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Forty Two
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Re: Republicans

Post by Forty Two » Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:55 pm

JimC wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:11 am
Generally, I think that current levels here and in the US are certainly not excessive, in fact they are skewed in favour of the big end of town already. Certainly the proposed corporate tax cuts via our current government are far too generous, but they try to justify them via the "trickle-down" effect...
Well, I think it's a fair point to discuss what is and is not "excessive" taxation. I certainly think it is ultimately incumbent upon any proponent of a position on taxation to justify whether they think a tax is too high, or too low. I have seen just as many people supporting tax increases without providing "evidence" that it would be a good thing to increase taxes, just as I know there are those who support any tax decrease without needed to understand why they should be reduced.

One point of contention often involves the purpose of taxation. From my perspective, taxation is to be a means of funding the government for necessary expenses, and should be done in a fair manner affording equal protection of the laws. I do not subscribe to the notion that taxation should generally be used as a means of social engineering, to encourage behaviors and discourage others. Taxation does that. Add a 20% sales tax on cars, and you encourage people to buy cheaper cars, and fewer cars.

However, we can look to the effect that the current tax cut appears to have had, which appears to have been quite positive to the economy. We don't know yet if it has increased revenues over what would have been collected with higher taxes. But, overall, there is reason to think it will, because there is a flow through aspect of this. If it helped the economy expand at 4.1% clip, then that is going to result in more businesses paying taxes on a greater amount of profit - taxation is on profit. If it helped unemployment go down, then tax revenues go up because employed workers pay more income taxes than unemployed ones.

We have a booming economy right now, and I think it's hard to argue that the tax cuts and deregulation didn't help. Growth was anemic under Obama, and became un-anemic when Trump's policies were enacted. Under Obama, a lower GDP growth rate was billed as a "new normal." And, the idea of building up US industry and such was poo-pooed as Trump claiming to have a "magic wand." Now, of course, the Democrat side wants to take credit for the economy, saying that the burst in growth occurred after Obama toiled away on the issue, and that the economy is booming despite Trump's policies, not because of them.

Also, some folks on the far left, like the Sanders and !Ocasio! wing of the Democrat Party, they like to say that the economy really isn't doing well for the people, because it's only the rich who are benefiting and unemployment is only low because "everyone has two jobs", lol.

So, these arguments are political on both sides of the aisle.
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Re: Republicans

Post by Seabass » Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:57 pm

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
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Re: Republicans

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:55 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:23 am
As the GOP tax cut has shown, when you boost the incomes of the wealthy they tend to hoard it in assets rather than spend it in the economy - trickles up rather than down.
That isn't accurate - it's not "hoarded." Even if money sits in a bank account, it is working for the economy - more money to lend out - business loans, home loans, you name it. If they buy a new building with it, that's economic activity. If they buy other assets with it, it's more energy in the economy. They aren't taking cash and putting it in mattresses.

The trickle down aspect of supply side economics is not a one-for-one "if you give a rich person a dollar, he'll spend X% of it on stuff that helps poor people." It's the notion that if businesses can operate with lower taxes and less costly and burdensome regulation, they can do more business, and doing more business employs more people, sells/buys more stuff, and overall helps strengthen the private sector economy.

Unless a person is a business owner, he or she tends to be employed by a business. An evil "corporation" (or partnership, or LLC, or other kind of entity). Part of this is just common sense - if you place taxes which are tough for a company to pay, and if you impose regulations that make it more time consuming, difficult and expensive to do business, then then it's like taking a marathon runner and putting a weight belt on him and telling him to run the race. If it is just a few ounces of weight, he'll probably still be able to finish, and not too too much slower. As the weight gets heavier, though, obviously it will have more of an impact on the ability of the runner to keep running.

If the burden gets high enough, the runner will no longer want to run, which will mean that he won't employ his trainer, and he won't pay the entrance fee, and he won't buy the same shoes and clothing (or as much of it), and he won't do all the other things connected with being a competitor in that arena. As such, the negative impacts of the burdens placed on him "trickle down" throughout his involvement in the sport. And, if such weights are placed on all runners, then the newer and weaker runners will tend to drop out first, leaving the hardier, tougher and stronger runners to keep participating. Eventually, enough weight will kill the sport altogether.

