If the rich 1% pay 20% of taxes, they should only get a 20% tax cut.

Can you prove that the rich 1% wouldn't use their savings to buy a new car? No, I didn't think so.

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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

The Stupid Rich do Little or No Work

Okay, so someone sent me an e-mail with a message to that effect.

While I agree that Tax Cuts are needed, the other people have a point in which the Tax cuts may be unfairly skewed towards the rich. If the People with the lowest tax bracket pay about 15% in Taxes (I don't know, can someone confirm?), then that cut should be kept constant. Thus the people who pay the most taxes, should have a reduction similar to that amount. With a 43% tax cut, the people at the high end will save more per buck than the people at the lowest bracket.

I guess this is all what the Democrats are crying foul over. Now if they can get their acts together to suggest a decent alternative instead of crying over it all the time.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
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-Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

Prove? No, but I can dig up some rich people and ask, if you'd like. Heck, if you were independently wealthy, and already had everything you wanted, what difference would $80,000 make to your personal comfort? What would you do with it? Why, you'd invest it, of course. Make some more money with it. Duh.

People should get an equal percentage cut of what they put in.

Would it not thus follow that people should put in an equal percentage cut of what they make?

If the rich 1% pay 20% of taxes, they should only get a 20% tax cut.

Would it not thus follow that, as the bottom 50% of taxpayers pay only 5% of the taxes, their taxes should only be reduced by 5% of total?

Can't have your pie and eat it, too, Jeff.

I don't think you've understood what I said.

The percentage you pay in taxes should be the amount of the break you get. The rich pay 20% of taxes, they shouldn't get any more or less than 20% of the tax cut. The poor pay 5% in taxes? They get 5% of the tax cut.

But when the rich 1% get 43% of the tax cut, they're getting TWICE a cut of what they should be getting, which means someone somewhere is getting a much smaller cut (percent wise ... i.e., they pay 3% but only get a 1.5% cut, if you understand this example).

That's my problem with Bush's tax cut. Cut the rich 1% benefit to the percentage that they actually pay (20%) and I'll be happy (provided people get a percentage cut equivilant to what they pay in taxes).

Clear enough?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an apple pie in the fridge I'm going to go eat.

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-Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

Besides:
$5.6 trillion Projected Surplus - $1.6 trillion Tax cut = $4.0 trillion cushion

This surplus is money that isn't spent by the government. Its money that's going to be taken away that does not need to be. The Government is not giving it back, its just not going to take away so much in the first place.

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"President Bush. It's fun saying that. Go ahead, you try." - M. Lucinsky, Spectrum Editor

You're completely missing the point.

If the rich get a bigger share of the tax cut (43%) then the percentage that they pay in taxes (20%), someone is getting shafted in here by getting less of a tax cut percentage then the percentage they pay in taxes.

Honestly. First the tax cut is defended by arguing that the rich pay that 43% percent, so they deserve a 43% cut. Then the tactic switches to "oh, let business grow!" when its shown they only pay 20% of the tax. Now its, "Who gives a fuck?"

You know, Greenspan could be -- gasp! -- wrong about this whole thing. It could happen. It did happen, last fall - he didn't see that the economy was softening. So, answer this: if Greenspan couldn't foress the economy four months ahead, why does anyone think the CBO can forsee the economy in 10 years? Do you know the CBO devotes one chapter of its annual reports to "The Uncertainty of Budget Projections"?! No, of course not.

The only thing that matters is what *I* get

Gee that's a surprise. It's also a good illustration of the difference between liberals and conservatives. Thanks, Jeff.

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-Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

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"President Bush. It's fun saying that. Go ahead, you try." - M. Lucinsky, Spectrum Editor

"Being a liberal is one of the most gutless choices you can make. It doesn't require you to think, it only requires you to feel." - Rush Limbaugh

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
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"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

But ONLY if the amount you pay is fair in the first place.

It's also a good illustration of the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Yes. The illustration being that you envy those who have more than you, despise them for it, and want to see them treated unfairly, regardless of the fact that it would do you no good.

Ritten:

You're confused. The rich pay 20% of the tax dollars TOTAL. They get 43% (we'll assume JK's numbers are correct) of the dollars given back (for lack of a briefer, accurate term). This is not enough information to figure out their new tax rate.

quote:

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Relief to Low-income Families?

Over the past week President Bush and his Administration have repeatedly emphasized that his plan will provide tax relief to low-income families and help them enter the middle class. The proposal, however, would provide no assistance to working poor families or to many families modestly above the poverty line. (As described below, these families can pay substantial amounts in other taxes, such as payroll and excise taxes, even after the Earned Income Tax Credit is taken into account.) To estimate the number of families with children who would not benefit from the Bush proposal, we tabulated the latest data from the Census Bureau. These data are for 1999. This analysis considers the effects of the plan on families with children under age 18 as if it were in full effect that year. We found:

An estimated 12.2 million low- and moderate-income families with children � 31.5 percent of all families with children � would not receive any tax cut from the Bush proposal. Some 80 percent of these families have workers.

Approximately 24.1 million children � 33.5 percent of all children � live in the excluded families.

Among African-Americans and Hispanics, the figures are especially striking. While one-third of all children would not benefit from the Bush tax plan, more than half of black and Hispanic children would not receive any assistance. An estimated 55 percent of African-American children and 56 percent of Hispanic children live in families that would receive nothing from the tax cut.

