Lower Taxes... fix economy... Save America?

What's happening now is almost anti-Reagan economic policy, with Obama being as friendly a face on it to his supporters as Reagan was to conservatives. I can't imagine where that will take us. Really, I can't, except I expect a semblance of rationality after the '10 congressional elections, Bruce !

I don't think 2010 will be much of a change. I think the Dem lite Repubs are still in charge of the GOP and that is little hope for any change.

"The congress spent like no tomorrow and ran up the national debt"

EDIT

The predominantly Republican congress spent like no tomorrow and ran up the national debt"

Let's not tar and feather the wrong group. Don't forget that when Clinton left office, a surplus was projected. But King George took care of that in short order.


"Money down the well leads nowhere; money invested by the successful leads to growth and opportunity for all."

It takes a great amount of audacity to maintain this mantra with a straight face, in light of the past year's events. Those who have money to invest don't give a crap about their fellow man, and they couldn't care less about opportunity for all.


Bottom 50% -------> 4% ---------> 75%
Top 10% -----------> 30% ----------> x %

This is just about as it should be. the rich have a lot more benefits from the organization of society than the poor do. the numbers are superficial indicators.

Right.

Jim,

Reagan was not Clinton or Bush. Bruce! was making the point that revenues went up because the tax cuts and that massive domestic increases (the price for Reagan's Cold War showdown buildup) came under a Dem congress. Clinton's financial status came about because he was able to make huge military cutbacks as part of the Cold War ending and a Repub congress that fought him on most of his domestic proposals. Still only his last couple of budgets managed to be in the black and its arguable that at least some of that was book keeping games. Bush of course is quite rightly deserving of the label big spender rivaling LBJ. Remember though none of his domestic spending priorities lacked Dem support. And his worst budgets came under Dem congresses As you say, watch who is getting tarred and feathered.

Given the history of government programs for the poor, I'd say it takes greater audacity to claim that the private sector has done an overall bad job these years. Government meddling and regs created this present recession and is working hard towards the second one as we speak while strangely the Repubs aren't even involved..

Each of the series of bubbles were caused by loose regulation.

Raise taxes to 75%. Halfway between the high of 94%, and the low of 35%.

We went though the great depression with a rate of 79%.

Which was on about 2500 people, many who left the country to make money elsewhere or simply stopped investing/creating businesses.

Well, the rate only went up from there over the next two decades.

Jim,
Clarification: "money invested by the successful leads..." I don't consider the fraudsters and Banksters of Wall Street 'successful', they should be in jail. I was speaking of the solid American taxpayers who are in fact the majority and are getting stuffed.

Good points Bruce! but on gather, you're speaking to a tiny minority.

"The bottom 50% of wage earners pay 4% of the taxes and use 75% of the social services.
The top 10% pay 30% of the taxes and fund those social services."

What you fail to mention is that the top 10% make 48% of the total earnings in the country, and the bottom 50% make 12% of the total. Just let that sink in for a moment. The top 10% make FOUR TIMES as much money as the the bottom HALF of all lwage earners! Unless you are completely against progressive income taxes, those tax numbers don't look so bad.

If I crunch those numbers that I just quoted, one fifth as many people make four times as much total earnings.
That says the average per-capita earnings of those top ten percenters is 20 times greater than the bottom 50%.
TWENTY TIMES AS MUCH INCOME! This data is from The Tax Foundation.
Here is the link to the data I quoted above.

If you were to study the timeline within each office and the way the economy suffers when tax cuts are implemented, I believe you will see that it is only when taxes are raised that the economy actually begins to recover. I do not expect you to actually begin any research in this area, though, because it would make such a dire impression upon you that you may be forced to accept the reality of tax cuts, versus tax increases.

Source of your curious info please...

Sally, proof of your statement please.

www.ipl.org/div/potus. Presidential timelines with relevent Party and links to Policies.
Also: www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html with relevant tax increase and or cuts info. Like I said, study the facts. It might surprise you. I am sorry, but the government has no way to pay the deficit except through taxation.

"President Reagan cut taxes and started 20 years of economic well being. "

Really? As I recall, the nation fell into a horrible recession after he signed those tax cuts into law, and wasn't revived until the fed chairman intentionally drove the interest rates through the ceiling, so that he could then later bring them drastically down, in order to stimulate growth.

In terms of REAL economic growth, however, it's important to recognize that a combination of massive federal debt spending, a literal explosion of consumer electronics (personal computers, cell phones, cordless phones, VCRs, camcorders, etc., ALL came to life during that era) and the looting of the S&Ls were responsible for virtually ALL economic growth during that dark period. The middle class, as you will recall, had been decimated with the largest tax INCREASE in US history, thanks to St. Ronnie.




"The congress spent like no tomorrow and ran up the national debt"

Two facts worth noting here:

1: Redink never vetoed a budget
2: Congress gave him LESS than he'd asked for each time.


Facts. Them pesky, ugly little buggers, eh?

I don't mind the experiment to a flatter progressive income tax, but it didn't work, so lets just get on with it, shall we?

Btw, just in case you hadn't noticed, it's the ill-thought, ill-advised BushCheneyCorp tax cuts on millionaires that got us into this mess in the first place. If you'll recall, the previous president had handed him a VERY significant budget SURPLUS, specifically by INCREASING taxes on that very elite, tiny segment of the population.

A small increase, but we really need to go back to around 75%, and stay there this time.

you people should work for the GBO

Anybody but me notice that when the top marginal rate was over 90%, we didn't see bubbles and busts every few years, we didn't have a revolving door between the government and corporations, and we didn't have corporations writing our laws?

I noticed that.