Quote :

"It should also be noted, that, under Obama's tax proposal, people paying no or little income taxes, could receive checks for thousands of dollars. I'm ok with tax deductions, but this welfare disguised as refundable tax credits is pure income redistribution for redistribution's sake. ... Obama will be the first president in history to use the tax system purely for income redistribution."

The EITC has been around for a while, and is not Obama's idea.

That last sentence is just blatantly wrong, what's scary is idiots running around thinking things like that.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 3:42 PM. Reason : ]

10/23/2008 3:41:57 PM

What is funny here is taht except for maybe eyedrb Obama's tax plan hurts likely no one here on TWW.

10/23/2008 3:44:06 PM

hur I appreciate it, but i dont make near 250k.

Although I do pay the SS max every year, so even though I make less than 250k I will pay more in taxes despite his claim.

I also feel he will raise the income taxes in my tax bracket as well, its just not in his "plan" now.

you are correct aik, he will increase the unearned income credit.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 3:48 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 3:47:52 PM

^ weren't you recently saying you take people on their word? Where in Obama's word has he indicated this?

10/23/2008 3:48:40 PM

^^^^ it's scary believing it's not the government's role to redistribute wealth?

Also, just because the EITC has "been around for awhile" doesn't mean I'm ok with it. Also, Obama proposes to expand that credit by about 4 times as much and 6 times as much for those paying child support.

He also proposes
-a $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay"
-a 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies)
-a "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000
-a child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year

and there are others. I'm sorry, but no matter how you look at it, this is going to be income redistribution at its finest. It'll be packaged nicely and sold to us with great enthusiasm and pretty words, but it'll still be income redistribution.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 3:50 PM. Reason : ^^^^]

10/23/2008 3:50:31 PM

Quote :

"That last sentence is just blatantly wrong, what's scary is idiots running around thinking things like that."

How many former presidents use the words "spread the wealth around" to defend their tax proposals?

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 3:54 PM. Reason : ?]

10/23/2008 3:52:30 PM

Quote :

"What is funny here is taht except for maybe eyedrb Obama's tax plan hurts likely no one here on TWW."

I'm a post grad student making less than 25k a year, and Obama's plan right now would probably put a lot more money in my pocket and I still don't like it. It's just a terrible economic plan.

Obama's plan will leave small businesses hurting, rich people trying to hold onto their money instead of reinvesting, and it will drive up unemployment. I want a job, which is why I won't vote for Obama.

10/23/2008 3:54:29 PM

Quote :

"Obama's plan will leave small businesses hurting, rich people trying to hold onto their money instead of reinvesting, and it will drive up unemployment. I want a job, which is why I won't vote for Obama. "

wrong, he exempts capital gains taxes for small businesses, McCain won't even do that

People aren't investing now anyway, because the economy sucjks now, it isn't the capital gains tax that makes people want to hold onto their money, it's the fact that this shitty economy will make their money disappear (the shitty economy McCain and Bush agreed was fundamentally sound)

Unemployment has been driven up with the CURRENT economic policy - it's time to take it back closer to how it was during the clinton days (remember Clinton, he cleaned up the first Bush's economic mess)

Your post is just fundamentally wrong on so many levels

10/23/2008 3:58:09 PM

Quote :

"wrong, he exempts capital gains taxes for small businesses"

Looks like Obama got you too. Guess what? Small business don't pay capital gains taxes. Obama knows this, but thinks most people are too stupid to figure it out. He wants to appear to be pro-small business.

Also, read this article from the wallstreet journal and see how the plan will actually affect small businesses.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455021772252457.html

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 4:05 PM. Reason : ]

10/23/2008 4:03:15 PM

can you quote a source other than flippard murdock's?

10/23/2008 4:06:19 PM

Wow, you responded so fast you clearly didn't have time to read the article, which means you dismissed it based soley on being a WSJ article. Wow, way to go.

It's not like I'm posting an article from Sean Hannity's or Rush Limbagh's website here. Does it have to be from the dailykos or huffingtonpost for you to take even a little bit seriously?

If you disagree with the arguments and facts in the article, lets debate them here.