Even the Bush proposal to double the child tax credit � the feature of his tax plan that one might expect to provide the most assistance to children in low- and moderate-income families � would provide the largest tax reductions to families with incomes in the $110,000 to $250,000 range, and confer a much larger share of its benefits on upper-income families than on low- and middle-income families. Under the plan, the maximum child credit would be raised from $500 per child to $1,000. Also, the proposal raises the income level above which the child credit begins to phase out from $110,000 to $200,000, extending the credit for the first time to those in this income category. For many of these relatively affluent taxpayers, the child credit would rise from zero to $1,000 per child. By contrast, millions of children in low-and moderate-income working families would continue to receive no child credit, or their credit would remain at its current level of $500 per child or rise to less than $1,000 per child.

Since the reason 12 million families and their children would not benefit from the Bush plan is that they do not owe federal income taxes, some have argued that it is appropriate they not benefit. "Tax relief should go to those who pay taxes" is the short-hand version of this argument. This line of reasoning is not persuasive for several reasons.

1. Many of these families owe taxes other than federal income taxes, often paying significant amounts. For most families, their biggest federal tax burden by far is the payroll tax, not the income tax. Data from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that in 1999,
three-quarters of all U.S. households paid more in federal payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. (This comparison includes both the employee and employer share of the payroll tax; most economists concur that the employer's share of the payroll tax is passed along to workers in the form of lower wages.) While the Earned Income Tax Credit offsets these taxes for most working families with incomes below the poverty line, many families with incomes modestly above the poverty line who would not benefit from the Bush plan are net taxpayers.

Consider two types of families earning $25,000 a year in 2001, an income level the Administration has used in some of its examples:

A two-parent family of four with income of $25,000 would pay $3,825 in payroll taxes (counting both the employee and employer share) and lesser amounts in gasoline and other excise taxes. The family pays various state taxes as well. The family's Earned Income Tax Credit of $1,500 would offset well under half of its payroll taxes.

Even if just payroll taxes and the EITC are considered, the family's net federal tax bill would be $2,325. Nonetheless, this family would receive no tax cut under the Bush plan.

The Administration has used the example of a waitress who is a single-mother with two children and earns $25,000 a year. If this waitress pays at least $170 a month in child care costs so she can work and support her family � an amount that represents a rather modest expenditure for child care � she, too, would receive no tax cut under the Bush plan despite having a significant net tax burden. In her case as well, her payroll taxes would exceed her EITC by $2,325.(2)

2. While many workers would see their marginal tax rates reduced, the Bush plan fails to reduce marginal rates at all for the working families that face the highest marginal rates of any families � working families with children that have incomes between about $13,000 and $20,000. For each additional dollar these families earn, they lose up to 21 cents in the EITC, 15.3 cents in payroll taxes, 24 cents to 36 cents in food stamp benefits, and additional amounts if they receive housing assistance or a child care subsidy or pay state income tax. Ways to reduce marginal rates on these families are well known. The Bush plan does not include them.

3. Low-income working families face some of the most severe marriage tax penalties. The Administration's plan, however, departs from a bipartisan consensus formed in Congress over the past two years to reduce marriage tax penalties for low-wage working families, not just for middle- and upper-income families. Analysts generally concur that some of the most serious marriage penalties in the tax code are those that can face low-income working individuals as a result of the way the phase-out of the EITC is designed. Every major tax bill from both parties in the last year and a half � including major tax bills that Congress passed and President Clinton vetoed in 1999 and 2000 � has contained EITC reforms to provide marriage penalty relief for low-income working families. (Clinton vetoed the bills for other reasons; his budget, too, proposed EITC marriage penalty relief.)

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Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

George Double U Bush: Working To Make Sure Wealthy Americans Stay That Way.

quote:

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I don't think you've understood what I said.

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That's a vast understatement JK. In fact, I'm not sure his brain is even wired correctly to even begin to understand.

quote:

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Yes. The illustration being that you envy those who have more than you, despise them for it, and want to see them treated unfairly, regardless of the fact that it would do you no good.

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*emphasis mine

Nothing like Omega showing his intellectual and agrumentative improbity again and again. How many times does that have to happen before we reach the level of Irony?? Have we gotten there already??

There's a big historical footprint right in the middle of the back of the working and lower classes left there by the that class that Double U is now working so hard to protect.

I don't despise the wealthy -- I just don't want them getting more back in taxes than other people (percent wise, you realize). I do think the wealthy should pay more taxes -- they can afford it. In a society, people contribute to the general welfare. Those who are wealthy contribute more. Didn't your Good Book tell you that greed is bad? You should be DEMANDING that the rich pay more in taxes. "The meek shall inherit the earth," and all that.

Oh, by the way, I might as well quote First of Two here. "Only children think the world should be fair." You earn more, you contribute more. That's the way of the world folks -- learn it, accept it, love it. There's nothing unfair about it.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001

"It's quiet. A little too quiet."

"It takes two to tango."

"This hurts me more than it hurts you."

"Eat your heart out."

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

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"...screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" - Omega.

Irony ensues.

Yes, this is why we use something called a "percentage".

Didn't your Good Book tell you that greed is bad?

Hey, aren't you libs always railing about not forcing my morals on others? Sounds to me that that's exactly what you want to do.