Taxes Reach Historic Low

maxcok

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Riiiight!

According to the ultra-simplistic worldview characteristic of your kind, facts and figures are irrelevant.
You just perfectly described yourself and your rightwing media-fed spin on the Ryan budget plan.
Lawd, the irony. :lmao:

Furthermore, you persist in making gross generalizations and painting anyone who doesn't agree with you as members of some despised fanatical alien fringe, aka "your kind". How "ultra-simplistic" is that "worldview"? :rolleyes:

There is left and then there is extreme left...where you so pompously and self-righteously belong...
You don't know my politics at all, son. I'm nowhere near "extreme left", not even in this skewed right-of-center US political context. You only know that I challenge your ridiculous "ultra-simplistic" party line talking points and media-fed propagandistic bullshit, so you need to marginalize me to the fringe. You're blindly authoritarian, you're blatantly reactionary, you're overbearing, dismissive, and insulting to anyone who disagrees with you, and you have the audacity to call me "pompous" and "self-righteous"? Give me a fukin break. :rolleyes:

Funny how the extremes connect...What difference is there, really, between your kind and the creationist crowd?
Again, you really need to stop oversimplifying and trying to lump me in with a "kind". Marginalizing and demonizing what you perceive as a threat from social/political progressives is a clear mark of a Rightwing Authoritarian and Social Dominance Orientation.

As for where I differ with the creationists? I don't let adherence to religious mythology or blind political ideology interfere with my grasp on reality. You should really consider trying to do that yourself for a change.


Same self-righteous indignation in the face of factual evidence, dogmatic to a fault, rigid "thinking" and accompanying langue de bois.
"self-righteous"? "dogmatic to a fault"?? "rigid thinking"???!! Good lord, is your middle name "Projection"? Is your last name "Irony"? Are there any mirrors in your damn house? And could you please stop trying to show off with the high-falutin French phrases now? Yes, I know what that means, in a literal and a political context, but believe you me, no one here is impressed by your high school French. Talk about "pompous". :rolleyes: Vous êtes un pompeux imbécile arrogant.

Why on earth do extremists like you never seem to gain enough traction to attract a majority of the US electorate, I wonder...:rolleyes:
"extremists like [me]"? LOL again. Let's stick with "facts and figures" and "factual evidence" shall we?

Like this:
Say, isn't Paul Ryan's plan largely inspired by the recommendations of President Obama's own Deficit Commission?....
I repeat: :chairfall::lmao::rofl:

The fact that you not only mindlessly parrot this party line rightwing media-fed Orwellian nonsense with blind assurance, but you angrily defend it, and the fact that you think I'm a "leftist extremist" says everything that could possibly be said about you, about the gullibility and ignorance of the general electorate, and the tragic state of contemporary American politics.

The only "factual" phrase in your entire ridiculous diatribe, though not in the way you intended, is this:
Riiiight!
Could I add self-riiiiiighteous?

Seriously dude, turn off the propaganda stream, and if you can't find any more balanced sources of information, at least try to find another way to deal with your anger and your control issues.

I'll repeat:
Tell you what, why don't you get back to us when you can debate people as individuals with distinct points of view, rather than lumping everyone who disagrees with you together as members of an "unsavory lot" [Edit: or "your kind" or "leftwing extremists"],

AND

when your argument consists of something more mature and substantive than silly insults, generalizations, media-fed propaganda, and absurd party line talking points.
I am a registered Democrat.
LOLOLOL! A registered Democrat who thinks Paul Ryan's budget plan is modeled on Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission, and who calls me a "leftist extremist"?
Riiiight!
.:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
 
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deleted213967

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On that online politics test, I made Gandhi look like a Nazi.

What concerns me is the ever growing position of the State. Most of Europe is pushing 50% of GDP in Government spending and taxation. I find this very worrying, not just politically, but econmically as well. Frankly, I don't think that you can claim to have a free market economy over 50% of tax and spend. It does not lead to posperity and it does not lead to individual freedom, which is I presume what we want.

I spend part of my life in a place with 50/50 tax and spend and part where it is 15/18. Guess which place has the better public services?

I don't see politicians discussing this in these terms, it is presented as either tax and spend less or spend the same and tax more. I conclude that the majority of politicians are fundamentally corrupt in this respect. We should be aiming for about 33/36 in Europe if we want to maintain prosperity on a global level. Our politicians are bonding us to debt, it needs to stop, we lose our freedoms and the poor will undoubtedly get poorer. Bizarrely to some, I would go Federal in Europe to achieve this.