10/23/2008 4:10:14 PM

Quote :

"it isn't the capital gains tax that makes people want to hold onto their money"

Of course its not in the current environment. No one has made any gains this year anyway. In a normal environment, capital gains absolutely kills investing. Increasing the capital gains tax rate will only prolong the current situation, or drive us further into the hole.

I also want to show you a video to show you how much BS Obama is shoveling. Please defend blindly after you watch it...I know you will....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpSDBu35K-8

Hillarys expression is invaluable

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 4:16 PM. Reason : ...]

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 4:16 PM. Reason : ..]

10/23/2008 4:12:04 PM

Quote :

"can you quote a source other than flippard murdock's?"

You're suck a hack. The WSJ is a credible source, just like the NYTimes is. Refute the argument, not the source.

10/23/2008 4:13:34 PM

Quote :

"If Person A ends up paying more, then the money doesn't go into the pocket of Person E...so there is nothing that Person E gains from that. If Person A ends up paying less, then the money will likely go into the pocket of Person E, so there is everything to gain for that person. "

I am not sure if this is exactly what you were getting at with this post but note this.

There is a conservation of "money." If person A pays more in taxes then one of three things happens

1) Someone else pays less in taxes or gets more in transfers
2) The government spends more money
3) The government borrows less money

In the first two cases the spending is simply done by someone else and returns to the economy. The last case is more complex but an easy way to think of it is that the government is borrowing money that otherwise would have went to investing in the private market.

So in and of itself the taxation of one person will lead to increase in spending by someone else.


Where you get growth effects is if you believe that taxes will alter the choices of people. If person A chooses to earn less money then there is a potential economic loss to society. I say potential because it depends on what it offsets.

My baseline view is that given current tax rates, marginal increase in taxes used to reduce the deficit will probably slightly increase the rate of growth. This is becaues economic estimates show that tax rates have relatively little effect on people's choices but interest rates have a great deal of effect on people's choices.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 4:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 4:13:42 PM

Under Obama's tax plan, small business that make over 250k would be forced to lay off American workers. I have never voted democrat in my life but I would have voted for Obama if he didn't have this ridiculous plan

10/23/2008 4:44:36 PM

^

I don't know of any reason to think this would happen.

The tax is on profits, which means that workers salaries are deductable. So, higher tax rates will not change the cost of keeping or hiring workers.

In general a tax on profits only has direct effects on capital and even those effects depend crucially on the design of the tax.

10/23/2008 5:12:36 PM

Quote :

"My only conclusion is that mytwocents is either naive, stupid, or both."

No I think she's just found an effective way to troll TSB by starting a thread with a box of tinder and some gasoline, lighting it, and watching people squirm.

10/23/2008 5:13:55 PM

Quote :

"You're suck a hack. The WSJ is a credible source"

I guess, I mean, they reported a few days ago that Michelle Obama ordered lobster and caviar at a hotel where she wasn't even staying... I guess that's credible enough for you guys right...

10/23/2008 5:23:53 PM

^^^ Im speaking out of my ass and dont know a got damn thing about obama, small business, or taxes

10/23/2008 5:36:38 PM

Quote :

"He also proposes -a $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" -a 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies) -a "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000 -a child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year and there are others. I'm sorry, but no matter how you look at it, this is going to be income redistribution at its finest. It'll be packaged nicely and sold to us with great enthusiasm and pretty words, but it'll still be income redistribution."

I know we hate Obama for being socialist and in all seriousness there is much i disagree with him about. How are those four proposals you are highlighting though an example of Obama's Xtreme leftist nature. I do not think its 'income redistribution' to simply not take someones money through taxes. If anything this is seems like a rather republican "capitalistic' approach to help the middle and working classes by tweaking the tax code with the extra benefit of encouraging savings as well as home buying.

An example of income redistribution would be
"Obama plans on bumping the top tax bracket by 5%; using this money to increase welfare payouts"

"Obama intends to raise the salary cap effected by FICA in order to raise funds for social security that primarily benefits poor irresponsible people who decided to not save for retirement."

or

"Obama wants to create a luxury car tax to force a high tax rate on those evil rich people buying lexus's in order to fund money into a national mass transit fund"

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 5:37 PM. Reason : l]

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 5:39 PM. Reason : L]

10/23/2008 5:37:06 PM

Quote :

"For every 3 welfare queens there is one wealthy person who made his money by cheating, stealing, or exploiting other people"

Was this post serious?

