Phil Gramm: What recession?

If everyone gets a free college education, will they also get a free job? Right. That just waters down an already watered-down job pool.

But there's always hope when a half-literate college grad can be an associate SID at UMass for $11,000 a year. (See related job thread).

 

Oh I forgot, if we cut taxes our roads will be destroyed and our bridges will collapse and we won't have any cops.......

 

He didn't say his paycheck was shrinking, you reactionist shrill. He said it was shrinking in relation to the cost of living, which is going up far faster than anyone's paycheck. That has little to nothing to do with taxes. But go ahead and blame Obama. I know that makes it easier for you.

 

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/10/09/tax-shares-for-rich-and-poor/

 

Federal tax, State tax, SSI, medicare tax, local tax,sales tax,death tax,inheritance tax,capital gains tax,luxury tax,real estate tax,school tax,property tax,alcohol tax, tobacco.tax, amusement tax, gasoline tax......yeah you are right, the government isn't finding new and creative ways to take your money and devour the income of the average working family...... :

In less than 100 years ago government took 7 percent of the national income -- today that number is about 48 percent --- well except for in New Jersey where Pastor lives and they apparantly don't pay any taxes and get all the goodies for free --

And yet, despite all of these taxes -- as you so brilliantly told us -- the ROADS STILL SUCK AS DO THE BRIDGES.....

So maybe it is time to things differently? And maybe just maybe it is time to start blaming the government for the incredible shrinking paychecks we all have as much as we blame the "big rich greedy capitalists....."

 

There must be a misprint in that chart --- I mean it shows the bottom 50 percent of the income levels have benefitted from Bush's tax cuts, and we all know -- or so we are told daily by members of the SportsJournalists.com liberal mafia -- that only rich benefit from tax cuts.......

 

The federal gas tax hasn't been raised in years, so nice try, but wrong.

The death tax and the inheritance tax are the same damn thing, and they hardly affect the people we're talking about. Same with capital gains.

Cigarette taxes are a tax of choice. Don't like it? Don't smoke. Same with alcohol for that matter, though I don't recall any recent "alcohol tax" increases.

Luxury tax? I'm not even sure what the hell you're talking about here. Are you sticking up for Steinbrenner?

Amusement tax? Do I pay that when I go to Six Flags?

 

LMAO. And don't forget the hotel/motel tax if you have to travel overnight to get to your nearest Six Flags. So you're getting triple taxed on that trip: gas tax, Six Flags tax, and hotel tax. What is the world coming, to? Oops, forgot sales tax ... so it's a quadruple taxed trip.

As for that BS about the bottom 50-percent benefiting from Bush's tax cuts ... Zag, you got some facts to back that up? Ever hear of causality? Just because Event A occurred does not prove that Event B caused it.

 

In 2000 -- according to the charts posted by one of the liberals -- the tax rate (as a percentage of income) for the bottom 50 percent was nearly twice as much as it was in 2005 --- a direct result of the evil Bush tax cuts for the rich....

And yes, you pay for the amusement tax every time you go to a concert, you go to the symphony, you stay in a hotel room and the inheritance tax doesn't affect the middle class?

Are you shitting me? There isn't a fucking tax out there that you and I and every other "working man" doesn't pay for either directly or indirectly when it is passed on to us through price hikes.

Of course, I suppose in your world these taxes -- most of which pay for some politician's favorite boondoggle or pork project -- also don't affect the middle and working class either.....

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

Capital Gains Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Court Fines (indirect taxes)

Dog License Tax

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel permit tax

Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)

Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Local Income Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Septic Permit Tax

Service Charge Taxes

Social Security Tax

Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)

Sales Taxes

Recreational Vehicle Tax

Road Toll Booth Taxes

School Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone federal excise tax

Telephone federal universal service fee tax

Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes

Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax

Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax

Telephone state and local tax

Telephone usage charge tax

Toll Bridge Taxes

Toll Tunnel Taxes

Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

Trailer registration tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

 

Yeah I know, a boogeyman I am making up......

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr153.pdf

April 4, 2007

State and Local Tax Burdens Hit 25-Year High

by Curtis S. Dubay

Special Report No. 153

Executive Summary
State and local taxes will consume a record-setting 11 percent of the nation's income in 2007. Since 1986, the state-local tax burden had never fallen below 10 percent or risen above 10.9 percent.

This estimate of state-local tax burdens at an all-time high comes at a time when personal and corporate incomes have risen for almost four consecutive years, sometimes at a remarkable pace. Along with low unemployment, these rising incomes have boosted tax collections substantially and helped most states meet their revenue expectations with ease since 2004.