A business operates like that. I've run them. I can tell you. I got a start many years ago when I was single and much braver. You start on a shoestring, but you have to buy office space, equipment, supplies, etc., a cost. You have to pay for all the compliance costs - corporate formation, filing fees, registration with state/county governments, and they all have their hand out. Annual fee here. Estimated taxes. License fees. You name it - each one is a little weight placed on a runner. Add another one - say a regulatory requirement that costs another $X annually to comply - maybe have to pay an accountant, maybe a worker to handle the compliance paperwork - that's an expense. If you're small, just getting off the ground, living hand to mouth, each little weight hurts.

Then try to get to the point of being able to hire an employee! Oh, my. That's a daring moment. Do you have the regular income? Are customers going to keep paying so that you will have that employee's wages every pay day? Can't screw around with that. Employees get paid first. It's a misdemeanor to miss their payday. And, then payroll taxes -- federal, state, FICA, the rest, unemployment insurance, workers comp -- increase these items or some of them, and it's another weight added to the runner.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

Here's an article about how the CBO report implicitly acknowledges that the Trump tax cuts and deregulation spurred unexpected growth which the CBO had not previously taken into account in its projections, and the massive benefit to the economy of the tax cuts is benefitting everyone top to bottom -- https://www.investors.com/politics/edit ... hemselves/
Hmm. Equivocations all the way down. Trickle down doesn't work.
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Re: Republicans

Post by JimC » Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:57 pm

Not unless you're really into golden showers...

Which is a speciality of certain Russian prostitutes, I gather... :tea:
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Re: Republicans

Post by pErvinalia » Sat Aug 18, 2018 12:22 am

Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:23 pm
Brian Peacock wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:23 am
As the GOP tax cut has shown, when you boost the incomes of the wealthy they tend to hoard it in assets rather than spend it in the economy - trickles up rather than down.
That isn't accurate - it's not "hoarded." Even if money sits in a bank account, it is working for the economy - more money to lend out - business loans, home loans, you name it.
That money is available for the government to spend into the economy if it isn't given out as a tax cut. So there's no net difference using your reasoning above. In fact, it's better if the government spends it rather than the free market determining where it is spent, as the clear majority of bank assets (i.e. loans) are for speculative bubbles like housing and other speculative investments. At least the government will spend it into a section of the economy that needs it for productive use (such as infrastructure).
Unless a person is a business owner, he or she tends to be employed by a business. An evil "corporation" (or partnership, or LLC, or other kind of entity). Part of this is just common sense - if you place taxes which are tough for a company to pay, and if you impose regulations that make it more time consuming, difficult and expensive to do business, then then it's like taking a marathon runner and putting a weight belt on him and telling him to run the race. If it is just a few ounces of weight, he'll probably still be able to finish, and not too too much slower. As the weight gets heavier, though, obviously it will have more of an impact on the ability of the runner to keep running.
That's great in theory, but in reality a lot of that money isn't put into economic activity. It's given as pay rises and bonuses for the executive, and/or handed out to shareholders. Shareholders are primarily pension funds and/or the uber wealthy, and that money isn't returned to the economy the same way giving that money to employees would (either via pay rises or reduced taxes).

Just look at the median wages in the US over the last few decades. Stagnant. Inequality has widened massively. If trickle-down worked, we wouldn't see these extreme levels. Yet we do, and that's in the face of falling tax rates since Reagan came in. Trickle-down is a busted "theory". Extreme supply-side is a fucking scam. Economic growth rates were generally considered higher pre-Reagan than post-pre-Reagan, where taxes were significantly higher than they are now. And it's not surprising, as the poor spend more of the money they earn into the economy than the rich. The rich are more likely to spend their money on either luxury items from overseas and/or speculative financial investments that add very little to a productive economy.
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Re: Republicans

Post by Tero » Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:08 am

This is really hard hillary sanders obama bill clinton level stuff! It’s so hard! Yet Johnson, a Texan was able to do it. Give people stuff! Any stuff. Amateurs:

MISHAWAKA, Ind. — Republican candidates are trying to have it both ways on Obamacare.