10/23/2008 5:49:38 PM

Quote :

"I guess, I mean, they reported a few days ago that Michelle Obama ordered lobster and caviar at a hotel where she wasn't even staying"

That was the New York Post if I remember, which is a rag. The WSJ is about as solid as they get. The editorial page is a little loopy but the news section is one of the best.

10/23/2008 8:25:06 PM

oh, my bad

10/23/2008 8:50:08 PM

Still waiting for terpball or someone to actually address the WSJ article above.

10/23/2008 9:26:51 PM

Some good articles on Obama's tax plan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455021772252457.html

Anyone willing to defend Obama's tax plan after these?

10/23/2008 11:11:25 PM

Quote :

"Some good articles editorials on Obama's tax plan."

The first one is just a snarky criticism of how Obama would execute the tax relief, calling it government handouts and welfare. His source for that chart showing the marginal tax rates is from the American Enterprise Institute, which is a conservative think-tank that has zero credibility to me.

The second one fails to include an important factor.

The customers of those small businesses. Who are they? Middle- and lower-class Americans who, under Obama's plan, will have extra money to give to those small businesses which will "increase... "the demand for investment and labor" [which] translates into an increase in J-O-B-S." as the author says.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 11:59 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 11:59:24 PM

^ ok how about addressing the actual facts/arguments presented? Obama is proposing MASSIVE welfare disguised as tons of tax credits. Are you ok with this?

If you want to doubt the validity of a graph, how about disputing it with facts? I've yet to hear someone factually and logically defends Obama's tax proposals. The proposals described in the articles are 100% accurate. Defend them for me.

Also, during the democratic debate with Hillary, Obama acknowledged the fact that historically, when capital gains taxes decrease, revenues increase, and vice versa. Yet, he still admitted he might double capital gains taxes anyway just to make things "fair".

If this doesn't bother people, then the only rationale I can come up with is they're afflicted with wealth envy, want to "stick it to the rich", and don't care or understand that small businesses will have to end up firing massive amounts of employees.

10/24/2008 12:24:00 AM

Let me introduce you guys to a little friend called "Hauser's Law".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html

10/24/2008 12:27:31 AM

^ that's some tasty win right there

10/24/2008 12:32:19 AM

Quote :

"It should also be noted, that, under Obama's tax proposal, people paying no or little income taxes, could receive checks for thousands of dollars."

Should these people get to vote?

I mean if there should be no taxation without representation

If you are actually getting money from the gov't after you pay taxes, should you be able to vote for representatives?

10/24/2008 12:34:57 AM

^ I don't think they should. About 40% of people don't pay income taxes as it is. If Obama has his way, about 49% won't. If the majority of voters don't have to pay income taxes, all the Democrats have to do is say, "Hey, if you vote for that Republican, he'll make you pay income taxes!!! So vote for me!" Tax policy and social programs are all about voter control.

Honestly, I'd like to see some sort of filter on who can vote. A test of some sort. Not sure how it should be formatted, but something that requires voters to have some knowledge of how the government and economy work. Like the difference between a profit and profit margin.

Btw, there is no constitutional right to vote. No I'm not wrong, the supreme court has ruled so, and some are proposing legislation to change this, and I hope they don't. The founding fathers absolutely feared a true democracy.

Oh, and do some research before you start to argue the right to vote thing.

10/24/2008 12:39:38 AM

Quote :

"If you want to doubt the validity of a graph, how about disputing it with facts?"

I have no idea where they obtained information on the marginal tax increases under Obama's plan, so I can't dispute it. It may be completely fabricated for all I know. All I get when I search is a bunch of other editorials that cite the same conservative think-tank. So I'm not inclined to believe something from a single, biased source. The burden is on you to corroborate the information that source provides.

Quote :

"Obama is proposing MASSIVE welfare disguised as tons of tax credits. Are you ok with this? "

I disagree with that characterization. But yes, I am mostly okay with his tax proposals.

Quote :

"I've yet to hear someone factually and logically defends Obama's tax proposals."

Um, I did in my post above.