As for the US, as I said from the start, that's your call. I'd have a look at the military budget though, sorry defense budget. Always start with the big numbers.

I am fairly sure my old friend T.J would have said something similar.

The defense budget should be on the table indeed, notwithstanding (mostly) Republican resistance. We could slash entire war toy programs with less-than-compelling "ROI", vastly increase productivity within the bloated military bureaucracy and rely less on overpaid mercenaries.

As for the US tax code, it is an unmitigated monstrosity. The problem is that large swathes of the public are still married to a full array of deductions, making it so much harder to start with a clean slate.

Another (bigger) problem is that too many Americans are blissfully ignorant about public finances: they want the butter and the cannons, the cookie, eating the cookie and the money for the cookie...




 

Drifterwood

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As for the US tax code, it is an unmitigated monstrosity. The problem is that large swathes of the public are still married to a full array of deductions, making it so much harder to start with a clean slate.

Another (bigger) problem is that too many Americans are blissfully ignorant about public finances: they want the butter and the cannons, the cookie, eating the cookie and the money for the cookie...

I think it's symptomatic of a power hungry civil service to have a taxation system that needs a degree to understand. Efficient, prosperous places have systems that you can complete online in ten minutes.

The beauty of course of public finances is that it always feels like someone else is paying.
 
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deleted213967

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Instead of simply lowering taxes at that point, we should then use the surplus to pay off the debt - the debt that was created by the deficits in the first place. Only once the debt is gone can we even consider talking about lower taxes.

By the same token, Congress should consider raising revenue only after it's exhausted all the cost-containment options.

Wasteful duplication of services identified by the CBO and a smattering of independent think tanks would be a good starting point to slash spending.


Raising revenue through the elimination of tax expenditures, rather than wholesale tax rate hikes (even on the so-called $200,000-a-year "billionaire" individuals) would make far more sense (and cents) in this fragile and uneven recovery.

Gutting the tax code and streamlining it à la Deficit Panel would not necessarily favor the "rich", on the contrary. Popular itemized deductions are more likely to benefit taxpayers with higher incomes.

Tax complexity has another very substantial, yet invisible cost: compliance and fraud.

Billions in wealth are wasted into a vast cottage industry of tax compliance, both at the individual and corporate levels.

Gutting the tax code would not only save corporations and individuals vast sums, but would also discourage fraud, thus raising revenue.
 
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deleted213967

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Are you trying to speak Spanish or Portuguese? Either way it seems like a bad translation.

Regardless, if you want to refer to yourself as "porco", that's fine with me.

At least you're not trying to impress us with your French.

I see Latin is not the official language of the Creationists* of The Left.

* Some of them prefer to be called "Creation Scientists". If your kind prefers that term, I should be happy to oblige.

My French can beat your French. Try me!
 

maxcok

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Va t'enculer, Max, j'etais malade. Tout va bien maintenant, merci.
I don't know why you're addressing me, much less insulting me, being as I haven't addressed you in any way.

You do realize my post above yours is addressed to Domisoldo and not you, don't you? See where I quoted him?

Feel better.

My French can beat your French. Try me!
Oh for godsake. Grow up. Futue te ipsum!
 
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deleted213967

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I don't know why you're addressing me, much less insulting me, being as I haven't addressed you in any way.

You do realize my post above yours is addressed to Domisoldo and not you, don't you? See where I quoted him?

Feel better.

Oh for godsake. Grow up. Futue te ipsum!

Well, I did.

See, I became an Independent (you know, one of those who decide the outcome of the elections). Yes, in just a few threads! :eek:

To be blunt, I'd rather be associated with, yes, Evil Paul Ryan, than with your horde:

your sclerotic dogma
your tragically quaint class warfare propaganda
your pathological jealousy of the success of others
your fascination with bloated, central bureaucracies
your wholesale ignorance of the empirical world

and all the other pungent trappings of all fringe ideologies.

So, in a way, you've had far more influence on me than I could ever have on you: doctrinaires, by definition, stick to their rigid credo like a fly to a cobweb. They are impervious to facts. They are impervious to change.

 

Drifterwood

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I don't know why you're addressing me, much less insulting me, being as I haven't addressed you in any way.

Apologies, my head clearly isn't quite screwed back on right.

It's a shame that these discussions get so partisan. I am geninely interested in the different models in our countries. So I'll dive in as an outsider.

Seems to me that right wing US ideology insists on low taxation as a model for success in a free market economy. This practice under Bush et al is belied by the fact that the low tax revenue wasn't enough for what they spent. What they did was to brush this unfortunate reality under the carpet by putting you all in debt. As I said in the other thread, you would have to increase the tax take by 50% for the next twenty years to pay off your 14.5 trillion $ debt.

