Bush cut taxes in May 2003 including individual rates, capital gains, dividends, and estate taxes and revenue increased at a healthy pace thereafter for the next 4 years! Back up your claim that the Bush tax cuts decreased income.
How can you cut taxes without cutting income? Taxes are income. Yes the total tax revenue increased slightly because the GDP was also increasing and so was spending. But those bars on your graph are shorter than they would have been without the tax cuts. And here is the deal . . . those bars didn't raise enough revenue to cover expenditures. Not even non-defense expenditures. Bill Clinton posted surpluses and was paying down the deficit. The only way to pay down a deficit is to post a surplus so that all expenses are paid and no new money is being borrowed. Then we use the surplus to pay off debts. There is no way that this country can post a surplus without letting the tax cuts expire.
because lower taxes grow the economy. obviously. how much income does the government make if taxes were 100%? zero, because the taxes ruin the economy. so 50% tax rates necessarily generate more revenue than 100% tax rates. same thing with 98% tax rates vs 40% tax rates, etc. and the optimal point is lower than you realize.
the goal is growth of the economy, not budget suprplus. also keep in mind that red is the one always favoring these massive government boondoggles like social security and health care, so it is your policies of extreme spending on everything imaginable that are to blame for these these debt messes.
That is a non-answer to a simple statement. It's worse than being wrong. It doesn't even understand the equation. If you reduce taxes by a certain amount then you have reduced income by that amount. It is that simple. Both non-sequitor and utter nonsense. Phony math that a slow fifth-grader could expose.
No. The topic was the debt which is caused by deficit spending, which is caused by insufficient income to cover expenses. The deficits cannot be stopped until we bring in enough income. The debts cannot be reduced until we post surpluses that give us the cash to pay down the debts. It's really very simple. Bullchit. We had all those thing under Clinton and still posted surpluses. The failed Repiublican fiscal policies of cutting income while increasing spending and protecting big business and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the national best interests is what sank the economy. You and the rest of the trust-fund republicans always want something for nothing.
clearly not true because taxes have an effect on the economy. you cant just raise taxes and make more and more revenue. this is a very simple concept. taxes dont exist in a vacuum, they have an effect on the economy. ignore that and you have a simplistic and stupid view of how things work. do you understand why, for example, i only donate one pint of blood at a time and not all of my blood? do you see why donating less will make for more available for donation over time? we are not trying to kill the economy with taxes!
It is not that simple, and to try and say it is shows a complete lack of knowledge of the role of taxes in an economy. People act differently when taxes are lower. You can't project tax revenue just by changing the rate and multiplying it by GDP. You have to make assumptions on how the GDP will change. I challenge you to find an income tax forcast comparing two rates which holds GDP constant. I'll save you some time. It does not exist.
Neither can you just cut taxes without cutting spending (as Bush did) and expect the government not to go into deficit spending. Obviously there is a balance to be achieved here. How surprising! Perhaps, but they don't automatically spend more and raise the economy as martin suggests. If they did, why did it fail so spectacularly? What I'm saying is that Clintons plan worked and produced an healthy economy and budget surpluses. Likewise Bush's tax cut plan failed, the economy failed, and we have posted deficits every since.
