Understanding the Liberal Propaganda About the Trump Tax Cuts

[mikegriffith1]

Mike will not admit our deficit is larger despite plans with tax cuts.

No, Mike said that it's irrational to blame the tax cuts for a larger deficit if the tax cuts lead to an increase in revenue. How can you not grasp this simple, basic point?

Make the tax cuts much bigger for the middle class and not so high for business, and watch the economy jump like a rabbit, businesses grow, tax revenue really grow.

HUH?! WHAT?! As I document in the OP, and as anyone can confirm by looking at the tax tables themselves, the rate-reduction for the middle-class is about 90% higher, nearly double, than the rate reduction for the rich, and this is *not* counting the fact that the Trump tax cuts have capped the rich's deductions for state and local taxes! Did you also miss the news that the Trump tax cuts nearly double the standard deduction, which wont' help any rich people but will help millions of middle-income earners? You're aware of this fact, right?

And do you just not care that we have already seen hundreds of billions of dollars of American corporate dollars that were parked overseas come back to the U.S., thanks to the corporate income tax cuts that were included in the Trump tax cuts? I mean, gee, isn't that something that liberals have been screaming they wanted to see for like . . . forever? You remember? "Bring that money home!" Remember? Remember?

It is just surreal dealing with you people. It is like dealing with a robot that is not programmed to respond to counter-arguments.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Mike can write, all he wants, "No, Mike said that it's irrational to blame the tax cuts for a larger deficit if the tax cuts lead to an increase in revenue." It's irrational to cut taxes while the deficit continues to grow.

Cut taxes for consumers not corporations. That will make the consumer economy explode. Corporations don't need tax cuts, they need customers.

 

[basquebromance]

Tax cuts for Wall Street are meaningless (both short-term and long-term) if we have no wall to protect our border.

reheating Reaganomics is a dead end!

 

[edthecynic]

IOW, Mike is lying but I won't admit it.

This is unreal. You have used these same misleading arguments before about the Reagan tax cuts, and I have answered them before. I even included a link in the OP that answers the arguments. Yet, you have trotted them out once again. Here we go:

The way Mike lied is Reagan's tax cuts began in 1981, not 1983 which is when Mike dishonestly began his numbers. Revenue DECREASED in 1981 AND 1982 drastically, so much so that Reagan RAISED taxes for 1983, the largest peacetime tax increase in history, and only after that massive Reagan tax INCREASE did revenue increase.
Therefore Mike is a premeditated liar, but you knew that already!

No, this just proves that you are premeditated liar. You, once again, conveniently omitted the fact that a huge recession started in July 1981, barely six months after Reagan took office and before the first phase of his tax cuts had even been implemented, and that the recession ended in November 1982. To further respond to your nonsense, I'll just quote from my article on the Bush and Reagan tax cuts, which I linked in my OP, and which you obviously did not bother to read:

To this day, in spite of the clear economic record, liberals continue to lie about and distort Reagan’s record on tax cuts and tax increases. They endlessly point out that Reagan raised taxes in 1982 and 1984, but they ignore the fact that his tax hikes were far smaller than his tax cuts and that he agreed to those tax hikes because Congress promised to enact spending reductions. Congress broke its word and never did cut spending. Liberals also often ignore the fact that Reagan’s tax hikes involved business income and loopholes, not personal income tax rates, and that he cut personal income taxes again in 1986.

One of the “tax increases” that liberals include in their list of Reagan tax hikes is his increase in the payroll tax (i.e., the Social Security tax). Reagan agreed to this increase as part of a deal with Democrats to ensure that Social Security stayed solvent. It seems rather misleading and unfair to label as a “tax increase” an increase in the amount that citizens must contribute to a fund from which they will later draw. Although raising the payroll tax does mean less money in peoples’ pockets, it also means that they will be able to collect their full promised Social Security benefit when they reach retirement age.

Liberals usually ignore the fact that Reagan’s historic 1981 tax cuts were phased in over a three-year period. The 1982 and 1984 tax-hike bills that Reagan signed did not raise revenue by raising personal income tax rates; rather, they raised revenue by making it harder to evade taxes, by reducing various tax breaks for businesses, and by closing tax loopholes. Reagan’s 1986 tax reform measure cut the top marginal rate down to 28%, but it also reduced tax breaks and tax shelters for the rich.

Again, the bottom line is that under Reagan the overall tax burden on Americans dropped dramatically. Anyone can look at the tax brackets for 1980 and 1988 and see that income tax rates were much lower at the end of Reagan’s presidency than they were when he took office. The next time a liberal tries to tell you that Reagan’s tax hikes “cancelled out much of his tax cuts,” just show them those tax tables.

