There are some areas that are nice, from what I hear, and I already know that I don’t want to die in NJ (where we currently live).
@ 163,
I have a lot of refuting to do because of bee’s link in #163? Okay. Just waking up. Just made son #2 breakfast and I am about to take him to football practice. We are less than three weeks from a real football game.
Okay, let’s light this candle.
Here is the first paragraph from bee’s link in #163:
Ten years ago this month, Congress enacted the third major tax cut of the George W. Bush administration. Its centerpiece was a huge cut in the tax rate on dividends. Historically, they had been taxed as ordinary income, but the Bush plan, enacted by a Republican Congress, cut that rate to 15 percent. The tax rate on ordinary income went as high as 35 percent.
-Okay, so 10 years after Bush #2 enacted the third major tax cut of the Bush administration and these folks were looking back at those tax cuts to see what it did to the economy. I’d have to refresh my memory of what those tax cuts were about, I can’t say I remember the three “major” tax cuts of the early 00’s off the top of my head, but, regardless, this article is about tax law that cuts the tax rate on dividend income.
-So what?
-I never argued cutting the tax rates on dividend income would spur anything although I do think that might be a good idea. I can’t say “any” tax cut is a good idea, I realize the government doesn’t run on bananas, and the government does need revenues for a bunch of things, as you all know.
-But this article is off topic to begin with.
-Bee swings and misses.
-It is irrelevant political chatter like “this tax cut will create 300,000 new jobs.” That is political banter. I’ve never said you can quantify exactly how many jobs will be created and/or how much a X% reduction in INCOME TAXES will create a Y% effect on the economy because it doesn’t work like hat and I already posted that.
-I also never said that if states cut state income taxes that would do anything to the economy. That is like saying putting a band-aid on cancer will work. No, it probably won’t.
-So, I guess that means you all got nothing as expected.
-I’m now going to put my pants on and take my son to practice. Then I’ll go to my office, put in a few hours, and come back and make him lunch and pick him up. I’ll be glad when he drives but I want him to wait until he is older. The roads are dangerous.
-Here is the bottom line, you can flip open any principles level economics college textbook and see the concept that if income tax rates go down that creates incentives for work and investment. Now, how about the proof? That is what you want and that is fair since I asserted it. Well, the proof is harder because (1) economics is not my field and (2) as someone else already said the economy is a big thing and it is impossible to control for all the factors that move it.
-In other words, there are lots of factors that cause the economy to grow or shrink. That is the other problem with bee’s article which seems to be more of an opinion piece than a research study (although it might be opinion based on research). This article/op-ed doesn’t control for the other factors that would explain why the Bush tax cuts didn’t create 300,000 jobs and/or bump up the economy.
-Interest rates (cost of capital), currency rates, geo-political threats, consumer confidence, etc. etc are all factors as well.
-Got to go. Be back later.
“Well, the proof is harder because (1) economics is not my field and (2) as someone else already said the economy is a big thing and it is impossible to control for all the factors that move it.”
Yes, we all know economics is not your field.
You’ve refuted nothing. All you have done is state your opinion over and over with zero facts/data to back up your statements.
Nor have you proved your contention that the '86 Tax Reform Act caused the economic boom of the 90’s.
If I was grading you I would have to give you and F.
And the article I posted was on point, as was dstarks and jazzymom’s You just don’t like the conclusion.
That the tax cuts don’t pay for themselves is not a “red herring.” It’s a big part of the equation to examine whether cutting income taxes = good for the economy.
The recent experience of the states as cited indicates that it is not as simple as you would like to have it.
Tax cuts that don’t generate sufficient economic activity to pay for themselves end up hurting the economy. How many people want to move into and set up businesses or work for companies in a state that’s slashing its public education budget to the bone? These issues are part of the equation too.
I remember when Reagan ran on a pretty simple platform of;
- Cutting taxes
- Increasing spending
- Balancing the budget.
2 out of 3 is pretty good for a politician, isn’t it?
At least Reagan didn’t declare, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
How’s that all going right now?
Oops.
Yeah, wrong thread, huh?
Nope, forgot to add–and I thought Mr. Trump was grandiose, but in comparison, his claims are tiny.
Ya, better that we should give up our big aspirations and be like our local school district and dream of being consistently mediocre, that way they don’t disappoint anyone, and they keep their jobs.
Hey, nothing wrong with having grand aspirations, however, there’s a big difference between working hard to qualify for the marathon, and claiming that you’re winning it…before the race has even started. One thing is a goal, the other is hyperbole. Or a lie.
This is from a speech in June 2008. These are in fact lofty goals and grand aspirations he is speaking of. Not hyperbolic claims and certainly not lies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/us/politics/03text-obama.html?pagewanted=all
You don’t consider that hyperbole, at the very least?
Perhaps, one can claim it all didn’t happen because we didn’t, as you put in bold print, “work for it and fight for it”?
What I really wanted to bold was the “generations from now” part…which makes it pretty clear to me that the words you quoted are about setting lofty goals to work toward — and that’s IF he got elected — and not accomplishments he is claiming to have made. Goals are supposed to be lofty.
Indeed. Some folks have been working for those goals and some have been working very hard against them, for various reasons, but that’s about as far as the conversation can go.