On one hand, Republicans are still campaigning against the law, arguing a strong election result will allow them one more shot at repealing the Affordable Care Act with GOP majorities in both chambers. And many high-profile Senate GOP candidates support a lawsuit that would scuttle Obamacare if successful in the nation’s courts, a case that will be heard by a federal judge in September.
Yet at the same time, Republicans are still touting the law’s most popular provisions, arguing that after it is struck down, they will be able to preserve protections for pre-existing conditions by passing a new bill. GOP challengers in four of the most competitive Senate races support the lawsuit.

“Sure, anything that’s going to actually get rid of it, yes,” said Indiana GOP Senate nominee Mike Braun of the GOP lawsuit to gut the law in an interview in Mishawaka. “And then be ready to come back and talk about what you’re ready to do about pre-existing conditions and no limits on coverage. That’s where you don’t hear much conservative talk.”

The problem? Congress has shown no ability to pass new health care legislation under Republican rule or work across party lines, raising severe doubts that the GOP would be able to fulfill its promises to kill the law and yet maintain its popular provisions.
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Re: Republicans

Post by Hermit » Sat Aug 18, 2018 4:48 am

Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
One of the main concepts is that if you lower taxes on businesses from say 35% to 21%, it will operate as an incentive to economic growth because businesses will have more money in hand with which to operate, expand etc. The trickle down effect is that when business and industry do well, they have to employ people, and those people then get jobs that otherwise might not be there and the companies have more money to pay employees and offer incentives to employees.
It's been tried in 1986

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and failed.
Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
This does help maximize the well-being of society.
Going by past experienc, it increases profits and does nothing to help employment or household income. Trickle down economics is a con.

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Re: Republicans

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:12 am

Image

US House Majority Leader Representative Kevin McCarthy has never been accused of being brilliant. Lately he's jumped on the bandwagon of 'social media is censoring conservative voices!!' Then he found conclusive evidence right in one of his own accounts. :ask:

"GOP leader threatens Twitter with ‘censorship’ hearings after he bungles his own account settings"
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) embarrassed himself with a complaint about Twitter “censorship” that was actually a function of his own account settings.

McCarthy was unable to see a “sensitive” tweet by Fox News host Laura Ingraham and took to Twitter to post a screenshot and threaten chairman Jack Dorsey with hearings over “censorship.”
Another day, another example of conservatives being censored on social media. @jack easy fix: explain to Congress what is going on. #StopTheBias cc @IngrahamAngle pic.twitter.com/QjzpmfadXS

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 17, 2018
McCarthy may not need Jack Dorsey to come to congress and personally fix his phone, as other users were happy to explain that McCarthy’s issue was his own bungled account settings. With two clicks he could solve his “censorship” problem.
That’s not Twitter censoring her tweets. It’s Twitter following your own personal account settings.

My God, this is just embarrassing.

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 18, 2018
This tweet is the perfect allegory for what’s going on in the world right now. His own Twitter settings are what cause the issue, but he immediately takes to the world to blame someone else. (It’s an easy fix. Just unclick “hide sensitive content” in your settings.)

— The Disco Unicorn (@TheDiscoUnicorn) August 17, 2018
Last edited by L'Emmerdeur on Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Republicans

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:17 am

I like that last tweet. Conservatives blaming someone else for their own problems. That pretty much sums conservatives up.
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Re: Republicans

Post by Tero » Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:07 am

42: ”However, we can look to the effect that the current tax cut appears to have had, which appears to have been quite positive to the economy.”

It’s had no effect on the economy. Recovery, jobs stocks have been the same as Obama, except stocks have been stagnant for months now.
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Re: Republicans

Post by Forty Two » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:17 pm

Hermit wrote:
Sat Aug 18, 2018 4:48 am
Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
One of the main concepts is that if you lower taxes on businesses from say 35% to 21%, it will operate as an incentive to economic growth because businesses will have more money in hand with which to operate, expand etc. The trickle down effect is that when business and industry do well, they have to employ people, and those people then get jobs that otherwise might not be there and the companies have more moThe major tax-rate cut of 1986, which took the top income tax rate down to a five-decade low of 28%, passed the Senate 97-3, as the nation enjoyed a long run of growth comfortably over 4% per year.ney to pay employees and offer incentives to employees.
It's been tried in 1986
I'm old enough to remember the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, and the tax cuts. They did work, and the economy improved markedly. http://time.com/4511870/john-f-kennedy- ... ax-policy/ "The major tax-rate cut of 1986, which took the top income tax rate down to a five-decade low of 28%, passed the Senate 97-3, as the nation enjoyed a long run of growth comfortably over 4% per year."

