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So we added huge entitlements and lowered tax rates thinking what??? medicare and SS should be taxed at the rate necessary to be fiscally solvent without the aid of taxpayers. Reagan doubled the SS tax rate and that helped for a few decades.


The intergovernmental holdings for future pension payouts amount to about 4.5 Trillion dollars and will need to be budgeted to pay in the near future. In 1950 there were 18 workers paying for each retiree versus the 3 to 1 ratio we have now. This large population of retirees won't be paying income taxes (mostly) or Social Security taxes. There is no way one can tax our way out of this mess using the present or past taxation models. We can try confiscating as much money from the sooper-dooper rich and corporations, but with 70,000 pages of tax code the very rich and favored corporations like GE (paid no taxes and received 3.2 Billion from the guv'ment), it doesn't matter what rate we set as maximum. We might extract some bucks from the lesser-rich like Teyates, but it won't be enough to cover the coming expense of retiring boomers and the increasing costs of other entitlements.

The glory days of the 50's and early 60's can't be recreated by taxation. To recreate those days we would need modern equivalents for Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay to destroy the world's industrial capacity and a modern Heinrich Himmler to get rid of old folks and "useless eaters". We are pretty much left to sort out our own problems by cutting spending, encouraging those who wish to retire to wait, luring overseas capital investment including our own citizen's capital in foreign lands, and changing the tax model perhaps to a consumption tax excluding food and other necessities or a flat tax (after basic necessities costs).
Also, back when the tax rates were that high, blacks were not allowed to vote in most places, and I even saw places where they could not go in the front door to eat. Do you want to go back to those types of things as well? Times have changed, most of it for the good, one problem we have is adaptability and the lack of it in the workforce. I am not saying there is not corruption in the higher up positions, becuase I don't think anyone who leads a company to bankruptcy needs a bonus, but for too long we have sat idly by and said "let someone else do it", or "I am too good to do that job", and alas we have found someone who will do it for the price people are willing to pay, and in today's markets with shipping ease and communication, finding people to do the work is not a problem.
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The bottom 50 percent accounted for the remaining sliver of tax revenue. In fact, a Tax Policy Center study showed that 45 percent of households in the United States will pay no federal income tax for 2010."



Well.....Why the hell do I have to pay so much if all you other people are out their paying nothing? How many of you paid nothing this year? I'm gonna revolt.

Republicans are always talking about the parsely when the meat, potatoes and macncheese is taking up 95% of the plate! THAT is exactly why you are anti intellectual. Diversionary tactics dont work on the educated.


By the way Teyates, were you aware that NO SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE is paid by those making more than $106,800.00 per year? Considering so much of our Social Security and Medicare payments have been "borrowed" who would you say is getting screwed in that scenerio?

God bless the rich...let us all bow before them.
Last edited by TrueBlue
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Originally posted by Mr.Dittohead:
Tax rates were lowered, poverty ensued. The End.

The USA had almost no debt until Reagan lowered rates twice and declared that the huge deficits(tripled the national debt!!!) created would be paid back by increasing GDP. Yea, none of that worked.

History says the old way worked, and we are experiencing the fact that the current model is a failure. How much more evidence do you need?


Actually, history doesn't! Poor Ditzy is under the obsession, as are most lefties, that they can pluck the goose to the skin, milk the cow dry and shear the sheep to the hide. And, then do it again. When taxed at 90 percent of his million dollars, a man doesn't go out and earn the million dollars again, in the same way. Either, he figures another way to earn income and not pay such sky high rates, or earns enough so he keeps his $100,000 and gives much less away. Men don't work just to see the looters steal it.

As may be plainly seen, the level of revenue as a percentage of GDP from 1950 to 2007, remained about 18 to 20 percent, even with the sky high tax rates. Facts are such a biatch. No wonder lefties prefer to ignore them.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/f...tax-rates-raise-more revenue/

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Originally posted by Mr.Dittohead:
Tax rates were lowered, poverty ensued. The End.

The USA had almost no debt until Reagan lowered rates twice and declared that the huge deficits(tripled the national debt!!!) created would be paid back by increasing GDP. Yea, none of that worked.

History says the old way worked, and we are experiencing the fact that the current model is a failure. How much more evidence do you need?


Provide proof, please.
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Originally posted by Mr.Dittohead:
Look at history. Why is that so hard? We need the tax rates and tax policies of the early 1960's. That is a proven successful model...the scheme we have currently is proven to be a failure for the last 30 years.

Deficits DO matter.


Yes, they do! Unfortunately, spending has constantly exceeded revenue, except for a few years.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/f...tax-rates-raise-more revenue/

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Originally posted by Mr.Dittohead:
Why has the US lost so many blue collar manufacturing jobs since tax rates were lowered?

How have lower tax rates made US workers uncompetitive in the world market?