Quote :

"If this doesn't bother people, then the only rationale I can come up with is they're afflicted with wealth envy, want to "stick it to the rich", "

That's what happens when you get your inforamtion from conservative editorials.

10/24/2008 1:04:23 AM

what is it you guys fear so much about "income redistribution" and "socialism"? Its going to help the economy

Quote :

"Honestly, I'd like to see some sort of filter on who can vote. A test of some sort. Not sure how it should be formatted, but something that requires voters to have some knowledge of how the government and economy work. Like the difference between a profit and profit margin."

Ya how about just landowning white males? great new thought!

Quote :

"The founding fathers absolutely feared a true democracy. "

Yes and? the founding fathers also lived in a world completely different from this one. Congrats on being the founding fathers but it doesn't mean what they say is right forever.

10/24/2008 1:13:54 AM

Quote :

"How many former presidents use the words "spread the wealth around" to defend their tax proposals? "

Wait a minute, so it's those words people have a problem with, and not the meaning they represent?

That's what's bringing out all this idiocy?

10/24/2008 1:24:57 AM

Quote :

"Let me introduce you guys to a little friend called "Hauser's Law". http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html"

And the rebuttal for balance:

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/odd-numbers/2008/05/20/lying-with-charts-wsj-edition?rss=true

10/24/2008 1:52:44 AM

^^Yes. It's hilarious.

10/24/2008 1:58:19 AM

Quote :

"The second one fails to include an important factor. The customers of those small businesses. Who are they? Middle- and lower-class Americans who, under Obama's plan, will have extra money to give to those small businesses which will "increase... "the demand for investment and labor" [which] translates into an increase in J-O-B-S." as the author says."

His tax proposals will put a big hurt on small businesses (which employ 70% of workers and are currently creating 80% of new jobs). So I'm sure when all those people get fired to keep the company solvent, the check from the government, that will pale in comparison to their paycheck, will bring them great comfort.

Quote :

"what is it you guys fear so much about "income redistribution" and "socialism"? Its going to help the economy"

Yes, creating a disincentive to work hard and succeed will surely help the economy.

Quote :

"Ya how about just landowning white males? great new thought!"

Yes, because that's exactly what I was saying. We should reinstitute prejudice voting restrictions. Nice strawman argument. I just don't think people who don't contribute taxes should have a say in how our taxes are spent. Imagine if a majority of voters paid no taxes? They could see to it that they never have to pay taxes ever again! I also would like to see those who are clueless about the economy and government be somehow excluded from voting. People can vote on how the country should be run all they want, as long as they're actually making an informed decision. How would this be implemented? I have no idea.

Quote :

"Yes and? the founding fathers also lived in a world completely different from this one. Congrats on being the founding fathers but it doesn't mean what they say is right forever."

They feared a pure democracy, and so do I. So you're saying mob rule would be a good thing? What the majority wants the majority gets? I don't think I need to explain why this would lead to horrible outcomes.

10/24/2008 2:00:09 AM

Quote :

"Wait a minute, so it's those words people have a problem with, and not the meaning they represent? That's what's bringing out all this idiocy?"

I have a problem with Obama's words exactly because of what they represent.

10/24/2008 2:01:24 AM

Quote :

"And the rebuttal for balance: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/odd-numbers/2008/05/20/lying-with-charts-wsj-edition?rss=true"

Interesting read. I'll have to mull this over.

[EDIT]

So I read it over, and read through the comments to see what others thought, and someone made the following argument.

Quote :

"Taxes are taxes -- the purposes to which they're put are irrelevant from the perspective of Hauser's Law. If Hauser's theory is correct -- and the data seems to support that theory"

The article essentially tries to debunk the "Hauser's Law" by saying if you remove the social security tax, revenue as a percentage of GDP slowly declines instead of remaining steady.

Pointing this out doesn't seem to effect Hauser's original argument. That despite the tax rate of the highest bracket of income earners, revenue as a percentage of GDP remains the same. Only the GDP itself changes. And GDP seems to go down when the rates go up and vice versa.

Thoughts?