Given the old adage that the first thing you should do when you realise that you have dug yourself into a hole, is to stop digging, I don't quite understand Mr. Obama spending double this year's tax take. Then again, I don't know the details and you still have a lower percentage of State spending of GDP compared to the Europeans, so some Keynesian medicine may still work.

Somewhere the model isn't working. Low tax means you get to spend more money. This creates jobs which means that people don't depend on the State. Less need for the State, less tax to pay for fewer things till you get to sub 20% to pay for the other State essentials.

Amazing how we turn prosperity into a debt burden. I'm afraid I think it all comes back to spending the prosperity of the next twenty years on assets that should have cost half but doubled because we were prosperous. Does that make sense? Now we and you have the Catch 22 that we will have to give the prosperity we no longer have to the Government to pay their mortgage and the growing needs from the State.

Our Governments are implementing austerity measures which means higher taxes and reduced services, you are having a go at stimulus through lower taxes and more spending. It will be interesting.

Bubbles cause such shit - maybe we need to learn to recognise them and sanction against them. The Chinese do, are, but that rather grates with the ideology, doesn't it?
 
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maxcok

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...I became an Independent (you know, one of those who decide the outcome of the elections). Yes, in just a few threads! :eek:
Yesterday (literally) you were a "registered Democrat", and today you're an "Indpendent". Riiiiight!
You're completely full of shit.

To be blunt, I'd rather be associated with, yes, Evil Paul Ryan, than with your horde:

your sclerotic dogma
your tragically quaint class warfare propaganda
your pathological jealousy of the success of others
your fascination with bloated, central bureaucracies
your wholesale ignorance of the empirical world

and all the other pungent trappings of all fringe ideologies.

So, in a way, you've had far more influence on me than I could ever have on you: doctrinaires, by definition, stick to their rigid credo like a fly to a cobweb. They are impervious to facts. They are impervious to change.
Oh for crap's sake! The irony in those last lines, attempting to describe me as a rigid ideologue while (yet again) perfectly describing yourself, is so over the top it has to be satire. * shaking my head in disbelief and disgust at people who make up wild distorted generalizations about others, and who accuse them of lockstep thinking, while ironically and hypocritically proclaiming their own 'Independence of mind' * And a wet-behind-the-ears ignorant pup like you telling me I suffer from "wholesale ignorance of the empirical world"? LOLOLOLOLOL!!!

And who ever said Paul Ryan was "Evil" anyway? :rolleyes: I haven't even commented on his budget plan. I just LMAO at you claiming it was based on the recommendations of Obama's Deficit Commission, which is patently absurd. That's the most ridiculous Orwellian talking point I've heard in quite awhile, right up there with "death panels".

You need to stop making absurd false generalizations about my politics, and stop putting words in my mouth.

I'll repeat, since you still don't get it:
You don't know my politics at all, son....

Furthermore, you persist in making gross generalizations and painting anyone who doesn't agree with you as members of some despised fanatical alien fringe, aka "your kind". How "ultra-simplistic" is that "worldview"? :rolleyes: .....

Again, you really need to stop oversimplifying and trying to lump me in with a "kind". Marginalizing and demonizing what you perceive as a threat from social/political progressives is a clear mark of a Rightwing Authoritarian inclined to Social Dominance Orientation.

Look it up, links provided. The catch-22, of course, is that you will automatically reject anything that even slightly challenges your "rigid thinking", your hardcore ideology, out of hand -- like a good predictable little RWA.

Though it's hard to choose among so many choice offerings, I particularly loved these latest two of your hilariously pretentious phrases: "sclerotic dogma" and "pungent trappings of all fringe ideologies". Do you write your posts with a thesaurus in your lap? along with all your high school foreign language textbooks? :rolleyes:

Vous êtes un pompeux imbécile arrogant.
Allow me to translate: You are a pompous arrogant idiot.


And to once again reiterate, since you still don't get this either:
Tell you what, why don't you get back to us when you can debate people as individuals with distinct points of view, rather than lumping everyone who disagrees with you together as members of an "unsavory lot", [Edit: or "your kind" or "leftwing extremists"]
[New edit: "your horde", "fringe"], etc....

AND

when your argument consists of something more mature and substantive than silly insults, generalizations, media-fed propaganda, and absurd party line talking points.
Grow up. Futue te ipsum!
 
