The Popularity Of Tax Cuts

As far as Enron and deregulation. I see the problems with deregulation as having more to do with how deregulation is implemented and not with deregulation itself. California's deregulation approach was flawed so the Enron folks took advantage.

Pennsylvania has provided a better model for deregulation.

PPL's Chairman: Pennsylvania's Deregulation Success Should Serve as Model...

tdworld

 

replace "tax cuts" with "over spending" and "tax increases" with "fiscal responsibility"...

tax cuts are not the reason for deficits, spending all of our money is the reason for deficits, no different than if you have a credit card...

say you have a teenage daughter, you give your daughter an allowance of 50.00 a week. she spends all of the 50.00 1/2 through the week and starts begging you for more money, she says 50.00 isn't enough to cover gas for her car and nice clothes, she wants 75.00 a week, so you okay it. next week same problem, you give her 75.00 and she finds 2 more reasons to bump it to 100.00.

now why is it that she's always broke, because you don't give her a big enough allowance or because she keeps finding new and expensive ways to spend her allowance and by giving in she's not learning about working on a budget?

If the government doesn't have enough money for all it's programs it needs to cut back on the programs, not continually increase the amount of money it takes from me. if i allow the governemnt to keep taking more of my paycheck i have less for myself, my family, and my business, and my employees, and the government never has "enough" money. anybody who votes no on those "desperately needed" school levys know that regardless of whether it passes or not there will always be another levy and they will always continue to raise taxes on you.

the problem is that the government spends too much, not that it taxes too little. try running your household the way you seem to want the government to run and you'll see, you have to cut expenses if you want out of debt, increasing your income doesn't matter if you consistently spend more than you bring in.

Tax cuts just cut the government's income, if we want to take care of the deficit we need to work on cutting it's expenses.

 

Perhaps instead of just increasing or decreasing tax cuts or gov't spending, we should look for better solutions, such as using the tax money responsibly. The money should be spent wisely, rather than thrown into financial black holes that keep sucking more and more money in.

In the previous post, the daughter kept spending money unwisely, so why should the parent keep giving money to the child until she learns how to budget? When we expect our children to learn how to budget, perhaps we should hold the gov't responsible for making the most with the money that we give them.

Peace and love

 

agreed.

accountability and transparency are 80% of the fight here. elminating waste and cronyism is the remaining 20%.

unfortunately i don't hear any of the presidential candidates talking about either in practical terms or where they would cut the fat or being honest about cost and burden. all i hear is "a billion more for this and a billion more for that and the rich will pay for it". baloney. And i'm sick of hearing the GOP talk about pork. pork barrel spending is about 1% of the federal budget it's time to start holding these people accountable for the programs they implement that are useless or counter productive and make some changes.

 

i guess my point is that tax cuts alone don't help an economy, you need a complete overhaul: accountability, transparency, tax cuts, reduced spending and reduced regulation.i don't think we get that with either party at the moment. the economy is a big reason that i'll be voting Libertarian or another 3rd party this fall instead of for either of the Big Two. That and our foriegn policy is crap and none of the candidates for the big two are substainally different in that respect. despite their rhetoric. As much as i can't stand McCain, at least he's being honest about Iraq, we will be there for another 100 years, just like we've been in South Korea, Germany, and Japan for decades, if we don't change our perspective on military action and interventionist foreign policy.


I know, i'm going off topic. My point is that i don't feel our present government is being held accountable by it's citizenry. maybe it's time we started paying more attention to C-Span and less attention to Access Hollywood.

 

I agree; I think any talk the candidates make is just that: talk. "Pork barrel spending" is McCain's new catch phrase. C'est la vie.

Peace and love

 

Do you see some of this being accomplished with a flat tax? Some of the reasons given for some of the former Soviet countries going with a flat tax is that it's simplicity and clarity has reduced corruption and the use of loopholes making tax collection easier.

 

absolutely, but it'll never happen in the current political climate, even the Fair Tax promoted by Huckabee and Boortz is getting mocked, not that i'm a big fan of the Fair Tax, but it's a start.

progressive taxes and the practice taxing income rather than consumption/use are sacred cows no one in the 2 big parties want to touch, no one with a chance at the nom anyway.

unfortunately you generate far more votes using class conflict as a political tool than you do by promoting class mobility through sane economic policies.

