Truth About Bush Tax Cuts

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Clearly, the rich got hit hardest by the Bush tax plan​

 

The top 5% of wage earners paid 60% of ALL income tax collected by the federal gov't. UP from 53% in 2001. The top 1% of wage earners paid 39% of ALL fed'l income tax collected, up from 34% in 2001. So for all who say "stop giveing tax cuts to the rich", get the facts straight.
The top 50% of wage earners in the United States paid 97% of ALL fed'l income tax collected. That means the OTHER 50% of wage earners in the US paid ONLY 3% of all the fed'l tax collected. Think about it the next time you are to the Bush tax cuts went to the rich...NOT

 

They should be paying more as far as I'm concerned. Percentages are meaningless, actual statistics please.

 

Ah, percentages ARE statistics. What more do you want?

 

Tax Brackets:
Up to $7,550 - 10%
Up to $31,000 - 15%
Up to $74,000 - 25%
Up to $154,000 - 28%
Up to $336,000 - 33%
Over $336,000 - 35%

So yes, the rich pay more, way more.

 

Really? how much tax do you pay?

 

I'll bet when you're old enough to actually PAY taxes you'll think way differently.

 

Can't talk about what everyone puts in without mentioning how well the system serves them. The gap between rich and poor in this country is sickening, and grew worse as Bush threw money at his capitalist cronies.
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NYT Article: (my bold):
While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.
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I think the rich are doing just fine .... Just wish I had invested in Exxon eight years ago. I should have known they'd start setting profit records under Bush. DUH .....

 

Oh I'll totally agree the gap between rich and poor is getting much worse. I was just addressing the who benefitted more from the Bush tax cuts issue.

 

Paul: What do you think of all the rhetoric about "tax cuts for the middle class", or, even better, "(you fill in the buzzword) ... to help our hard-working middle class families." Blah blah blah

BTW: Dems and Repubs equally guilty. It's pandering, of course.
Think they even know what the "middle class" is?

 

I think they are all full of baloney when it comes to talk about middle class tax cuts. They all TALK about it but impose all sorts of "fees", excise taxes, and hidden taxes that hurt the middle class the most.
Look at your house phone and cellphone bill fees, the 40 cent a gallon gas tax, alchohol tax, tobacco tax, sales tax, and all the other hidden taxes on goods and services which are then passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. They ALL hurt those who can least afford it, the middle class. Bloomberg here in NYC wnated to impose a commuter tax in which everyone driving into mahattan (south of 80st.) would pay a fee of $8 for passeneger cars and $21 for trucks. Look at the tolls people pay on bridges and tunnels?
So yes, democrats and republican blow a lot of hot air when it comes to tax cuts for the middle class. They hit us in other ways.

 

Yes, if we are efficient at anything, it's creating and collecting taxes. We've gotten so creative, too. Funny, didn't we kick Britain's ass for that? We're supposed to avoid the sins of the father.

(Oh yeah, don't worry about your boy Bloomberg. He'll be leaving soon to become Obama's running mate! ..... lol )


Gotta run brother. Thanks for the thoughtful thread. May the road rise to meet you.

 

Thing is, I was more concerned about the difference in earnings between the top 50% and the bottom 50%, the top 5% and the bottom 95% ect. Because there is a large difference between rich and poor. Sorry to have provoked such a hateful response, I was quite tired and didn't think the post through completely.

 

To me the issue with the tax cuts was not who benefited the most, but rather the effect it had on the federal budget.

 

I wonder about that too. I don't have numbers, but I imagine the Bush tax cuts (along with the war, of course) have to have helped create our huge deficit. That affects everything because it devalues the dollar. How much money would still be in the reserves without the tax cuts? Gotta be a number out there ...

Yes, yes, we don't want all that money in the government's hands, and it should be in the hands of the people it belongs to, the people who "earned" it. I get that (although we can debate the meaning of "earned").

But judging by the huge income gap we now have, it looks like the Bush tax code has essentially redistributed wealth UP the income ladder. It has benefitted the rich. If you buy into the "trickle-down" theory, the rich are supposed to spend that new money and everyone wins because the economy flourishes from all that new spending. That of course has not happened. Maybe it's time to try something different.

 

Revenues have actually gone UP since the tax cuts. Although spends has increased as well. We can clearly see that tax cuts, along with reduced spending will eventually eliminated the federal deficit. Once the deficit is eliminated we can eliminate the federal income tax, as 100% of federal income taxes collected pay for interest on the federal debt. All other revenue comes from corporate taxes and fees.
You will notice that revenue initially went down, but after the tax cuts stimulated more growth, revenues rose once again, even after the tax cuts were fully implimented.

 

My question is, did the tax cuts really do this or would the normal growth of the economy account for this ? If this increase in federal revenue is simply due to the growth of the economy, then wouldn't it have been smarter to maintain the tax rate as it was and pay off the national debt ?

Bill Clinton reduced spending and came closer to submitting a balanced budget than any President in decades. Wouldn't it have been wiser to continue with his policies which was producing a budget surplus that was being used to pay down the national debt ?

 

To answer the 1st part , you will notice that the revenue's declined sharply after 9/11. The tax cuts sharply reduced the length of that recession by putting more money in people's pockets, thereby incouraging spending and investment, creating more jobs and thus more people paying taxes, but at a lower rate. History has shown that when taxes are cut, revenues increase due to more money being in the marketplace and encouraging growth. Yes, a tax increase would temporarily increase federal revenue's, but those higher taxes will discourage spending and investment resulting in fewer jobs and thus, few taxes paid.

Onto the 2nd part, what would be even better than the Clinton policy would to do what I suggested before. Cut taxes (Clinton raised them), thereby increasing revenue's by increasing spending and investment, creating more jobs and therefore more taxpayers, AND reduce the spending. We now have the 1st, but not the second.

 

You see this is whole theory about tax cuts. It is better for the economy AND for the taxpayer. Better for the taxpayer because of the obvious more money in their pockets. As a result they spend more. Spend more on manufactured goods and services. These goods need to be manufactured and the services need to be provided. More jobs need to be created to fill those needs. More people work, and more people are then paying taxes and thus, the increase in federal income tax revenue. This cycle continues until taxes are increased which reverses the entire process.

 

Looks like most of this is coming from the Heritage Foundation.

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