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phillyhangin

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By the same token, Congress should consider raising revenue only after it's exhausted all the cost-containment options.
As I said, right now it's a spending and a revenue problem: we're spending on things we shouldn't and not (necessarily) taking in enough revenue to cover core services and public goods (depending on what you count as a "core service" and "public good"). The only quick solution to the immediate deficit problem is going to be some combination of expense cutting along with a revenue boost as needed to create a surplus to help pay down the debt; doing one or the other is probably not going to be enough - or at least not enough to create the kind of debt pay-down schedule that we need in order to be able to get out from under this mess any time soon.

And yes, the tax code is a monstrosity that needs some serious streamlining.
Gutting the tax code would not only save corporations and individuals vast sums, but would also discourage fraud, thus raising revenue.
My concern is that if simplifying the tax code saves corporations and individuals "vast sums" of money, I'm not sure that the extra revenue from better compliance would necessarily make up the difference, leading to a decrease in revenue or at best, no significant change. Now if the budget can be refocused on core services and public goods and the total expenses can be brought down sufficiently, this might allow for a surplus that can be used to begin paying down the debt, but again, that remains to be seen.

I do believe that the tax code needs to be simplified drastically, but not (solely) for the goal of saving corporations and individuals vast sums of money; instead, it should be simplified primarily to make compliance easier and thus fraud harder. Then, if better compliance actually yields higher revenue (and doesn't just lead to new ways to avoid taxes), rates can be adjusted downward to meet the lower expenses of the refocused budget while still leaving a large enough surplus that can be used to pay down the debt in a reasonable period of time.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of conditional statements in the above, and the political leadership in both parties has too much of a vested interest in the status quo to make the kinds of changes that need to be made, so I'm not really expecting this to happen until something forces their hands - perhaps the threatened downgrade by S&P, but even that is probably only going to result in a temporary fix instead of a long-term solution.
 

parr

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I liked the percentage approach. Plug a few loopholes. I thought that
was fair. But even with that you will still get a few squawks from
the henhouse.
 
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deleted213967

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I liked the percentage approach. Plug a few loopholes. I thought that
was fair. But even with that you will still get a few squawks from
the henhouse.

True, but we have to be honest with ourselves: we Americans love those byzantine deductions, particularly the sacrosanct home mortgage deduction, which is the mother of all tax expenditures.

If by "hen house" you mean Congress, the hen house is still literally representing the rest of us, who won't let go of those deductions.

Don't get me wrong: I love all those deductions too (and certainly take full advantage of them), but we can't re-shape the tax code into a simple, predictable, hard-to-defraud tool without letting go of them.
 
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deleted213967

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I do believe that the tax code needs to be simplified drastically, but not (solely) for the goal of saving corporations and individuals vast sums of money; instead, it should be simplified primarily to make compliance easier and thus fraud harder. Then, if better compliance actually yields higher revenue (and doesn't just lead to new ways to avoid taxes), rates can be adjusted downward to meet the lower expenses of the refocused budget while still leaving a large enough surplus that can be used to pay down the debt in a reasonable period of time.

We are saying the same thing: I also favor an approach that would yield some net revenue, in order to expedite our return to fiscal sanity.

Yet I also believe that the savings businesses (and to a more modest extent individuals) would generate under a super-streamlined tax code, together with the additional revenue derived from diminished fraud, would help us maintain lower tax rates.




 
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deleted213967

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Our Governments are implementing austerity measures which means higher taxes and reduced services, you are having a go at stimulus through lower taxes and more spending. It will be interesting.

Bubbles cause such shit - maybe we need to learn to recognise them and sanction against them. The Chinese do, are, but that rather grates with the ideology, doesn't it?

There are some similarities between the "predicaments" faced by European and US governments: many of the well-intentioned social safety net programs were built decades ago on impossibly rosy assumptions about forward-looking GDP growth rates, demographic trends and life expectancy.

However, the US is also saddled with outsized health care costs, a problem of atrocious complexity, but of extreme relevance in the current debate over Medicaid and Medicare.


 

phillyhangin

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We are saying the same thing: I also favor an approach that would yield some net revenue, in order to expedite our return to fiscal sanity.
Then in that case we agree on the overall principle, but we might still disagree on the details of its execution: From your earlier post it seemed to me that you were advocating cutting both expenses and tax rates simultaneously, with the goal of a balanced budget or maybe a small surplus to address the debt; for me, I advocate cutting expenses (eliminating pork and redundancies, refocusing on core services and public goods) but leaving the rates alone in order to generate a larger surplus that can be used to pay down the debt more rapidly.