 

Yeah, I know -- Bush tax cuts were only for the rich....

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22447.html

Comparing Popular Tax Deductions to the Bush Tax Cuts

by Gerald Prante


Hallowed Deductions Give Little to the Middle; Bush Tax Cuts Help More
Fiscal Fact No. 87
The debate over what to do with the Alternative Minimum Tax has led to some silly public statements about who benefits from special provisions of the income tax code. Lawmakers find it easy to demand repeal or reduction of the AMT, but in announcing support for tax hikes or spending cuts to make up the uncollected revenue, as now required, their rhetoric has been deceptive, to say the least.1

So far the favorite revenue target is to repeal the Bush tax cuts, which so many have accused of benefiting only "the rich," or to enact something similar. The idea of repealing the deduction for state-local taxes is also getting some attention. Comparing those two ideas in Table 1, we see that the tax savings would flow to almost exactly the same people.

There are many ways of quantifying tax policy changes, and throughout the debate over the Bush tax cuts, opponents preferred "shares." This presentation answers the question: What share of the tax savings went to the top 20, 10, or 1 percent of taxpayers? Because the Bush tax cuts were mainly across-the-board cuts in tax rates, high-income taxpayers who paid the most to begin with received the largest shares of tax savings. This presentation dovetailed nicely with "class warfare" rhetoric that Bush favored high-income people.

People who favored the Bush tax cuts preferred to present the change in tax rates for each income group. This presentation answers the question: For each income group, what percentage of current tax payments will be saved under the Bush tax cuts? Because annual tax savings between $1,000 and $5,000 are large for low- and middle-income taxpayers, this presentation showed the tax cuts' broad appeal.

In this piece, we use the first method, presenting the tax savings of various tax laws as "shares," but we apply it not only to the Bush tax cuts but to popular tax preferences that are vociferously defended by many of the same politicians who denounce the Bush tax cuts.

Table 1. Tax Savings from State-Local Tax Deduction Compared to Bush Tax Cuts

Tax Returns Divided Into Ten Groups by Income (a)
Share of Tax Savings from State-Local Tax Deduction
Share of Tax Savings from All Bush Tax Cuts

Bottom 10%
(≤ $5,888)
0.0%
0.1%

Second 10%
(> $5,888)
0.0%
0.4%

Third 10%
(> $12,251)
0.2%
1.3%

Fourth 10%
(> $18,940)
0.6%
2.5%

Fifth 10%
(> $26,483)
1.4%
3.7%

Sixth 10%
(> $35,386)
3.3%
5.4%

Seventh 10%
(> $45,945)
7.1%
7.4%

Eighth 10%
(> $60,219)
13.0%
9.2%

Ninth 10%
(> $80,228)
20.0%
13.5%

Top 10%
(> $118,376)
54.4%
56.6%

(a) Adjusted gross income
Note: All numbers for Tax Year 2007. Baseline is current law.
Source: Tax Foundation Microsimulation model and IRS Public Use File


Actually, the Bush tax cuts are more generous to all of the lower- and middle-income groups. The eighth and ninth highest-earning groups get more savings from the state-local deduction, and the top group gets slightly more from the Bush tax cuts.2

The two most commonly abused phrases in this debate are "rich" and "middle-class." In one breath politicians want to call people making between $75,000 and $250,000 "middle-class" and in the next breath "rich." Unfortunately, this rhetoric makes principled tax reform much more difficult.

To give just one example from each party, Senate Finance Committee member Charles Schumer (D-NY) said repealing the deduction for state-local taxes paid "would devastate people at all levels of income, from working families of modest means to the upper-middle class."3 On the other side of the aisle and in the other house of Congress, House Ways and Means Committee member Jerry Weller (R-IL) called the state and local tax deduction one of "the most important middle class tax breaks in the tax code today," adding, "Any of these types of proposals [to repeal it] are dead on arrival in Congress."4

Can people in the top 10 percent of the income spectrum really be "middle-class"? In the minds of these lawmakers, it's evidently possible when discussing the tax savings of the state-local tax deduction, but those high-earners quickly become "rich" in commentary on the Bush tax cuts. Again from Senator Schumer: "Unfortunately, recent tax cuts were designed to provide the most benefits to the people who don't need them, but didn't provide much relief to middle class families."5

Any economist will tell you that a good tax reform policy is one that lowers rates while broadening the income base, thereby removing many deductions and credits. By this standard, repealing the state-local deduction is a far sounder proposition than enacting surtaxes or repealing the Bush tax cuts.

Unfortunately, many powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill like it the other way and ask lawmakers to raise tax rates on some to pay for gifts to others in the form of exemptions, deductions and credits. Usually the motivation is power politics: grabbing money from the public till for the groups that favor one party or the other.

