You will not find an answer to this question. You can not reduce the federal deficit by cutting taxes especially when you won't seriously cut spending. The spending that they want to cut makes up about 2 percent of the budget and would have people homeless and starving to death. In other words it wouldn't help the deficit and would only increase the pain of people down on their luck.

 

Actually I don't believe anyone is saying cut taxes. Their saying - don't raise them.

 

Even though pretty much every time we have cut taxes, federal revenues went up. It's not that we're not paying enough taxes. It's that the government spends too much.

 

Not sure where you get your 2% number, but the reality is that about 60% of federal spending goes to entitlement programs. Yes I'm including SS and medicare in that number.

 

There can't be an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class, remember? For years, Democrats have harangued us that the Bush tax cuts only affected the top 1% of earners. "The wealthiest 1%" I believe was the mantra. To extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, as Obama stated was his "priority" yesterday, he must of course concede that the Bush tax cuts were, in fact, beneficial to the middle class, which just illustrates another bald-faced lie by him during his campaign.

 

"Wake up America."

 

Great post. I have wondered that myself. If the Bush Tax Cuts did nothing for the middle class then why not just let them expire?

There can't be an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class, remember? For years, Democrats have harangued us that the Bush tax cuts only affected the top 1% of earners. "The wealthiest 1%" I believe was the mantra. To extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, as Obama stated was his "priority" yesterday, he must of course concede that the Bush tax cuts were, in fact, beneficial to the middle class, which just illustrates another bald-faced lie by him during his campaign.

 

"Wake up America."

:thumb: Man, if I voted for Obama I'd be having some serious "buyers remorse" by now.

I didn't remember the argument as being that the tax cuts didn't benefit the lower and middle classes, but that they benefited the richest the most. If you were looking at it in pure dollars that might be true but if you were looking at in as a percentage of income of percentage of rate cut it wasn't.

I distinctly remember some (including poster one here) claiming that the Bush tax cuts did nothing for anyone other then the rich.

Because it's not a cost.

 

I can't hit a 100mph fastball 500 feet so I'm not making 25 million a year. Is that 25 million a cost to me?

 

I don't know much about their philosophy but I would expect a Tea Party disciple to advocate both cutting taxes and cutting spending enough to offset the lost revenue. Of course, I haven't seen much consistency in Washington in a long, long time, if ever.

 

Allow me to re-phrase so that we're not lost in semantics.

 

The Treasury says that the lost revenue (cost in my vernacular) will be $3.7T over 10 years. $3T of that lost revenue will be due to lost revenue for the vast majority of Americans. $700B of that will be lost revenue for those that are deemed "high income earners."

 

So will the TPers vote to lower taxes and accept the projected loss of revenue that comes with it AND be able to offset that with other cuts? It sounds good UNTIL you have to answer to your constituents who vote for you (ie senior citizens/veterans/unemployed/etc).

 

It will be interesting to follow.

Allow me to re-phrase so that we're not lost in semantics.

 

The Treasury says that the lost revenue (cost in my vernacular) will be $3.7T over 10 years. $3T of that lost revenue will be due to lost revenue for the vast majority of Americans. $700B of that will be lost revenue for those that are deemed "high income earners."

 

So will the TPers vote to lower taxes and accept the projected loss of revenue that comes with it AND be able to offset that with other cuts? It sounds good UNTIL you have to answer to your constituents who vote for you (ie senior citizens/veterans/unemployed/etc).

 

It will be interesting to follow.

Not arguing this position, just giving you the rebuttal.

 

That money will be spent in the economy which will lead to more taxes both at the local, state and national level. All of which would bring in revenue to the 3 levels of government.

 

One of the reasons why there was a surplus in the 90's was not because of anything the politicians were doing but rather the economy was zooming along and alot of taxes were being created because of the number working and subsequently spending.

 

If you just tax people, then you do get a revenue bump from the income tax you brought in.

 

You let people have their own money to spend and as a result, you have a tax bump across the board. Sales tax revenue goes up, tax revenue paid on gasoline go up, income taxes revenue go up, people building homes with the revenue means property tax revenue goes up.

 

Tax revenue going up is not necessarily equated with an increase in the tax rate.

Bush tax cuts: Cutting through the noise

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- On Thursday, President Obama will meet with House and Senate leaders of both parties to begin negotiations over the terms of extending the Bush tax cuts.

 

At the very least, both parties want to ensure that the tax cuts are preserved for lower- and middle-income families. But that's about the only thing they agree on at the moment.

 

Read More

I'll ask again because I sure remember the mantra of the left when these tax cuts were passed.

 

How can letting these rates sunset have any effect on anyone but the rich when the change didn't help anyone but the rich?

 

Anyone? Bueller?