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Honestly, I hope they do expire for a few months. Then, come January, when working people see a few hundred dollars extra in withholding taken out of their paychecks every month, they might just wake up to the lies that Democrats and the MSM have been telling them for the last 12 years. Many people are too young to remember the tax rates of the 90s, or too lazy to actually dig out their old tax forms and calculate how much different their payments were. I actually did so a few years back, without the cuts I'd be paying several thousand more every year.
If they do expire....if I'm not mistaken, Obama will be remembered as the president responsible for the largest tax increase in the countries history. Heck of a legacy...I wonder how TOTUS will spin that? It might be enough to ensure that Dems loose the presidency, house and senate for the next decade or two. It would almost be worth it. But not really, the economic devistation would hurt this country too much.
If Obama is reelected, I think he should raise taxes back to a sensible level. Bear in mind we have spent billions, perhaps trillions for the wars. We have to pay for that in full, and the true cost is thousands per middle class tax payer. The 9/11 attack was a WWII level event for Americans. Why can we not sacrifice to defend our country? Bush lied to us with those tax cuts. We simply could not afford them. Under Clinton we were solvent, now if a person tries to restore a degree of revenue commensurate with the real cost of our government, they are a pariah or socialist. How stupid. It is really upsetting how self-centered this generation of tax payers is. What we refuse to pay, our kids will have to. How is that honorable?
I say this as a guy who earned over $100k last year, but only paid 8.66% in taxes. No shenanigans, just basic deductions. We are a typical family. Two incomes, married, one kid, a midsized mortgage. Come on. That is too low. If folks like me had to, lord forbid, pay 10-12%, I have a feeling we would survive, and the country would not turn into Cuba.
Per person spending in inflation-adjusted dollars. Still want to try to convince someone that it's lack of revenue causing our problems?
Yep, look at the slope of that curve from 2002 -2009. That involved two massive wars and a huge recession draw on social services. Why should taxes have been cut then? Note that the slope through the 1990s was flat. That is because Bush I raised taxes and Clinton cut costs. That is called good governance (from both parties). The 2000s did not have good governance. That is when we were sold the bs that "these wars will pay for themselves," "deficits don't matter," and my favorite "revenues increase with tax cuts!" We can flatten that curve through raising taxes and ending the wars. It will not be the end of the world.
Yep, look at the slope of that curve from 2002 -2009. That involved two massive wars and a huge recession draw on social services. Why should taxes have been cut then? Note that the slope through the 1990s was flat. That is because Bush I raised taxes and Clinton cut costs. That is called good governance (from both parties). The 2000s did not have good governance. That is when we were sold the bs that "these wars will pay for themselves," "deficits don't matter," and my favorite "revenues increase with tax cuts!" We can flatten that curve through raising taxes and ending the wars. It will not be the end of the world.
Increasing taxes alone won't fix anything. Now, I don't disagree about spending being largely flat through the '90s. Now, lets try rolling spending back to the levels of the 1990s (adjusted to per-capita and inflation). The war in Iraq is over, lets get troops out of Afganistan by the end of this year. And quit starting new wars in the ME. We shouldn't have gone to war with Libya, nor should we go with Syria. Roll social spending back to those levels as well, and undo the TSA and alphabet soup of new government agencies created in the last decade. Oh, and reduce reduce inflation adjusted revenue back to 1996 levels, the middle of Clinton's term. Or better would be '97 levels when they were about balanced at $7k per person. Not quite true since we were spending all the excess SS tax receipts to maintain that level of spending, but better than now.
Increasing taxes alone won't fix anything. Now, I don't disagree about spending being largely flat through the '90s. Now, lets try rolling spending back to the levels of the 1990s (adjusted to per-capita and inflation). The war in Iraq is over, lets get troops out of Afganistan by the end of this year. And quit starting new wars in the ME. We shouldn't have gone to war with Libya, nor should we go with Syria. Roll social spending back to those levels as well, and undo the TSA and alphabet soup of new government agencies created in the last decade. Oh, and reduce reduce inflation adjusted revenue back to 1996 levels, the middle of Clinton's term. Or better would be '97 levels when they were about balanced at $7k per person. Not quite true since we were spending all the excess SS tax receipts to maintain that level of spending, but better than now.
We should both be able to agree on those items.
Yep, I agree with that. Especially about no wars in the ME.
How about do both? Clinton era tax rates AND spending.
Does anyone have this graph WITHOUT SS and Medicare? I wonder how much this is skewed by these two monster programs. Sorry we have two 99999999 pound gorillas in the room.
This claim that "Taxmageddon" would fall primarily on the lower and middle classes is rather dubious. I don't trust any analysis done by the Heritage foundation, or their ilk.
for example, the Capital Gains and Dividends preferential treatment is worth $97 billion / year alone, and goes 75% to the top 1% of taxpayers. (source)
Last edited by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus; 04-30-2012 at 07:40 AM..
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