Bill Clinton: More immigrants and value-added tax will reduce deficit

[boedicca]

We could have more tax payers, as Bill Clinton suggests, if we somehow got that 49% of the population who pays no taxes to begin to pay taxes. Who knows, if that same 49% of the population that pays no taxes began to pay taxes, maybe, just maybe, our taxes could actually go down or because Washington would suddenly have more money than they could spend they would be forced to begin to payback some of that money we owe China.

It's a myth that those 49% don't pay taxes - many of them pay SS, Medicare, Gasoline, Cigarette, Alcohol, Property, and Sales taxes.

That said, it's nuts that the Federal Income Tax is concentrating in fewer and fewer tax payers.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Yeah......that's worked (so well) in-the-past.

​

hey that looks similar to the card the far-left legislature out here has...different picture....different party....i guess they all carry one...

 

[American Horse]

LOL this thread is great. "A vat tax is how to become europe" (because all of europe is in the EU LOL). Or better someone implying that a VAT tax is what caused Greece's issue, not American styled spending without American style backing (Yea greece, next time you start spending all the money you don't have, make certain you have kind yellow men backing you up).

Good god historian revisionists are awesome.

As for the original topic of the thread, this is stupid to even talk about, it's not like anyone can prove or disprove this, it just depends on your economic views which dictates how you think growth can be created and maintained.

Since you didn't quote from an individual post, but took issue with most of my comments, I'll just elaborate: The OP is actually about the VAT, as well as immigration as an economic stimulus. We can discuss it witout proving anything; its all grist for open discussion on a forum like this one. Don't you think so?

A useful way to evaluate the VAT is to look where it is already in place, and what has resulted there. The worse case is Greece where they started with a 4.5% VAT, increasing it until now when they are looking at a 10% increase to a rate of 23%, and they also now have the worse economy in the EU.

But the comparison to Europe, and thus my comment relating to savvy (there are some in some sectors) Americans, is that Europe is not a model we want to follow and that is the model, if we refer back to the OP, that Mr. Clinton advocates for us.

If, in the US, a 1% rate yields $100-B , then a 20% rate would supposedly yield $2-Trillion. What a boondoggle that would finance!? No wonder Mr. Clinton is for it.

Since it taxes everyone at the same rate it is a regressive rate (hurts the poor more than the wealthy) and will drive more of them into poverty; something yet again to be cured by transfers of wealth (Europe), while conferring more power on “faceless” Bureaucrats (Europe).
Here’s what has happened to some European nations , plus Japan, and Canada: First the starting rate with the VAT, then the current rate, finally the top income tax rate ( - ):

Canada 7% to 5% - (46.4),
Denmark 9% to 25% - (59.7),
France 13.6% to 19.6% - (45.8),
Germany 10% to 19% - (47.5),
Italy 12% to 20% - (44.9),
Japan 3% to 5% - (50),
Spain 12% to 16% - (43),
Sweden 17.7% to 25% - (56..4),
Switzerland 6.5% to 7.6% - (41.7),
UK 8% to 17.5% - (35%),
US - (35),
(Top income tax rates from the Tax Policy Center data as of 2008, save for UK and US)
What we have seen especially in Europe is that rates start low and increase, while income tax rates stay high.


The unemployment rate in the EU is always much higher than ours by about three points, and GDP a little more than half ours. A three point difference does not sound very large but an 8 percent rate versus a 5 percent rate is not just 3% higher but a whopping 75% higher for the unemployed. To some, the obvious point of looking at Europe, as well as other places, is to take a look at what they have done, see how it has turned out out for them, and decide from our observations whether they are a good model for a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE of our economy and immigration policies.

Since the very efficiency of the VAT as a taxing mechanism means that it throws off huge amounts of revenue politicians eagerly spend, the VAT thus becomes an engine of even greater public spending:
In Europe, average government spending was about 30.2% of GDP when VATs began to spread in the late 1960s. Today, those governments are spending of 47.1% of GDP on average (more than 50% larger).
By contrast, U.S. government spending, FEDERAL AND STATE, rose from 28.3% to 35.3% (25% larger) as a share of GDP in the same period.
Their increase is double ours. Meanwhile their GDP is on average only about 60% of ours.