Reagan also cut the capital gains tax rate for individuals. In 1979, the capital gains tax rate for individuals was 35%. In 1981, Reagan reduced that rate to 20%, and it stayed at that level for five years. In 1986, he agreed to raise the rate to 28%, but that was still far lower than what it had been before he took office. In other words, when Reagan left office in January 1989, the capital gains tax rate for individuals was 20% lower, or 7 percentage points lower, than it had been the year before he was elected.

Incidentally, as a result of the Reagan tax cuts, tax payments and the share of income taxes paid by the top 1% climbed sharply. For example, in 1981 the top 1% paid 17.6% of all personal income taxes, but by 1988 their share had jumped to 27.5%, a 10 percentage point increase. The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 10% of taxpayers increased from 48.0% in 1981 to 57.2% in 1988. Meanwhile, the share of income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of taxpayers dropped from 7.5% in 1981 to 5.7% in 1988.​

To get a clear picture of just how massively Reagan cut tax rates, let's compare tax rates in 1986, after most of Reagan's tax cuts had been phased in, and 1988, Reagan's last year in office and after his tax cuts had been fully phased in, with tax rates in 1980 under Jimmy Carter:

1980 (under Jimmy Carter)
Tax Bracket Tax Rate
$0.00+ 0%
$3,400.00+ 14%
$5,500.00+ 16%
$7,600.00+ 18%
$11,900.00+ 21%
$16,000.00+ 24%
$20,200.00+ 28%
$24,600.00+ 32%
$29,900.00+ 37%
$35,200.00+ 43%
$45,800.00+ 49%
$60,000.00+ 54%
$85,600.00+ 59%
$109,400.00+ 64%
$162,400.00+ 68%
$215,400.00+ 70%

1986 (under Ronald Reagan)
Tax Bracket Tax Rate
$0.00+ 11%
$3,000.00+ 15%
$28,000.00+ 28%
$45,000.00+ 35%
$90,000.00+ 38.5%

1988 (under Ronald Reagan)
Tax Bracket Tax Rate
$0.00+ 15%
$30,950.00+ 28%

And yet, look what happened to federal revenue from 1987 to 1989:

1987 -- $476 billion
1988 -- $496 billion
1989 -- $549 billion

Finally, Jake Starkey made the laughable claim that the Trump tax cuts are "not much" and will end "in the future." How can any rational, honest person say such demonstrably false things? Ask anyone who makes between $80K and $400K how much their take-home pay has gone up thanks to the Trump tax cuts. I'm in the lower part of the third tax bracket, and my net pay has gone up by $220 per month. That is a whole more than "not much."

What's more, the personal income tax cuts don't expire for another eight years. I've never heard someone describe a time that is eight years away as being in "the near future." By the way, it was the Democrats who refused to make the personal income tax cuts in the Trump tax cuts permanent. Furthermore, we know from long experience that at least the middle-class tax cuts of the Trump tax cuts will almost certainly be renewed. Even Barack Obama did not have the nerve to end the middle-class tax cuts in the Bush tax cuts--he made them all permanent, while modestly raising the rate on the top bracket. Of course, if Republicans control Congress and the White House in eight years, we won't have to worry about any of the tax cuts being discontinued.

As I have shown so many times before, when the Right get caught lying, they simply lie some more. It was Reagan's policies, like his restrictive Fed lending, that caused HIS 1981 recession that his tax cuts made much worse, until Bush II the worst recession since the Great Republican Depression. He did not inherit a recession from Carter, as the lying Right claim, the Carter recession was the shortest in history and ended a full year before the Reagan Recession began.

And it was not Congress who welshed on the spending cuts as Mike FALSELY claims but Reagan HIMSELF who REJECTED the spending cuts GOP Senate President Dole and Dem Speaker of the House O'Neill AGREED TO, because there were CUTS to the boondoggle SPENDING on St Ronnie's pork barrel Star Wars.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Mike can write, all he wants, "No, Mike said that it's irrational to blame the tax cuts for a larger deficit if the tax cuts lead to an increase in revenue." It's irrational to cut taxes while the deficit continues to grow.

Is it irrational to increase spending while the deficit continues to grow? It's far too early to tell the tax cuts' impact on federal revenue--they only took effect four months ago.

Cut taxes for consumers not corporations. That will make the consumer economy explode.

