Will the Bush Tax Cuts be Extended?

[Gyp Rosetti]

The Dems have to cave on taxes, they have no choice. The need the tax issue to be an ongoing problem, they need the rich to be the villian. The Republicans in a perverted way actually screwed this up. The Republicans should have caved on the hiking taxes for the rich in exchange for making the taxes becoming permanent. This would have been a clean sweep in removing the two main thrusts of the Dem party for the past 15 years...healthcare and taxes.

The Dems have nothing to run on for maybe a generation. They would have been left to relentless defend themselves.

I sent you a PM.

 

[sirkickyass]

When the income tax was originally passed it was only supposed to be on "the rich" and only at 10%

???

The 1913 income tax (the first US income tax under the 16th amendment) applied to the first dollar of income everyone in America earned. There were functionally zero deductions.

In 1913 the United States was barely a world power, much less a world superpower. Income taxes became higher and more steeply graduated very quickly after US entry in WWI. Top marginal rates by 1917 were 67% and 77% by 1918.

You can look at all historical marginal tax rates and triggering levels at https://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Periods of war used to be times of real sacrifice for Americans. During WWII top marginal tax rates were as high as 94% once you got a level equivalent to about $2.4 million/yr in today's dollars. That level of patriotism is unimaginable today.

 

[Duck Rodgers]

Kicky,

The big screw up was the failure to seize the day on a once in a generation, the stars are perfectly aligned, for a massive coast to coast infastructure project financed at the cheapest 30 year borrowing costs since the 50's. The ROI from now to infinity would have been off the charts.

Why do you act like that train has passed? If the FED can loan trillions of dollars to zombie banks, they can loan the same amount to infrastructure if they wanted to. Today, tomorrow, whenever. So why don't they?

 

[sirkickyass]

Only people with incomes over $500K got taxed in 1913 when the 16th amendment passed.

False. Check the link.

https://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

500k was the trigger for the top tax bracket at the time, which clocked in at 7%. But a 1% tax applied to every dollar made between $0 and $20,000.

 

[Deleted member 365]

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/700090580/Defeat-Tax-deal-is-Obamas-new-stimulus-victory.html

Interesting take from someone glued to the GOP.

Apparently he disagrees w/a lot of people. He believes Obama scored big. Thoughts?

Some highlights:

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 — and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years — which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?

If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years

Obama's public exasperation with this infantile leftism is both perfectly understandable and politically adept. It is his way back to at least the appearance of centrist moderation. The only way he will get a second look from the independents who elected him in 2008 — and abandoned the Democrats in 2010 — is by changing the prevailing (and correct) perception that he is a man of the left.

Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity — their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin — but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?

No, says the current buzz, the left will instead challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. Really now? For decades, African-Americans have been this party's most loyal constituency. They vote 9-1 Democratic through hell and high water, through impeachment and recession, through everything. After four centuries of enduring much, African-Americans finally see one of their own achieve the presidency. And their own party is going to deny him a shot at his own re-election?

Not even Democrats are that stupid. The remaining question is whether they are just stupid enough to not understand — and therefore vote down — the swindle of the year just pulled off by their own president.

 

[Deleted member 365]

My question is, where's the tea party people? Are they off on vacation for this month? I thought they were against deficits?

 

[One Brow]

What are they supposed to do about decisions in a lame duck session?

Protest, and threaten to repeal it. Isn't that what they do best?

 

[franklin]

My question is, where's the tea party people? Are they off on vacation for this month? I thought they were against deficits?

They still think there's enough room to cut to pay for all of this. Cut taxes, cut government. Simple as that.

 

[Deleted member 365]

What are they supposed to do about decisions in a lame duck session?

Do the same thing they've done the past two years, moan and bitch about everything. Duh. What else have they done? If the Tea Party could be summarized into one NBA player, it would be Rasheed Wallace. They never stop crying. That's what (all) they do best.

They still think there's enough room to cut to pay for all of this. Cut taxes, cut government. Simple as that.

So what is there to cut (other than two wars) that would help save 1.2 trillion over the next two years? Remember, "Keep your damn government hands off my medicare."

Somehow, I doubt any of the old white tea party crowd will be too happy about cuts to SS or Medicare....

 

[Deleted member 365]

Party Petition Pressure:


https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/133369-tea-party-ramps-up-efforts-against-tax-deal

That's funny, sounds like the Tea Party Boy has "gone rogue."

Sounds like the tea party's creation has now become its master.

https://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/12/scott-brown-tea-party-tax-cuts-/1

Sen. Scott Brown could find himself on the Tea Party's bad side once again.

The GOP senator, who was helped to victory in Massachusetts by Tea Party supporters, said today he'll vote for the controversial tax-cut deal worked out by President Obama and congressional Republicans.

"It will help get our economy back on track by allowing people to keep more of the money they earn," Brown said in a statement today.

 

[PearlWatson]

Do the same thing they've done the past two years, moan and bitch about everything. Duh. What else have they done? If the Tea Party could be summarized into one NBA player, it would be Rasheed Wallace. They never stop crying. That's what (all) they do best.

What else have they done? They gained 63 seats in the House. That's about as miraculous as when the Jazz came back to beat the Heat in overtime with Millsap leading the charge.

 

[Deleted member 365]

What else have they done? They gained 63 seats in the House. That's about as miraculous as when the Jazz came back to beat the Heat in overtime with Millsap leading the charge.

Considering the economy? Not miraculous at all.

Solutions please. What should be cut? Obviously we're not going to cut SS or Medicare, not even the Tea Party crowd wants that. They also won't allow us to make any cuts in defense spending.

So what's going to be cut to make up for the... I think it's what.... 600 billion over the next 2 years?

Here's something interesting:

https://themoderatevoice.com/93968/...permanent-extension-of-middle-class-tax-cuts/

Interestingly, CRS finds that if Congress allows “the tax cuts targeted to high income taxpayers to expire as scheduled,” it “could help reduce budget deficits in the short-term without stifling the economic recovery.”

Any questions as to why the government is in the state that it's in? Completely bought off. If we let the tax cuts expire for the high income taxpayers, it wouldn't hurt the economy but would help shave a few billion off the growing deficit. But we gotta give them handouts. Not to stimulate the economy, but because they contribute the most to their campaign funds. Heck, most of those senators belong to that high income tax bracket and surely don't want to pay more taxes. That would involve patriotism.