Europe vs. USA: Whose Economy Wins? - The New Federalist, webzine of the Young European Federalist
Average gross domestic product (GDP) in the US is about 40% higher than average GDP of the EU-15 when measured at purchasing power parity (PPP). The gap is slightly greater if we consider either the twelve Eurozone members (EU-12) or add the accession states (EU-25).


Europe’s VAT lessons

According to economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan, Flint.In 2008, the average resident of West Virginia, one of the poorest American states, had an income $2,000 a year higher than the average resident of the European Union.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Clinton's mental acumen has always been overplayed.... much like Carter, Obama, etc.

These guys aren't that smart.. sorry.

 

[Oddball]

There's a vast gulf between intelligent and savvy.

While Bubba arguably had the latter, neither Peanuts or Boyking are so endowed.

 

[boedicca]

Clinton's mental acumen has always been overplayed.... much like Carter, Obama, etc.

These guys aren't that smart.. sorry.

Clinton is playing to the political class with his comment. It's what they want to hear.

 

[blu]

1) fuck VAT
2) 99% of illegal immigrants are unskilled workers who would pay no tax (too little income) and actually lose us money by having them qualify for a billion different government hand out programs

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

1) fuck VAT
2) 99% of illegal immigrants are unskilled workers who would pay no tax (too little income) and actually lose us money by having them qualify for a billion different government hand out programs

That's racist!

 

[momonkey]

Assuming that we get spending in line with revenues then yes, this might work.


Just created a whole new Ponzi scheme and threw a trillion borrowed dollars down rat hole to buy votes. Not sure how spending gets "in line".




We suddenly need to liberate some nation with oil or something, and then the budget goes back into the red.


Really believe we are at war over oil?

Afghanistan has oil?




We very nearly had a balanced budget, remember?


Get back to me when we have a trade balance.

There is no balanced budget without a national income and until we have a positive trade balance, we will have a negative national income.



Then we went on an orgy of giving tax breaks to billionaires and ended up with TWO land wars in Asia, remember?


Remember? How can I forget?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p-qIq32m8]YouTube - Democrats before Iraq War started....[/ame]




Then 9-11 happened and the nation was back to deficit spending?


Happened?

The US was attacked five times during the Clinton years by the same al Qaeda. His response was to allow a 25% attrition rate at the CIA and issue lots of empty threats.



And while this happened (this time) on the Republican's watch, I have absolute confidence that it could just as easily have happened on the Dems watch.


9/11 was in process for five years. Four of them were on the Democrat's watch.

After 9/11, Democrats opposed doing anything differently than what had failed before and have politicized a now unpopular war.

 

[jeffrockit]

Really? And where are they going to get jobs Billy-Bob?

____________________________

Mr. Clinton? More Jobs aren't going to be created until the Government gets out of the way by lessening taxation, and stop regulating businesses, and getting your fingers out of the pie that are Real Estate, and financial institutions.

Yeah....Bill Clinton needs your advice, on managing our economy.



I can just see all o' those Republicans rushing California's borders, tryin' to be first-in-line for produce-picking jobs.



(Kinda new to politics, are you?)​

That is a tired story line. The produce managed to get picked before the illegal invasion. Same goes for the "jobs Americans won't do" as we somehow managed to fill those jobs before the invasion. The premise that this country can't do without all of the illegals just does not stand up to past history.

 

[Foxfyre]

Really? And where are they going to get jobs Billy-Bob?

From The HILL Via Mark Levin

Bill Clinton: More immigrants and value-added tax will reduce deficit

The U.S. needs more immigrants and a value-added tax to help reduce the deficit, former President Bill Clinton said Friday.

Clinton said the country was "mortgaging out a lot of our sovereignty" by using foreign creditors to pay for an "exploding" debt.

His recipe? More growth and revenue, fueled by immigrant workers and a controversial value-added tax.

"I think we're going to have to have more taxpayers, which is why I favor, in a disciplined way, immigration reform and letting more immigrants come to the country," Clinton told CNBC. "I think it would make more jobs for people who are unemployed, not fewer."

