of gasoline, but also the price of every good and service the consumer buys. It also drives up the price of the energy the consumer buys to power their homes. It drives up the costs for producers to produce the goods US Consumers buy.
Until the cost of energy is addressed the US, and the world, economic recovery is going to be stagnant at best.
In 1986, 1991 and 1993 the US Taxpayers gave the DC political machine more tax money and they turned right around an exponentially grew spending faster then revenue came in.
And Democrats propaganda bots in the Junk Media, can drop the stupid lie about Clinton's tax hikes balancing the budget. Just prior to the Republicans taking over Congress in 1994, the Clinton regime presented a budget plan that projected $200 billion plus budgets thru the year 2000. It was the GOP Congress's restraining spending over the strident, hysteric demagoguery of the Democrat party's media machine, that created the appearance of a balanced budget in the late 1990s.
So how about this ONE time Democrats, we do this a different way? How about we significantly cut spending now. We make real cuts, not merely trimming the rate of growth and calling it a cut. Then once we have had balanced budgets for 5 years or so, wholly by restraining spending, then we can start talking about the revenue side.
Please use the term “supply-side economics” instead of “trickle-down”.
“trickle-down” is semantic infiltration from the left.
(sigh)
There's no such thing as "Trickle Down Economics." The term is a leftist construct designed to ridicule Supply Side Economics, which worked every time it's been tried. You make yourself sound economically illiterate when you use the leftist phraseology.
High income earners pay most of the taxes collected by our government right now. A very large segment of the population pays no federal income taxes at all, and in fact consume large amounts of tax money. In return for this, they vote for the “right party.”
By using the phrase “trickle-down economics” you identify yourself as an economic illiterate. I hope that doesn’t offend you, and perhaps you are very young and so can use that for an excuse.
We have an economy that generates vast wealth, so much wealth that it’s possible to arrange things so that tens of millions of people don’t have to do any useful work at all to live a very comfortable lifestyle, at least by the standards of the rest of the world. People who do no work (other than filling out government forms or sitting still for a few hours while a government worker fills out their forms for them) are able to afford food, housing, cars (quite nice cars in some cases), cable television, cell phones, internet, large-screen televisions, computers, and air conditioning. In many cases, they’re able to live in suburban neighborhoods in which they don’t fit, and often that results in the value of the whole neighborhood being dragged down as they act out in ways that small-town police forces aren’t equipped to handle.
Our economy generates such a vast stream of wealth that politicans are able to buy the votes of tens of millions of people through this type of deal. These people become, essentially, “vote cows.” They do nothing other than vote, consume, and have children who perpetuate the cycle. They demand ever more, and when they don’t get what they want they create mayhem.
This is the dynamic that “doesn’t work.” It has nothing to do with how much this demographic group is taxed, or not taxed. It has everything to do with political forces taking advantage of the incredible wealth-producing power of our free society to enrich the groups they favor on the backs of the groups that don’t want to go along with the game.
"but" is the short form for "Behold the Ultimate Truth".
You do know that the government raises more money when taxes are lower, don't you?
And why would the rich give an even higher percentage of their earnings so the government can give it away to the 'less productive' members of our society?
Why would any free person do that? How many hours each week should the average business owner work for free simply because he/she took the risk of opening a business? 5? 10? 40?
The ‘rich’ as you put it already pay more than their ‘fair’ share.
You know who else wants to tax the ‘rich’, or at leats those with more money than he has?
Moronic Matt Damon.
“If trickle down worked we would have seen close to zero unemployment under Bush. “
If spending were actually cut and regulations were not as anti-business and anti-growth, you ‘might’ have a point.
But you don’t.
Because regulations are put into place by government to stifle business because.. they are there to gouge more money from businesses as a stealth tax on actual work done.
Yes, onerous regulations are part of the problem with unemployment.
But, reading your ‘soak the rich’ post, I doubt you’d understand any of the above.
You never studied economics have you? There is a natural unemployment rate that will always happen around 4%-5% because free economies by definition are dynamic. That said, guess what the average unemployment rate was under President Bush- around 5%-6%. With all the problems, employment was very vibrant (as long as you didn't listen to the Dem's propaganda). Anything lower and frankly, it is either an unusual boom or it is artificially controlled. After all, the Soviet Union claimed to have 0 unemployment.
Serious question: What are conservatives' "pet projects?" Maybe the military and border defense. Not so much charity and safety nets, both of which are abused and can be handled by faith-based organizations and families without government funds. But by and large, what do you think conservatives want to spend government money on that isn't a Constitutional function?