It's a trade-off: lower taxes but longer pay-down (meaning more interest paid) vs. higher taxes but shorter pay-down (meaning less interest paid). I'd rather live with the higher taxes in the short term if it means getting rid of the debt more quickly, but I can see the appeal of lower taxes even if it means a longer pay-down and more interest charges; still, I'd personally rather just be done with the debt as soon as possible.

The long-term goal - once the debt is gone - is to bring revenue into balance with expenses and to keep the expenses focused where they should be.
Yet I also believe that the savings businesses (and to a more modest extent individuals) would generate under a super-streamlined tax code, together with the additional revenue derived from diminished fraud, would help us maintain lower tax rates.
Well, as I said, I'm unconvinced that the increased revenue from better compliance would be enough to offset the decreased revenues from lowering the tax rate on corporations and individuals under a streamlined system because historically the people/businesses with the most money to protect tend to find ways to do so. Of course, a total offset wouldn't be needed if the budget could be refocused and total expenses lowered, but again, I'm not convinced that the political will exists to achieve that given the vested interests in the political parties.

So, for me, as a short-term revenue fix to buy time to address the long-term spending issues, I'd rather streamline the tax system to make compliance easier and fraud more difficult and then wait to see if there really is a net increase in revenue before tinkering with the rates; if there is a net increase in revenue and rates can safely be lowered while still maintaining a large enough surplus to pay down the debt in a reasonable amount of time, I personally feel that the bulk of the tax savings should go to individuals and small businesses and not to large multinationals.
 
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deleted213967

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So, for me, as a short-term revenue fix to buy time to address the long-term spending issues, I'd rather streamline the tax system to make compliance easier and fraud more difficult and then wait to see if there really is a net increase in revenue before tinkering with the rates; if there is a net increase in revenue and rates can safely be lowered while still maintaining a large enough surplus to pay down the debt in a reasonable amount of time, I personally feel that the bulk of the tax savings should go to individuals and small businesses and not to large multinationals.

I am really supporting a complete overhaul of the US tax code (which local governments would then be encouraged to emulate). It would necessarily entail the elimination of all tax loopholes, yes, including the hallowed mortgage interest deduction, which I have personally enjoyed.

Eliminating all those deductions without also cutting the number of tax brackets and lowering the top rates would translate into a extraordinary tax burden on large swathes of the middle class.

Alternatively, I would favor a national sales tax which would exempt goods and services of basic necessity. The move would directly encourage saving, at a time when Americans are tragically unprepared for retirement, and most are poised to outlive their savings and not have enough money (including putative Social Security benefits) to live comfortably (and healthily) in their old age.




 

phillyhangin

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Eliminating all those deductions without also cutting the number of tax brackets and lowering the top rates would translate into a extraordinary tax burden on large swathes of the middle class.
Ah, okay, I see where you were heading now. And yes, eliminating deductions without a decrease in rate would burden the middle and lower classes. That wasn't what I was proposing from my side, though.

I've posted elsewhere that I don't believe we should do away with exemptions per se, but rather we should change the way exemptions are handled: I think that we should have either a flat rate personal exemption for everyone that covers the national average cost of living and then tax everything above that, or we should do the cost of living deduction on a county by county basis and then tax everything above that. The idea is that people shouldn't be taxed on the money they need to meet their basic needs; they should only pay taxes on the surplus they earn once their basic needs have been met.

So if you earn $120k and the cost of living deduction is $20k, your taxable income is $100k; multiply that by whatever rate applies and that's what you owe. Three simple steps and you've calculated your taxes for the year. With only three steps, it's a lot harder to commit fraud - or, rather, it's a lot easier to detect fraud if your income has been properly reported by way of W-2's and 1099's and so forth.

Once you know what you owe, then you subtract any taxes you've had withheld, and the result is either what you owe or what you get back (or zero). You could file your taxes online in about five minutes that way.

You could also create a means-tested deduction for small businesses that would help them reduce their tax burden while making larger companies that fail the means test pay taxes on their full income; after all, if they fail the means test, then they don't need the deduction.

Alternatively, I would favor a national sales tax which would exempt goods and services of basic necessity. The move would directly encourage saving, at a time when Americans are tragically unprepared for retirement, and most are poised to outlive their savings and not have enough money (including putative Social Security benefits) to live comfortably (and healthily) in their old age.
That is certainly an option, but you'd have to get the exemptions right or those who fall in the lower income brackets would get hit the hardest. The other issue is that while a national sales tax would encourage savings, that by definition entails discouraging spending; since the tax is only collected when people spend money, this potentially limits the sales tax as a primary source of revenue.