____________________________

Mr. Clinton? More Jobs aren't going to be created until the Government gets out of the way by lessening taxation, and stop regulating businesses, and getting your fingers out of the pie that are Real Estate, and financial institutions.

And a VAT on top of an over-bloated taxation system? These people want their cake and eat it too.

In my opinion? This is smoke and mirrors. An excuse for more VOTERS for Democrat Statists. Mr. Clinton? You continue to be a thorn in the side of this Republic.

Oh yeah. It has worked so well for Greece that will now be bailed out to the tune of around a trillion dollars with just under $60 billion of that coming from us since our treasury is so flush with cash these days.

 

[hyakku]

Really? And where are they going to get jobs Billy-Bob?

____________________________

Mr. Clinton? More Jobs aren't going to be created until the Government gets out of the way by lessening taxation, and stop regulating businesses, and getting your fingers out of the pie that are Real Estate, and financial institutions.

Yeah....Bill Clinton needs your advice, on managing our economy.



I can just see all o' those Republicans rushing California's borders, tryin' to be first-in-line for produce-picking jobs.



(Kinda new to politics, are you?)​

That is a tired story line. The produce managed to get picked before the illegal invasion. Same goes for the "jobs Americans won't do" as we somehow managed to fill those jobs before the invasion. The premise that this country can't do without all of the illegals just does not stand up to past history.

.....except that all throughout american history slavery or illegal immigration has been used as a source of cheap labor in order to help spurn or maintain the efficacy of revolutions like our Agricultural and industrial revolutions. I mean, it doesn't make us a bad country, it's just a part of our history and always will be.

Seriously, I don't know if people learn history anymore, but you know there are books out there with these things called facts in them right?

To american horse, salient points, but again the story isn't complete there. Oftentimes the underlying issues (unsound economic fundamentals, recessions, economic security dilemmas between members) are what caused EU members to raise the VAT rate, not the other way around.

For instance, i know norway has one of the highest rates if i remember right and they have more GDP per capita than us and have for quite some time. Add to the fact that they also benefit from health care and free public education and I'd have to disagree that a vat tax MUST be negative.

Also, it's not always true they get raised. I'm thinking about Luxembourg specifically, which also has a higher GDP per capita than us and maintains a pretty low VAT tax.

greece's issues aren't just its vat taxes, most of the European's economic policy issues aren't just taxation, they are just a part of it. It's always dangerous to try to blame ONE issue on such a comprehensive problem, because then it causes us to lose focus or possibly exclude other more important factors.

 

[editec]

MomMonkey responds to the following:

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]

We very nearly had a balanced budget, remember?

[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]With the following:[/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]

Get back to me when we have a trade balance.

[/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]There is no balanced budget without a national income and until we have a positive trade balance, we will have a negative national income.[/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]I could not possibly agree more.[/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]In my never humble opinion FREE TRADE has done more to wreck this nation than any other single policy we have.[/FONT]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]It is the dumbest fucking thing this nation has ever done.[/FONT]


[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[NYcarbineer]

[When was the last government plan/entity that was "temporary"?

The Bush tax cuts are. They're largely responsible for so many lower income Americans not paying any income taxes. They largely expire next year.

Wait a minute....I thought those were "tax cuts for the wealthy"!

You'd best have a huddle with your Fabian fellow travelers and get your jabbering points straight.

You want me to account for what other people say? The lowering of the marginal rates plus the massive child tax credit increase is what took millions of Americans out of paying any federal income tax. Wealthier Americans also got large tax cuts but obviously not to where their income taxes were going to be zero.

Further tax cuts will mean that even more Americans pay no federal income taxes.

 

[DiamondDave]

The Bush tax cuts are. They're largely responsible for so many lower income Americans not paying any income taxes. They largely expire next year.

Wait a minute....I thought those were "tax cuts for the wealthy"!

You'd best have a huddle with your Fabian fellow travelers and get your jabbering points straight.

You want me to account for what other people say? The lowering of the marginal rates plus the massive child tax credit increase is what took millions of Americans out of paying any federal income tax. Wealthier Americans also got large tax cuts but obviously not to where their income taxes were going to be zero.

Further tax cuts will mean that even more Americans pay no federal income taxes.