 

YES! 'Seems pretty short-sighted to me.

 

Because their tax cuts haven't been combined with spending cuts. Reagan's deficit problems were related to the spending put into dealing with the Soviets. Bush's deficit is related to spending on homeland security and Iraq.

Clinton didn't have to emphasize military spending because the Soviet Union had collapsed by the time he got into office and there was no war during his time.

Clinton's Surplus

This explains what influenced the surplus that Clinton had.

 

Agreed, but the problem is the lack of ethics, people and corporations will do anything to make a buck if the government allows it. The only way to prevent that is government oversight.

I also believe that the tax burden needs to be redistributed so that the wealthy pay a higher percentage. Trickle down economics doesn't work, the rich just keep it for themselves. And now that the bush administration has bestowed tax cuts on the rich, it's hard to reverse that, because who's gonna back your political campaign if you go against the best interests of your backers? One solution might be campaign reform, in which campaigns are publicly funded, but that'll never happen.

As for the Iraqi war, imagine all the good that could be done in the world with all that spending. But hey, at least Haliburton and the military contractors are making money, right?

 

" I recently spoke with Mart Laar, the former prime minister of Estonia and the godfather of that nation's flat tax. The major opposition to his tax reform, he explained, was not the citizenry; rather it came from the economists and the other Wise Men of government.

"I was told, 'We cannot do a flat tax. It is untested. It will not work. It will cause budget deficits," Mr. Laar recalls. However, he believed it would work because of what he'd read about it in Milton Friedman's classic, "Free to Choose." And so, in 1994, Mr. Laar ignored the economic pundits and snapped into place a 23% flat tax. Estonia has since experienced one of the most rapid growth spurts of any nation in the world..."

Supply-Side In Estonia

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To those who disagree with supply-side economics why is it so popular now in Eastern Europe?

 

I agree w/ your assessment.

Why should I have to pay the same tax rate as someone who makes over $100,000 a year? I am undergrad who makes $7.40 an hour for about 11 hours a week- sure, I'll get the tax money back, but I need it now to survive. Do the people who make much more than that NEED the extra money to survive? No, they should pay more b/c they have more. Whatever happened to "he who has much has much asked of him?" I guess the new notion is "he who has little has as much demanded from him as he who has much."

Peace and love

 

Exactly. Rich people only need so much. Any wealth after that is out of circulation.

 

I'm sure the billionaire will really miss the extra million dollars that a higher tax rate might take from them. Wait, that's pocket change to the person worth 3 billion dollars. Maybe they'll only buy one new Ferrari this year w/ the increased tax rate. Or as an ex-friend has complained, she and her brother have to share their daddy's new Mercedes. Too bad...

Peace and love

 

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The rich get richer by taking money away from the poor.

 

You and I think that way, but they don't, for them it's all about the numbers, more is better, and usually rich people are the stingiest, there's a reason they've got money.

I'm wealthiest beyond my wildest dreams, as happy as it gets with what I have, yet so many are miserable with so much more, what's up with that?

 

Most of that wealth is tied up in stockmarket/investments and the companies that the money goes to use it to create new products and services which means more jobs.

- I'm sure the billionaire will really miss the extra million dollars that a higher tax rate might take from them. Wait, that's pocket change to the person worth 3 billion dollars. -

How many jobs are lost if these millions go to taxes?

 

How many jobs would be provided if the million dollars goes to taxes which are used to rebuild bridges which are collapsing and dams that are crumbling?

Why would increased taxes hurt jobs if that taxpayer isn't going to invest it in American products anyways?

Peace and love

 

There are not many people in the country or world for that matter worth 3 billions dollars.

It all boils down to who you think is responsible for creating jobs. I, for one, think it is the private sector who if left alone will create jobs over the govt. If the United States Govt was a business, it would have been bankrupt a long time ago. These are the same people who send me to four lines to renew my license and takes 3 years to widen a road.