Since 1978, the U.S. has cut the highest marginal earned-income tax rate to 35% from 50%, the highest capital gains tax rate to 15% from about 50%, and the highest dividend tax rate to 15% from 70%. President Clinton cut the highest marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains from the sale of owner-occupied homes to 0% for almost all home owners. We've also cut just about every other income tax rate as well.

 

During this era of ubiquitous tax cuts, income tax receipts from the top 1% of income earners rose to 3.3% of GDP in 2007 (the latest year for which we have data) from 1.5% of GDP in 1978. Income tax receipts from the bottom 95% of income earners fell to 3.2% of GDP from 5.4% of GDP over the same time period.

These results shouldn't be surprising. The highest tax bracket income earners, when compared with those people in lower tax brackets, are far more capable of changing their taxable income by hiring lawyers, accountants, deferred income specialists and the like. They can change the location, timing, composition and volume of income to avoid taxation.

 

When President Kennedy cut the highest income tax rate to 70% from 91%, revenues also rose. Income tax receipts from the top 1% of income earners rose to 1.9% of GDP in 1968 from 1.3% in 1960. Even when Presidents Harding and Coolidge cut tax rates in the 1920s, tax receipts from the rich rose. Between 1921 and 1928 the highest marginal personal income tax rate was lowered to 25% from 73% and tax receipts from the top 1% of income earners went to 1.1% of GDP from 0.6% of GDP.

 

Or perhaps you'd like to see how the rich paid less in taxes under the bipartisan tax rate increases of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter? Between 1968 and 1981 the top 1% of income earners reduced their total income tax payments to 1.5% of GDP from 1.9% of GDP.

Link

 

:popcorn:

Nothing from the soak-the-rich camp?

There is an article in the KY. Enquirer today stating that a reason the economy is not growing is because the rich are not spending?

If they are not spending now, what will happen when the tax cuts expire?

Nothing from the soak-the-rich camp?

 

RTS, it's because we can't believe the right wing rag you are referencing. Plus ace has already convinenced us that we must increase taxes on the wealthy in order to raise revenue...think progress said so.

RTS, it's because we can't believe the right wing rag you are referencing. Plus ace has already convinenced us that we must increase taxes on the wealthy in order to raise revenue...think progress said so.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

There is an article in the KY. Enquirer today stating that a reason the economy is not growing is because the rich are not spending?

If they are not spending now, what will happen when the tax cuts expire?

 

 

Trust me on this one--This article is the promo talking point for the next left wing rant on the "evil rich". It will go something like this--"The rich are hoarding their money hoping the right gets back into power--If they would just spend, the recession would be over because our policies are correct--We must stop the conservatives from getting any influence, or the rich will continue to hoard the money they've stolen from the working man" Yadda, yadda, yadda!!

The only realy question to ask, is how much more of the wealth in this country is controlled by the top 1%. If their margins in the wealth control has increased, their tax amounts should have as well. Does the article mention that, or conveniently leave it out? Does the article mention how the middle class has continually lossed buying power and control of wealth and that while a few are moving to the upper class, most are moving down. Does the article talk about that anywhere, or does it just bemoan the % of the tax burden placed on the top 1%?

The only realy question to ask, is how much more of the wealth in this country is controlled by the top 1%. If their margins in the wealth control has increased, their tax amounts should have as well. Does the article mention that, or conveniently leave it out? Does the article mention how the middle class has continually lossed buying power and control of wealth and that while a few are moving to the upper class, most are moving down. Does the article talk about that anywhere, or does it just bemoan the % of the tax burden placed on the top 1%?

 

It helps to actually read the article before posting on the content you THINK it covers.

It helps to actually read the article before posting on the content you THINK it covers.

 

Nah, it's easier his way.

Nah, it's easier his way.

More entertaining too...

It helps to actually read the article before posting on the content you THINK it covers.

 

I actually did read the article and the questions were rhetorical for the article mentions nothing about the control of wealth. If the other 99% don't have any money (hyperbole for those who are a little slower this evening) then somebody else is going to have to pay.

 

Why did Greenspan go on the air and say that tax cuts do not pay for themselves and Reagan's Director of the OMB says continuing the Bush tax cuts is Crazy.

Nah, it's easier his way.

 

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Those poor poor rich people, they have it so hard. If you don't think this is a problem in our country I don't know what to tell you. The way I see it is that the American dream is dying at the hands of a very few pulling the strings of a great number of people who vote against their economic self interests by being swayed by fear, religion, immigration, gay marriage, etc. All of which is a big smoke screen of course it's all my opinion.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1a8a5cb2-9ab2-11df-87e6-00144feab49a.html

 

The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the Word Filter Violationmultiple is above 300.

 

The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility.

 

 

Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French chronicler of early America, was once misquoted as having said: “America is the best country in the world to be poor.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays in America, you have a smaller chance of swapping your lower income bracket for a higher one than in almost any other developed economy – even Britain on some measures. To invert the classic Horatio Alger stories, in today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.

Those poor poor rich people, they have it so hard. If you don't think this is a problem in our country I don't know what to tell you. The way I see it is that the American dream is dying at the hands of a very few pulling the strings of a great number of people who vote against their economic self interests by being swayed by fear, religion, immigration, gay marriage, etc. All of which is a big smoke screen of course it's all my opinion.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1a8a5cb2-9ab2-11df-87e6-00144feab49a.html

 

The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the Word Filter Violationmultiple is above 300.

 

The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility.

 

 

Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French chronicler of early America, was once misquoted as having said: “America is the best country in the world to be poor.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays in America, you have a smaller chance of swapping your lower income bracket for a higher one than in almost any other developed economy – even Britain on some measures. To invert the classic Horatio Alger stories, in today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.

 

 

And if the lower/middle income folks keep voting for those who've kept them impoverished for years, to secure their own perpetual power; the cycle will continue!! Add in millions and millions of illegals to further intrench the pattern, and you will continue the scenario. How's that "Hope & Change" working??

So, ace and 2 hump, you both think we can tax our way to prosperity?