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Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

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Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#71

Post by odo1242 »

manlymuppet wrote: post #56
odo1242 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, one is a name of a policy used by supporters, and the other is another name of the same policy used by critics? Name an actual difference?

One is a policy. The other is not a policy. I can name you differences, but it's like comparing apples and oranges.

You can't call "trickle-down economics" a strawman without actually naming what is different between it and "supply-side economics". Otherwise I have to assume that people are just calling the same policy by two different names. Like how proponents of DRM call it "Digital Rights Management" and critics call it "Digital Restrictions Management" but both people are referring to the same technology.

tl;dr: If you could name me differences you would name me differences

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#72

Post by j16sdiz »

manlymuppet wrote: post #56
odo1242 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, one is a name of a policy used by supporters, and the other is another name of the same policy used by critics? Name an actual difference?

One is a policy. The other is not a policy. I can name you differences, but it's like comparing apples and oranges.

You are basically saying you can tell us, but you won't.

If you are not going to tell us anything, why are you teasing us as if you will?

Holding back discussion points is not a way to advance a discussion

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#73

Post by regularization »

manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro...

Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics and advocating for "...letting the free market - and yes, trickle down economics, which does work - actually flourish in the United States"

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#74

Post by magicalist »

twoodfin wrote: post #55
brightball wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always like to approach this conversation with a question: Should business that actually do create jobs in practice get bigger tax breaks? For example, if I by some miracle create a 1 man company that makes $100 million / year profit and somebody else creates a company that makes $100 million / year profit but has 2,000 employees...should the two companies be taxed differently? Walmart employees 1.6 million people…

It would incentivize the wrong things: All else being equal, you want to produce more with less labor and other inputs. It’s a good thing farming needs an order of magnitude fewer farmers than a century ago.

> All else being equal, you want to produce more with less labor and other inputs

Is that actually true? Maybe I'm being dense right now but that's not completely apparent to me.

More abundance per person does seem generally better (albeit there's eventually diminishing marginal utility), but that's not the same thing as society as a whole producing more with less labor.

Maybe "all else being equal" is the operative condition here, like assuming that the economy would be able to absorb newly freed labor into new economic activity?

You can also optimize some good things out of existence in this manner, and it's still not clear that robots are going to be able to swoop in and save that kind of newly uneconomical activity, at least within my lifetime.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#75

Post by econ »

dasil003 wrote: post #14
manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

When you are rich, it allows a lot more time and funding to come up with arguments supporting policies that will make you even more rich.

The sad part is that, with the same formula, they could generate good ideas that also make them more rich.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#76

Post by [deleted] »

manlymuppet wrote: post #56
odo1242 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, one is a name of a policy used by supporters, and the other is another name of the same policy used by critics? Name an actual difference?

One is a policy. The other is not a policy. I can name you differences, but it's like comparing apples and oranges.

[deleted]

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#77

Post by biophysboy »

twoodfin wrote: post #24
smallmancontrov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's not one lie, it's a pack of lies, trotted out every time congress needs to justify another capital gains tax cut or rationalize why the next tax hike needs to target work not wealth.

When is the last time either of those things (capital gains rate cuts, tax hikes on the lower 90% of income earners) happened? I think it’s been decades by now.

TCJA made changes to corporate capital gains, no?

As for tax hikes <90%, this hasn’t occurred in income; the opposite has occurred. You could make the case that it hasn’t been worth it for the poorest brackets though, given other coincident policy changes

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#78

Post by jibal »

manlymuppet wrote: post #37
diabeetusman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do %s/trickle-down/supply-side/g , then, if it's the term that's bothering you. Doesn't "debunking" trickle-down economics then, by extension, debunk supply-side economics? I'm not clear on the meaningful difference

I don't know regex, but to be clear: trickle-down economics and supply-side economics are very different things. I don't blame you for conflating them since they are intentionally very confusing. One is a policy and the other is basically the name of a common criticism for that policy. For example, the Cartesian circle does not refer to any of the many mathematical advancements Rene Descartes discovered. Instead, it'…

> I don't know regex

You know enough about it to misidentify that obvious string replacement command as an example of it.

Your comments are incoherent and disingenuous. Saying that trickle down economics is "an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics" is very much saying that they refer to the same thing ... and it's the thing they refer to that TFA argues only helps the rich. You say that "the policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible" but you offer no defense, and no rebuttal to TFA.

> For example, the Cartesian circle does not refer to any of the many mathematical advancements Rene Descartes discovered. Instead, it's the name of a common criticism for an argument he made.

This is the most inept attempt at an analogy that I can recall seeing.

I have a thing about people who act in bad faith, or argue so ineptly that it looks like it ... I won't be responding further.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#79

Post by smallmancontrov »

regularization wrote: post #73
manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro... Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics…

If only big players had KPIs like us little folks!

r>g is close to a complete debunk of the trickle-down narrative, today and through history, and it's a remarkably sturdy result.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#80

Post by loeg »

ghurtado wrote: post #12
manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

> as if it's something that needs to be debunked. When half the country has believed something for close to a half a century, across multiple generations, you bet your ass it needs to be debunked. The fallacy of the "precious job creators" is as American as "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" The fact that you and I were not dumb enough to fall for it doesn't really help anyone in the grand scheme of things. The…

No one believes in trickle-down economics. As GP said, it's a pejorative straw man invented by its opponents.
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