Hauser's law chart for reference

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 2:20 AM. Reason : read it]

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 2:22 AM. Reason : chart]

10/24/2008 2:06:24 AM

Quote :

"Obama is proposing MASSIVE welfare disguised as tons of tax credits. Are you ok with this? "

Does not compute

10/24/2008 7:30:40 AM

Quote :

"Honestly, I'd like to see some sort of filter on who can vote. A test of some sort. Not sure how it should be formatted, but something that requires voters to have some knowledge of how the government and economy work. Like the difference between a profit and profit margin. "

So what you're saying is that you don't want the Republican base to vote?

10/24/2008 8:33:46 AM

^^^ Doesn't that mean that the tax burden is inherently shifted to the lower income people?

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 8:39 AM. Reason : ]

10/24/2008 8:39:03 AM

Quote :

"Welll.......considering that the return on the ubersafe 3 month T-bill is better than the return on ss, I'm thinking that even the safest of investors can invest better than the government....."

This is not true. T-Bills have a deeply negative return right now. I note that a few weeks ago T-Bill have a negative nominal yield. That is you were garunteed to lose money by buying T-Bills.

Quote :

"Pointing this out doesn't seem to effect Hauser's original argument. That despite the tax rate of the highest bracket of income earners, revenue as a percentage of GDP remains the same. Only the GDP itself changes. And GDP seems to go down when the rates go up and vice versa."

If the strict point is that top marginal rates do not predict revenue then this is of course true and obvious to tax policy professionals.

If as was orginally suggest that cutting taxes, by which we generally mean, lowering the fraction of reported income you are taking from the wealthy has no effect on revenue is not the case.

Tax as a percent of the economy is steady because tax policy is designed that way on purpose. Even a tiny deviation from the trend would cause expoded deficits or surpluses government tries to avoid. Not that tiny dip since in 2000 is what has lead to the $500 Billion deficits that we have currently.

10/24/2008 9:45:41 AM

Quote :

"ok how about addressing the actual facts/arguments presented? Obama is proposing MASSIVE welfare disguised as tons of tax credits. Are you ok with this"

One good thing that is coming out of the Republican decent into desperation is an admission that tax credits ALL TAX CREDITS are spending.

The center piece of the Bush 2003 tax cuts were credits. Almost all proposals from the left and right since 1992 have consisted mainly of credits.

That having been said I don't know of anything particularly welfare like about Obama's credits.

10/24/2008 9:52:33 AM

Quote :

"Tax as a percent of the economy is steady because tax policy is designed that way on purpose. Even a tiny deviation from the trend would cause expoded deficits or surpluses government tries to avoid. Not that tiny dip since in 2000 is what has lead to the $500 Billion deficits that we have currently."

why do we try to avoid surpluses? If we avoid surpluses how do we create a negative trend for the national debt?

10/24/2008 10:33:32 AM

Quote :

"^^^ Doesn't that mean that the tax burden is inherently shifted to the lower income people?"

One theory as to why reported income inequality is growing is that marginal income tax rates have fallen and reporting a higher income is no longer punished as severely, so the top income earners have responded accordingly by reporting far higher incomes.

Now, whether this is due to them adjusting their behavior to produce more income or shifted their income sources from untaxed to taxed is unclear, most likely a combination of the two.

If this is the case and most of recent histories growth in income inequality is due to lower marginal tax rates, then higher marginal tax rates would drive down reported income inequality and thus reduce tax receipts from the wealthy, if severe enough the difference would need to be made up through higher taxes upon the middle class.

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 11:26 AM. Reason : all change]

10/24/2008 11:19:52 AM

Quote :

"Unemployment has been driven up with the CURRENT economic policy - it's time to take it back closer to how it was during the clinton days (remember Clinton, he cleaned up the first Bush's economic mess)"

even with the economy in the state that it is in, wasnt unemployment higher under Clinton?

10/24/2008 11:31:28 AM

um, no

not that I know of

if you can show me when it was higher under clinton go ahead

10/24/2008 11:39:32 AM

It was higher in his first few years. Don't forget about the 1991 recession (it was time for a recession, but it was influenced in part by the S&L banking failures leading up to it).

10/24/2008 11:45:35 AM

this would actually suggest otherwise.

91 was bush's term.

the graph is separated by blue and red for dem and republican years

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 11:49 AM. Reason : 91]

10/24/2008 11:47:53 AM