Raise taxes... I'm all for it... you raise what the little entitlement junkies and mass Obamabots pay in income taxes to the same % as I pay... we'll see how much they keep with their support of the tax rate and huge government spending after that

 

[NYcarbineer]

We could have more tax payers, as Bill Clinton suggests, if we somehow got that 49% of the population who pays no taxes to begin to pay taxes. Who knows, if that same 49% of the population that pays no taxes began to pay taxes, maybe, just maybe, our taxes could actually go down or because Washington would suddenly have more money than they could spend they would be forced to begin to payback some of that money we owe China.

Both the national sales tax and the flat tax, which are both conservative favs, would raise taxes on lower income Americans.

A little irony there, eh?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Wait a minute....I thought those were "tax cuts for the wealthy"!

You'd best have a huddle with your Fabian fellow travelers and get your jabbering points straight.

You want me to account for what other people say? The lowering of the marginal rates plus the massive child tax credit increase is what took millions of Americans out of paying any federal income tax. Wealthier Americans also got large tax cuts but obviously not to where their income taxes were going to be zero.

Further tax cuts will mean that even more Americans pay no federal income taxes.

Raise taxes... I'm all for it... you raise what the little entitlement junkies and mass Obamabots pay in income taxes to the same % as I pay... we'll see how much they keep with their support of the tax rate and huge government spending after that

You're just supporting what I've been saying ever since this little nugget of how many Americans pay no federal income taxes came out. The conservative call for lower taxes isn't quite what it appeared to be.

 

[GHook93]

This is the same man that took Carter's brain-child, the Community Reinvestment Act, and started the Mortgage Meltdown. He is the man responsible for the mess (although Bush dismissed and ignored the sign, Clinton's policies fucked everything up).

This is the man the oversaw the HIGHEST increase in college education in history. College went from slightly unaffordable to well out of the reach to everyone accept the top 5%. He did this by making Student Loan non-dischargable.

This is the man that saw the rebound of the manufacturing sector (Reagan got America to manufacturing 28% of the world's goods, highest of any country ever) and turned it upside down. Aka one-sided free trade agreements and other economic policy stupidity.

Liberals place him on a high horse, because he had a surplus. The surplus had nothing to do with him and also was spurred on by the dot.com illusory economic gains!

History should look back on Clinton as who he was a foreign policy and economic mental midget!

 

[DiamondDave]

You want me to account for what other people say? The lowering of the marginal rates plus the massive child tax credit increase is what took millions of Americans out of paying any federal income tax. Wealthier Americans also got large tax cuts but obviously not to where their income taxes were going to be zero.

Further tax cuts will mean that even more Americans pay no federal income taxes.

Raise taxes... I'm all for it... you raise what the little entitlement junkies and mass Obamabots pay in income taxes to the same % as I pay... we'll see how much they keep with their support of the tax rate and huge government spending after that

You're just supporting what I've been saying ever since this little nugget of how many Americans pay no federal income taxes came out. The conservative call for lower taxes isn't quite what it appeared to be.

I am not for 'lower taxes' in the way that many people chant...

I am for equal treatment in taxation... I am for equal % payed on every dollar earned by every citizen... in combination of severely reduced government spending.... I am in no way in support of the Robin Hood IRS and government we have and have had

 

[DiamondDave]

This is the same man that took Carter's brain-child, the Community Reinvestment Act, and started the Mortgage Meltdown. He is the man responsible for the mess (although Bush dismissed and ignored the sign, Clinton's policies fucked everything up).

This is the man the oversaw the HIGHEST increase in college education in history. College went from slightly unaffordable to well out of the reach to everyone accept the top 5%. He did this by making Student Loan non-dischargable.

This is the man that saw the rebound of the manufacturing sector (Reagan got America to manufacturing 28% of the world's goods, highest of any country ever) and turned it upside down. Aka one-sided free trade agreements and other economic policy stupidity.

Liberals place him on a high horse, because he had a surplus. The surplus had nothing to do with him and also was spurred on by the dot.com illusory economic gains!

History should look back on Clinton as who he was a foreign policy and economic mental midget!

For the umpteen billionth time.. there has been no surplus since 1957