Why does the concentration of wealth by the top 5% cause the loss of jobs and opportunities for the bottom 50%?


The US lost blue collar jobs that required few skills. At present, the US is still the largest manufacturing nation, but not for much longer if the government continues to hobble it. A further loss of jobs was caused by more efficient methods of production. There is a skill shortage for manufacturing jobs in the US in some of the more technical areas.

We produce more stuff, with less people for the same reason that 90 percent of the population are no longer farmers.

Your argument about taxes and jobs doesn't correlate. You're mixing coconuts with bowling balls.
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Why did the high tax rates, along with a lack of loopholes meaning less tax avoidance, create such an environment for GDP growth?


Oh, there were plenty of loopholes for the wealthy to use. It was common to have a relatively smaller executive salary to avoid the higher tax rates while writing off executive perks as business expenses:

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But in fact, the tax rates of the 1950's didn't necessarily reduce CEO consumption; it just reduced their reported taxable income . The high income tax rates in the 1950's were paired with a corporate tax system that allowed companies much more generous deductions for things like business lunches, business-travel-with-spouse, and so forth. Right now you pay Rick Wagoner a squillion dollars, and he entertains important people on his own dime; in 1955, you paid him less, but he expensed all his entertaining to the company. Descriptions of 1960's expense account procedures for even entry-level management are enough to make this journalist rather faint with envy.

This difference also explains some of the difference between American executives and those in Europe; among my American friends in international finance, European expense accounts are the subject of something close to awe. This is not to say that the tax code is the only explanation; almost no phenomenon has a single cause, and I have no doubt that there has been an actual, as well as an apparent, increase in CEO compensation. But I greatly doubt that it is anywhere near as large as the taxable income figures seem to make out.

Leaving founder-owners like Larry Ellison and Bill Gates aside, it's hard for me to detect massive lifestyle differences between F. Ross Johnson (the CEO of RJR Nabisco described in Barbarians at the Gates) and the current CEO of Kraft Foods (which bought Nabisco). The difference is, the current CEO gets his in cash and stock.
http://www.economist.com/blogs...ich_really_different

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The only guess has been the influence of WWII. The post WWII argument means that it took 20+ years for the rest of the world to get over the effects of war.


It takes time to first rebuild the roads, railroads, communications, and other infrastructure after the major rubble removal. After that factories can be built after capital is found (Enter yankee capitalists). A work force must be trained, sources of raw materials must be found, product lines must be developed, customers must be found, etc.. It all takes years to go from complete ruin to a thriving economy. Also one should remember that aid like the Marshall plan was intended to be as much a gift to American industries as well as an aid to the destroyed economies of the world:

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The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States. The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods from abroad. At the start of the plan these imports were mainly much-needed staples such as food and fuel, but later the purchases turned towards reconstruction needs as was originally intended. In the latter years, under pressure from the United States Congress and with the outbreak of the Korean War, an increasing amount of the aid was spent on rebuilding the militaries of Western Europe. Of the some $13 billion allotted by mid-1951, $3.4 billion had been spent on imports of raw materials and semi-manufactured products; $3.2 billion on food, feed, and fertilizer; $1.9 billion on machines, vehicles, and equipment; and $1.6 billion on fuel.[69]
http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikime...g/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Now let me ask a question. It can be shown that confiscating the entire income of millionaires is not enough to close the budget shortfall. So what is your plan to balance the budget? Do you think that we should disembowel the rich like the goose that lays the golden eggs? Do we hold the rich hostage until an alchemist or the good-fairy rides in on an unicorn to transmute lead into gold?
quote:
Originally posted by TrueBlue:
quote:
The bottom 50 percent accounted for the remaining sliver of tax revenue. In fact, a Tax Policy Center study showed that 45 percent of households in the United States will pay no federal income tax for 2010."



Well.....Why the hell do I have to pay so much if all you other people are out their paying nothing? How many of you paid nothing this year? I'm gonna revolt.

Republicans are always talking about the parsely when the meat, potatoes and macncheese is taking up 95% of the plate! THAT is exactly why you are anti intellectual. Diversionary tactics dont work on the educated.


By the way Teyates, were you aware that NO SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE is paid by those making more than $106,800.00 per year? Considering so much of our Social Security and Medicare payments have been "borrowed" who would you say is getting screwed in that scenerio?

God bless the rich...let us all bow before them.


Not quite. Those earning more than $106,800.00 per year pay Medicare and Social Security taxes on that portion of their incomes below that figure. There has always been such a limitation, which has increased over time.
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Now let me ask a question. It can be shown that confiscating the entire income of millionaires is not enough to close the budget shortfall. So what is your plan to balance the budget? Do you think that we should disembowel the rich like the goose that lays the golden eggs? Do we hold the rich hostage until an alchemist or the good-fairy rides in on an unicorn to transmute lead into gold?


Any liberal going to answer this? Any one????

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