HUH?!!!! Trump DID cut taxes for consumers! Sheesh, are you simply incapable of processing information that explodes your mythical paradigm? People in the second tax bracket had their taxes cut from 15% to 12%, a 20% reduction! People in the third tax bracket had their taxes cut from 25% to 22%, a 12% reduction! People in the fourth tax bracket had their taxes cut from 28% to 24%, a 14% reduction, on top of the fact that their standard deduction has been nearly doubled! Can you process these facts?

And, by the way, corporations are *huge consumers* as well: they buy billions of dollars of office supplies, office furniture, and equipment each year.

Corporations don't need tax cuts, they need customers.

I'll tell you what: Why don't you go to talk to some CEOs and float that ignorant Marxist nonsense. Big companies are the entities that provide tens of millions of the very kinds of good-paying jobs that enable people to be substantial consumers.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Yet, Mike (and EdwardBaiamonte), the deficit grows.

Your tax cuts do not help the middle class, the engine of the consumer economy, generate the tax revenue to cut the deficit.

Fact.

 

[mikegriffith1]

As I have shown so many times before, when the Right get caught lying, they simply lie some more.

You repeat talking points; you ignore facts that don't fit; and then you declare yourself the winner. You prove nothing. You consider repeating your talking points as "proving" something.

It was Reagan's policies, like his restrictive Fed lending, that caused HIS 1981 recession

LOL! Oh. My. Goodness! Let's see. . . . Where to start? Uh, who appointed that Fed chairman (Paul Volcker)? Hey? Who appointed Paul Volcker? Was he a Reagan appointee? Nope! You can Google it, if you don't believe me. And the last time I checked, Presidents don't set Fed monetary policy, at least not in this reality in this country.

When Reagan came to office, inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all in **double-digits.** Five months later, the 1981 recession started. And in your dream world, that recession was . . . Reagan's fault!

that his tax cuts made much worse, until Bush II the worst recession since the Great Republican Depression.

So we're right back to the silly liberal talking point that letting people keep more of their own money hurts the economy! Yes, of course.

He did not inherit a recession from Carter, as the lying Right claim, the Carter recession was the shortest in history and ended a full year before the Reagan Recession began.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MYYYYYYYYYYY! This gives the word "revisionism" new meaning! Here's what Reagan inherited from Carter: double-digit interest rates, double-digit inflation, and double-digit unemployment. Again, you can Google it, if you don't believe me. While you're at it, Google how long things had been like that under Carter. Sheesh, how can you not know these things?

And it was not Congress who welshed on the spending cuts as Mike FALSELY claims but Reagan HIMSELF who REJECTED the spending cuts GOP Senate President Dole and Dem Speaker of the House O'Neill AGREED TO, because there were CUTS to the boondoggle SPENDING on St Ronnie's pork barrel Star Wars.

That's a misleading way of saying that RINO Dole and ultra-liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill gave Reagan a choice: we'll give you spending cuts if you let us gut Star Wars, which Reagan was not willing to do. So it's laughable to say that Congress did not welsh on its promise to cut spending. They did not deal in good faith: They presented Reagan with a poison pill that they knew he would not accept, so they could say, "Oh, you see: We offered him spending cuts, but he rejected them!"

Let's keep track of the facts you have ignored for the last two replies:

* Federal revenue boomed in Reagan's last six years, even though the overall federal tax burden was cut dramatically.

* The rich ended up paying a larger share of income taxes, even though--actually, because--their rates were lowered along with everyone else's.

* The economy roared for Reagan's last six years in office, giving us one of the largest peace-time expansions in American history.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Mike performs right to Ed's tune.

 

[WheelieAddict]

I guess all that new debt doesn't exist because it will be paid for with (cough) oops excuseme (cough) so it gets paid sometime.

 

[edthecynic]

Uh, who appointed that Fed chairman (Paul Volcker)? Hey? Who appointed Paul Volcker? Was he a Reagan appointee?

Carter appointed him in 1979, but Reagan kept him and reappointed him in 1983, so Volker was actually appointed by Reagan.

 

[edthecynic]

When Reagan came to office, inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all in **double-digits.**

Liar, UE was 7.6% when Carter left. St Ronnie has the honor of jacking it up to almost 11% by Nov 1982.

 

[edthecynic]

Here's what Reagan inherited from Carter: double-digit unemployment.

Repearing your lie does not make it any less of a lie.

 

[JakeStarkey]

MikeG, Reagan did not receive double digit UE from Carter.

Reagan made it to 10.8% at almost the end of his second year in office.