So, generations from now (I guess we’d be pretty old by then), do you think you’re going to look back and tell your children that on June 3rd, 2008, that was the moment that we that we started caring for the sick, providing jobs for the jobless, the rise of the oceans began to slow, the planet began to heal, we ended a war and secured our nation, and restored our image, as the last, best, hope on Earth?
I’m pretty certain that mine would laugh and say something like, “Guess what, I was around then, and I remember. We cared for our sick before that, the jobless rate goes up and down with the economy, the water levels in the ocean are still rising, the planet is still getting sicker, we’re in more wars than ever before with violence in the Middle East at a horrific level, we don’t feel that we are any safer in our nation, and people have have far less respect for the country.”
“And by the way, Mom, time for your demensia medication.”
As you can see, I don’t like hyperbola. I consider exaggerated hyperbola to be lies, and I appreciate honesty.
Maybe this all would have been accomplished if it wasn’t for that vast right wing conspiracy.
“we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless…”
“As you can see, I don’t like hyperbola. I consider exaggerated hyperbola to be lies, and I appreciate honesty.”
Well lets put some statistics to Obama’s words:
"The number of American adults without health insurance fell 16.5 million from five years ago, when Obamacare was signed into law, the largest drop in four decades, a new report says.
The report, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, says the uninsured rate is 13.2%, down from 20.3% in 2012-13.
That’s a 35% decline, “quite simply an historic reduction in the uninsured rate,” said Meena Seshamani, director of the Office of Health Reform for HHS. “Today, we know that the Affordable Care Act is working. … These numbers represent real people.”
“Bush lost private sector jobs over the course of his eight years (the Wall Street Journal declared it the “Worst Track Record On Record” on jobs), while Obama has created a net of nearly 7 million private sector jobs during his presidency, and more than 10 million if you start counting after the Great Recession Bush handed Obama technically ended in mid-2009.”
GW Bush administration 01/01-01/02 462,000 private sector jobs were lost .
Obama administration 01/09-11/14 10, 016,000 private sector jobs were created.
Unemployment when Bush entered office was 4.2%. When he left office it was 7.8%
As of 11/14 unemployment rate was 5.8%
http://ourfuture.org/20141208/bush-vs-obama-on-the-economy-in-3-simple-charts
Have we begun to provide health care to millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t have it? Yes.
Have we begun to provide jobs to millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t have one? Yes.
There is one metric were Bush comes out the winner. He created far more government jobs then Obama.
“But there is one area of job creation where President Bush clearly outshines President Obama: the public sector. Public sector employment is now down 608,000 workers since January 2009, a 2.7 percent decline. At the same point in President Bush’s term, public sector employment was up 3.7 percent. If, over the past 40 months, public sector employment had grown at the same pace as it did in President Bush’s first term, there would be 1.4 million additional people at work right now. That’d be enough to bring the unemployment rate down by nearly a full percentage point.”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/01/493849/obama-bush-jobs-record/
You say that as though it weren’t true. ;
“You say that as though it weren’t true.”
No, it’s completely true, I’m sure of it, including blue dresses and cigars, they control everything! My latest two pound weight gain? Vast right wing conspiracy. Sore throat? It’s them again, they are everywhere! 
Well, they certainly control the opposition to lofty goals and all things wise and wonderful. 
Must bow out for a bit…life intrudes.
Yeah me too, have to go sit in a hot airplane, with no cold beer.
That work thing keeps getting in the way of arguing. But the tax donkeys need to get to it. Generate income to pay the taxes for every last whim and desire of those who write the tax code.
Wow. There is a bunch of misinformation on this thread. Let me deal with just one: Estate taxes.
In 1987, the top federal estate tax rate was 70%, and it applied to estates over $625,000, although the top rate didn’t kick in until $5 million. The effective rates went from 37% up in pretty small increments.
If one spouse died with a personal taxable estate of less than $625,000, the surviving spouse could not use the difference when he or she died. However, there was a credit for state death taxes up to 25% of the federal tax due, and as a result that federal rate was the maximum anyone paid. All of the states had state death taxes that were effective to soak up 100% of the available federal credit, but not more than that in the case of federally taxable estates. Some states – like Pennsylvania, then and now – taxed estates lower than the federal minimum. (Pennsylvania’s inheritance tax is, in fact, imposed on the decedent’s estate primarily, and only secondarily on the heirs. Just like federal estate tax.)
By contrast, today the federal rate is 40%, and it applies on a flat basis to estates over $5.4 million, indexed for inflation. A married couple has a $10.8 million exemption, even if the first to die has nothing in his or her own name. But state death taxes are not credited against the federal tax; they are only a deduction. And state taxes vary wildly – some states have none, others have a lot. And in others (like Pennsylvania) it matters a lot who gets the property: bequests to spouses are not taxed, bequests to children are taxed at a low rate, and bequests to non-immediate-family at a high rate. (The marriage equality Supreme Court ruling will do a lot to mitigate some really unfair consequences of that.)
Very, very few people today have to concern themselves with taxes in their estate planning. Personally, I am pretty OK with saying “After the first $11 million, we can start taxing what you leave your kids.” As far as I can tell, that hasn’t stopped people from loving their kids or wanting to amass wealth.