The Most Popular Tax Preferences -- for the Middle Class?
We turn now to three other large tax preferences. In Table 2, we compare the distribution of tax savings that flow from three tax preferences that have been in the code for decades. One is fairly obscure because the tax savings flow to a fairly small group of tax returns at the top of the income spectrum: the tax exemption for municipal bond interest. One is probably the most famous deduction from a lobbying perspective because some of the nation's most powerful economic interests mobilize every time it is threatened: the deduction for interest paid, most of which is mortgage interest. And the third is undoubtedly the tax deduction most strongly supported by individual taxpayers, the deduction for charitable gifts. For comparison, we add in the two from Table 1—the deduction for state-local taxes paid, and the entirety of the Bush tax cuts.

Table 2. Share of Tax Savings from Other Popular Tax Preferences Compared to Bush Tax Cuts and State-Local Tax Deduction

Tax Returns Divided Into Ten Groups by Income (a)
Share of Tax Savings from Popular Tax Preferences
Share of Tax Savings from State-Local Tax Deduction
Share of Tax Savings from all Bush Tax Cuts

Municipal Bond Exemption
Interest Paid Deduction
Charitable Deduction

Bottom 10%
(≤ $5,888)
0.7%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%

Second 10%
(> $5,888)
0.2%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.4%

Third 10%
(> $12,251)
0.7%
0.1%
0.1%
0.2%
1.3%

Fourth 10%
(> $18,940)
0.5%
0.5%
0.4%
0.6%
2.5%

Fifth 10%
(> $26,483)
2.4%
1.4%
1.0%
1.4%
3.7%

Sixth 10%
(> $35,386)
3.1%
3.0%
2.3%
3.3%
5.4%

Seventh 10%
(> $45,945)
3.7%
6.0%
4.2%
7.1%
7.4%

Eighth 10%
(> $60,219)
6.7%
12.1%
8.1%
13.0%
9.2%

Ninth 10%
(> $80,228)
11.5%
24.5%
17.0%
20.0%
13.5%

Top 10%
(> $118,376)
70.5%
52.4%
67.0%
54.4%
56.6%

(a) Adjusted gross income
Note: All numbers for Tax Year 2007. Baseline is current law.
Source: Tax Foundation Microsimulation model and IRS Public Use File


Once again, we see that a greater share of the Bush tax cuts flows to lower- and middle-income people than is the case with any of these three other tax preferences. The savings from each of them is similar, though, flowing to mostly the same people at the high end of the income spectrum, yet politicians routinely speak about them as if the middle class in America would suffer greatly if these tax preferences were cut back.

The tax returns in the top 20 percent (top two deciles) would pay 70.1 percent of the tax increase if the Bush tax cuts were repealed. However, they would pay over 74 percent of the tax increase if the state and local deduction were eliminated and 77 percent if the interest-paid deduction were eliminated. That means those deductions save more taxes for high-income tax returns than the Bush tax cuts.

As for the tax-free status of municipal bond interest, the savings flow even more lopsidedly to the highest-income taxpayers. As a result, if it were repealed, 83 percent of the tax hike would be shouldered by the top 20 percent of earners. The tax savings from the popular charitable deduction are similar: 84 percent of the tax savings are claimed by the top 20 percent of tax returns.

There are many reasons why upper-income taxpayers receive more tax relief from all of these tax preferences. First, lower-income taxpayers rarely itemize—they get more tax savings from claiming the standard deduction. Second, upper-income taxpayers tend to have higher state and local taxes and higher mortgage values. Third, these taxpayers tend to be in higher taxable income brackets, and thereby the value of the deductions in terms of tax savings is greater than for those in lower rate brackets.

Conclusion
It is a myth that middle-class Americans are the primary beneficiaries of our income tax code's biggest tax preferences. Instead, the truth is that most of the tax savings from the exemption of municipal bond interest and the three deductions for state-local taxes, charitable gifts and interest paid flow to people at the top end of the earnings spectrum.

Though all four of these tax preferences are popular among lawmakers, and the charitable deduction is unassailably popular among individual taxpayers, none of them is fundamental to sound tax policy, and they all cause tax rates to be higher.

Politicians can call taxpayers in the top ten percent "rich" and denounce the Bush tax cuts for flowing mostly to this group, but if they do, they must also acknowledge that the other popular tax preferences discussed here also flow to "the rich." On the other hand, if they call the people in the top ten percent "middle-class," then they can defend both the Bush tax cuts and these four other tax preferences as "benefiting the middle class." But they can't have it both ways.