Revenue boomed as a result of the Reagan tax cuts: https://www.wsj.com/articles/reagan-cut ... 1501800678 "The Reagan tax cuts laid the foundation for a quarter-century of strong, noninflationary growth, which, despite three subsequent recessions, averaged 3.4% until the beginning of the Obama administration. And tax revenue was generated by an expanding economy rather than pilfered through bracket creep."


Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
This does help maximize the well-being of society.
Going by past experienc, it increases profits and does nothing to help employment or household income. Trickle down economics is a con.
...except that it works, and has been shown to work. The evidence is that it works.

What people forget or purposefully ignore is that before Reagan's overhaul, there was massive stagflation. A stagnant economy, high unemployment (double digit), and high inflation (inflation like 10% annually), and ridiculously high interest rates (in 1978, the fed raised interest rates to 20% to try to stop inflation). The government's revenue was going up annually due to "bracket creep." There were like 15 tax brackets, and inflation of 10% a year, so as people's wages went up following roughly along with inflation,they'd get booted to higher income brackets without actually having more buying power.

Reagan simplified the tax system, and reduced rates considerably, across the board, and it did, in fact, help. Along with deregulation, and other adjustments, inflation was brought down, interest rates were brought down, unemployment was brought down, etc. It's Reagan's policies that had him reelected in a landslide and the good economy was why Bush,Sr. was elected in 1988. George HW Bush swept the country in 1988 - 426 Electoral votes and carried 40 out of 50 states. It wasn't because the economy sucked.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Republicans

Post by Forty Two » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:28 pm

Tero wrote:
Sun Aug 19, 2018 2:07 am
42: ”However, we can look to the effect that the current tax cut appears to have had, which appears to have been quite positive to the economy.”

It’s had no effect on the economy. Recovery, jobs stocks have been the same as Obama, except stocks have been stagnant for months now.
That's just not in accord with the numbers.

The current tax cut is working a lot like the last four major tax cuts - "These four major tax cuts shared three key economic accomplishments. Gross domestic product went up. Unemployment rates went down. And federal revenues increased substantially after passage and implementation. Here we are at the six-month point after passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and while we may not have an academic treatise to validate the country’s economic progress, we do have the Labor Department’s remarkable announcement early this month that the country has more job openings than unemployed. As House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady put it in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “The U.S. has gone from a nation asking ‘Where are the jobs?’ to one that asks ‘Where are more workers?’”"

"Today, we are seeing unemployment rates reaching historic lows, especially for women and minorities, and more than a million jobs have been created since the Republican tax cuts were enacted." (which refers to the first 6 months after the tax cuts - and that trend continues).

"From January to May, the Treasury’s monthly statements suggest its early revenue figures are coming in about $26 billion, or 2 percent, higher than last year for the same period. And just recently, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that corporations repatriated over $300 billion back to the U.S. during the first quarter of this year. The same period last year, that figure was just $38 billion." https://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/o ... -cuts-work
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Republicans

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Mon Aug 20, 2018 7:19 pm

Kudlow and Domitrovic appear to be, shall we say 'inaccurate' in their puff piece when they assert 'The major tax-rate cut of 1986, which took the top income tax rate down to a five-decade low of 28%, passed the Senate 97-3, as the nation enjoyed a long run of growth comfortably over 4% per year.' Taking the information from this source and calculating the average growth rate in the 20 years from 1987 to 2006, the result is 3.18%. If we look at the 20 years previous, from 1967 to 1986, we see an average growth rate of 3.15%. People are welcome to check my maths.