 

[edthecynic]

That's a misleading way of saying that RINO Dole and ultra-liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill gave Reagan a choice: we'll give you spending cuts if you let us gut Star Wars, which Reagan was not willing to do. So it's laughable to say that Congress did not welsh on its promise to cut spending. They did not deal in good faith: They presented Reagan with a poison pill that they knew he would not accept, so they could say, "Oh, you see: We offered him spending cuts, but he rejected them!"

Thank you for admitting that Reagan rejected spending cuts, but your rationalization for Reagan rejecting spending cuts is pure bullshit.
As you well know, Reagan had already gotten a massive increase in defense spending along with his tax cuts, so the tiny cuts to the Star Wars PORK were hardly a valid excuse for welshing on the spending cut deal worked out by the GOP led Senate and the Dem led House.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Reagan rejected spending cuts.

The reason why? Read Ed for the real why, and Mike for propaganda.

 

[mikegriffith1]

I've responded to the replies about the Reagan tax cuts in my thread on those tax cuts ("Liberals Still Lying About the Reagan Tax Cuts").

Let's just recap a few facts that our two liberal mythmakers keep ignoring about the Trump tax cuts:

* The Trump tax cuts were heavily weighted to the middle class and gave the highest rate cuts to the middle class, as I document in the OP and as anyone can see for themselves in the tax tables.

* If one thinks that consumers are the key to a good economy, then one should know that corporations are huge, enormous consumers. Corporations buy billions of dollars' worth of office supplies, airline tickets, hotel stays, office equipment, industrial equipment, etc., etc.

In addition, corporations pay tens of billions of dollars in state and local taxes.

And, of course, corporations provide millions of good-paying jobs--the kinds of jobs that liberals always say we need more of. In providing those jobs, corporations not only pay their employees' salaries but also match their employees' 401K contributions up to a certain percentage, pay for part of the cost of their employees' health and dental insurance, and pay for paid vacation time for the employees, etc., etc.

* As I explain in the OP, the only way someone can say that "80/82/85/90%" of the tax cuts benefit the rich is to use misleading comparison of gross dollar amounts in savings. Imagine if the rich used the liberal argument in reverse and said, "Hey, the average federal income tax burden for the middle class is $9,000, so we should only have to pay $9,000!" Only someone who doesn't know basic math will be fooled by gross-dollar comparisons. The real comparison is the share/percentage of income that people get to keep.

* Even in the traditional news media, there have been numerous stories about big companies bringing back to the U.S. money they had been parking overseas, thanks to the corporate income tax cut and the special repatriation tax cut.

* One can easily Google the fact that millions of people who used to itemize deductions will now get more money back on their tax return by simply claiming the standard deduction, because the Trump tax cuts have nearly doubled the standard deduction. This won't help rich people, but it will help millions and millions of middle-income workers.

* The Trump tax cuts doubled the child deduction, which will help tens of millions of middle-income families.

 

[JakeStarkey]

IOW, you can't explain why the deficit goes up while the GOP makes major tax cuts.

Thank you.

 

[mikegriffith1]

IOW, you can't explain why the deficit goes up while the GOP makes major tax cuts. Thank you.

I've already answered this silly, misleading argument, but you just keep repeating it.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You have been backed into the corner, Mike, and you keep repeating the same nonsense.

You want to jump start an economy? Give the middle class a huge tax cut, and they will spend it in the economy.

Corporations don't need tax cuts: they need customers.

 

[mikegriffith1]

You have been backed into the corner, Mike, and you keep repeating the same nonsense.

What a hoot. What "corner"? I've documented that the Trump tax cuts heavily favor the middle class. I've pointed out the fact that corporations are enormous consumers. I've noted the fact that the Trump tax cuts will enable millions of middle-class families to avoid itemizing because they will get more with their standard deduction. Those are facts, not nonsense. You have done nothing but dance around these facts since I posted this thread.

You want to jump start an economy? Give the middle class a huge tax cut, and they will spend it in the economy. Corporations don't need tax cuts: they need customers.

LOL! Are you a computer program?! Trump **DID** give the middle class a huge tax cut! Can you read? Do you know how to read tax tables? Go look at the second, third, and fourth tax brackets from last year and for this year. Also, do you understand what it means to middle-class families to have their standard deduction nearly *doubled* and to have their child tax credit *doubled*? Do you just not understand these words?

And, again, if you want consumerism, you should educate yourself on the fact that corporations are huge, gigantic consumers, not to mention the fact that they pay the salaries of tens of millions of middle-class workers, who in turn constitute a large consumer force.