pal_of_poor
VIP Member
- Aug 14, 2009
- 193
- 29
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When you are thinking about taxes, you shouldn't be thinking whether or not they will have to be raised. Of course they will, we owe now about four times the whole amount collected each year. And the amount we spend won't be smaller, not with two wars, and a crumbling infrastructure, and ten (to 19) percent unemployment.
The question you need to ask yourself is, do you want people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the Rockefellers to pay it, or do you want to pay it?
Cut from book below, the beginning of the trend of "supply-side" that has put us in this huge hole we are in now, downsizing, union detracting, immigration, and globalization, all conservative policies they refuse to even talk about on the "liberal media" these days. People like to blame Bush, but this stuff was started way back in the early eighties, and sadly, has been adopted by far too many democrats, along with nearly all republicans.
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All of this tax-cutting frenzy took place when the government had not balanced its books since the sixties and was nearly $1 trillion in debt. In 1981 Washington borrowed $125 billion, better than one of every 10 dollars the government spent that year, by selling bonds and government IOUs in the securities markets.
The champions of supply-side economics surrounding Reagan promised that lower tax rates would mean more investment and that, in turn, should always result in more economic growth, which in turn means growing tax revenues. Congress passed the biggest tax cut in history, but things didn't work out as promised, at least not in the short run.
The 1982 federal budget deficit was more than double that of the year before. The next year it grew again, to $3543 billion, approaching triple the level when Reagan took office. Washington was borrowing almost one of every three dollars it spent. Unemployment hit 10 percent, an issue the Democrats seized on to attack Reagan's economic policies.
The federal government's red-ink spending was so out of control, and so damaging to the rest of our economy, that one year after Reagan signed into law the biggest tax cut in history he had to accept a host of tax increases. Reagan would not openly acknowledge that these were tax increases and when he was finally forced to refer to them, when he signed them into law, he referred to them as "revenue enhancements." They could also have been called tax hikes on Joe Lunch pail to benefit the rich. The 1982 tax law did not raise income tax rates. Rather, there were increases in excise taxes, including a nickel-a-gallon increase on gasoline. Two decades later in the Heritage Foundation, a major promoter of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, issued a report saying that excise taxes hit the poor hardest and ought to be scaled back.
In 1983 though, public attention was diverted from the immediate fiscal crisis by reports out of Washington that Social Security was in trouble, deep trouble. The idea that upon their retirement, Social Security might not be around anymore worried many people. Letters and calls flooded the offices of politicians and the issue was in the news day after day.
For the Reagan White House fears about Social Security's solvency diverted attention from the government's immediate solvency. It also turned attention away from Reagan's attitude toward the millions of people without jobs, summarized in his denigrating criticism of news reports on the subject: "Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash someplace has just been laid off, that he should be interviewed nationwide?"
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Elsepp. 120-121
The book goes on to talk about how during Reagan's years, with a Democratic Congress I might woefully add, that FICA taxes, more commonly known as Social Security Taxes were raised to pay for a problem that was partly caused by the huge unemployment rate during Reagan's years. The late Senator Moynihan referred to the S.S tax hike as "thievery" from the lower classes to pay for the huge tax cuts given to the rich, the political donor class.
Good book, one which know-it-alls (but really know-nothings) like CFTR should think of reading.
The question you need to ask yourself is, do you want people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the Rockefellers to pay it, or do you want to pay it?
Cut from book below, the beginning of the trend of "supply-side" that has put us in this huge hole we are in now, downsizing, union detracting, immigration, and globalization, all conservative policies they refuse to even talk about on the "liberal media" these days. People like to blame Bush, but this stuff was started way back in the early eighties, and sadly, has been adopted by far too many democrats, along with nearly all republicans.
_____________________
All of this tax-cutting frenzy took place when the government had not balanced its books since the sixties and was nearly $1 trillion in debt. In 1981 Washington borrowed $125 billion, better than one of every 10 dollars the government spent that year, by selling bonds and government IOUs in the securities markets.
The champions of supply-side economics surrounding Reagan promised that lower tax rates would mean more investment and that, in turn, should always result in more economic growth, which in turn means growing tax revenues. Congress passed the biggest tax cut in history, but things didn't work out as promised, at least not in the short run.
The 1982 federal budget deficit was more than double that of the year before. The next year it grew again, to $3543 billion, approaching triple the level when Reagan took office. Washington was borrowing almost one of every three dollars it spent. Unemployment hit 10 percent, an issue the Democrats seized on to attack Reagan's economic policies.
The federal government's red-ink spending was so out of control, and so damaging to the rest of our economy, that one year after Reagan signed into law the biggest tax cut in history he had to accept a host of tax increases. Reagan would not openly acknowledge that these were tax increases and when he was finally forced to refer to them, when he signed them into law, he referred to them as "revenue enhancements." They could also have been called tax hikes on Joe Lunch pail to benefit the rich. The 1982 tax law did not raise income tax rates. Rather, there were increases in excise taxes, including a nickel-a-gallon increase on gasoline. Two decades later in the Heritage Foundation, a major promoter of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981, issued a report saying that excise taxes hit the poor hardest and ought to be scaled back.
In 1983 though, public attention was diverted from the immediate fiscal crisis by reports out of Washington that Social Security was in trouble, deep trouble. The idea that upon their retirement, Social Security might not be around anymore worried many people. Letters and calls flooded the offices of politicians and the issue was in the news day after day.
For the Reagan White House fears about Social Security's solvency diverted attention from the government's immediate solvency. It also turned attention away from Reagan's attitude toward the millions of people without jobs, summarized in his denigrating criticism of news reports on the subject: "Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash someplace has just been laid off, that he should be interviewed nationwide?"
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Elsepp. 120-121
The book goes on to talk about how during Reagan's years, with a Democratic Congress I might woefully add, that FICA taxes, more commonly known as Social Security Taxes were raised to pay for a problem that was partly caused by the huge unemployment rate during Reagan's years. The late Senator Moynihan referred to the S.S tax hike as "thievery" from the lower classes to pay for the huge tax cuts given to the rich, the political donor class.
Good book, one which know-it-alls (but really know-nothings) like CFTR should think of reading.