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Re: Republicans

Post by Feck » Mon Aug 20, 2018 8:41 pm

A long long time ago before I stopped working I found out my boss was charging between £100/hour and $400/hour for my labour
He was paying me £4/hour .
"Trickle down" is more about getting Ass-raped than a credible economic policy .
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Re: Republicans

Post by Joe » Mon Aug 20, 2018 9:33 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:17 pm
Hermit wrote:
Sat Aug 18, 2018 4:48 am
Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
One of the main concepts is that if you lower taxes on businesses from say 35% to 21%, it will operate as an incentive to economic growth because businesses will have more money in hand with which to operate, expand etc. The trickle down effect is that when business and industry do well, they have to employ people, and those people then get jobs that otherwise might not be there and the companies have more moThe major tax-rate cut of 1986, which took the top income tax rate down to a five-decade low of 28%, passed the Senate 97-3, as the nation enjoyed a long run of growth comfortably over 4% per year.ney to pay employees and offer incentives to employees.
It's been tried in 1986
I'm old enough to remember the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, and the tax cuts. They did work, and the economy improved markedly. http://time.com/4511870/john-f-kennedy- ... ax-policy/ "The major tax-rate cut of 1986, which took the top income tax rate down to a five-decade low of 28%, passed the Senate 97-3, as the nation enjoyed a long run of growth comfortably over 4% per year."

Revenue boomed as a result of the Reagan tax cuts: https://www.wsj.com/articles/reagan-cut ... 1501800678 "The Reagan tax cuts laid the foundation for a quarter-century of strong, noninflationary growth, which, despite three subsequent recessions, averaged 3.4% until the beginning of the Obama administration. And tax revenue was generated by an expanding economy rather than pilfered through bracket creep."


Forty Two wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 5:24 pm
This does help maximize the well-being of society.
Going by past experienc, it increases profits and does nothing to help employment or household income. Trickle down economics is a con.
...except that it works, and has been shown to work. The evidence is that it works.

What people forget or purposefully ignore is that before Reagan's overhaul, there was massive stagflation. A stagnant economy, high unemployment (double digit), and high inflation (inflation like 10% annually), and ridiculously high interest rates (in 1978, the fed raised interest rates to 20% to try to stop inflation). The government's revenue was going up annually due to "bracket creep." There were like 15 tax brackets, and inflation of 10% a year, so as people's wages went up following roughly along with inflation,they'd get booted to higher income brackets without actually having more buying power.

Reagan simplified the tax system, and reduced rates considerably, across the board, and it did, in fact, help. Along with deregulation, and other adjustments, inflation was brought down, interest rates were brought down, unemployment was brought down, etc. It's Reagan's policies that had him reelected in a landslide and the good economy was why Bush,Sr. was elected in 1988. George HW Bush swept the country in 1988 - 426 Electoral votes and carried 40 out of 50 states. It wasn't because the economy sucked.
Pappa Bush won because Dukakis sucked. That guy made Hillary Clinton look like FDR on the stump, and frankly Lee Atwater's bag of tricks made a huge difference in the campaign. They were way down in the polls in the summer of 1988, and it wasn't just the economy that put them over. Team Bush painted Dukakis as an elitist chump, and he helped them make it stick. Google "Dukakis tank" if you need an example.

Inflation was brought down by Fed chairman Paul Volcker raising interest rates. That economic improvement you tout needed a recession to get started, and that sucked. And before you give Reagan all the credit:
Unbeknownst to many, last fall was the silver anniversary of a watershed moment in Fed history and the economic history of the country. On Oct. 6, 1979, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker took dramatic steps to rein in the runaway inflation that had been sapping the strength of our economy since the mid-1960s. Without his bold change in monetary policy and his determination to stick with it through several painful years, the U.S. economy would have continued its downward spiral. By reversing the misguided policies of his predecessors, Volcker set the table for the long economic expansions of the 1980s and 1990s.
As for tax cuts, it's a hasty generalization to say they work, and your assertion that "the evidence is that it works" is completely unfounded. We don't have enough examples to draw conclusions, and while the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts coincided with periods of growth, so did the Clinton tax increase, and W's tax cuts not so much. It's fallacious reasoning, but partisan hacks like to paint this stuff as certain, and cherry pick the evidence to make a case to fool the unwary.

One thing is certain. The debt goes up faster when they cut taxes. :prof:

If you ever wonder why, read David Stockman's book, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.
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